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Session 1 - Marx and Vygotsky: methodological questions and reflections

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Session 1 - Marx and Vygotsky: methodological questions and reflections

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Seminar Vygotsky and Marx com Peter Jones

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Maria Cecília Camargo Magalhães (PUC-SP)

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Maria Cecília Camargo Magalhães (PUC-SP)

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Peter Jones (Sheffield Hallam University)

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Peter Jones (Sheffield Hallam University)

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https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvde-srT8vGtZCyhHCjVm2tm93P0wKSz2N

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Economic Manuscripts: Engels' Review of Marx's Critique of Political Economy

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Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy
Review by Frederick Engels

Karl Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy"

First Published: Das Volk, Nos. 14 & 16, August 6 & 20, 1859;
Written: between August 3 and 15, 1859.

I

The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they are equal, and in most of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only one branch of science, political economy, had no German name among its foremost scholars. The reason is obvious. Political economy is the theoretical analysis of modern bourgeois society and therefore presupposes developed bourgeois conditions, conditions which for centuries, following the wars in the wake of the Reformation and the peasant wars and especially the Thirty Years' War, could not establish themselves in Germany. The separation of the Netherlands from the Empire removed Germany from the international trade routes and restricted her industrial development from the very beginning to the pettiest scale. While the Germans painfully and slowly recovered from the devastations of the civil wars, while they used up their store of civic energy, which had never been very large, in futile struggle against the customs barriers and absurd commercial regulations which every petty princeling and imperial baron inflicted upon the industry of his subjects, while the imperial cities with their craft-guild practices and patrician spirit went to ruin - Holland, England and France meanwhile conquered the leading positions in international trade, established one colony after another and brought manufactory production to the height of its development, until finally England, with the aid of steam power, which made her coal and iron deposits valuable, headed modern bourgeois development. But political economy could not arise in Germany so long as a struggle had still to be waged against so preposterously antiquated remnants of the Middle Ages as those which hampered the bourgeois development of her material forces until 1830. Only the establishment of the Customs Union enabled the Germans to comprehend political economy at all. It was indeed at this time that English and French economic works began to be imported for the benefit of the German middle class. Men of learning and bureaucrats soon got hold of the imported material and treated it in a way which does little credit to the "German intellect." The literary efforts of a hotchpotch of chevaliers d'industrie, traders, schoolmasters and bureaucrats produced a bunch of German economic publications which as regards triteness, banality, frivolity, verbosity and plagiarism are equalled only by the German novel. Among people pursuing practical objectives there arose first the protectionist school of the industrialists, whose chief spokesman, List, is still the best that German bourgeois political economy has produced although his celebrated work is entirely copied from the Frenchman Ferrier, the theoretical creator of the Continental System. In opposition to this trend the free-trade school was formed in the forties by merchants from the Baltic provinces, who fumblingly repeated the arguments of the English Free Traders with childlike, but not disinterested, faith. Finally, among the schoolmasters and bureaucrats who had to handle the theoretical aspects there were uncritical and desiccated collectors of herbaria, like Herr Rau, pseudo-clever speculators who translated foreign propositions into undigested Hegelian language like Herr Stein, or gleaners with literary pretensions in the field of so-called history of civilisation, like Herr Riehl. The upshot of all this was cameralistics, an eclectic economic sauce covering a hotchpotch of sundry trivialities, of the sort a junior civil servant might find useful to remember during his final examination.

While in this way in Germany the bourgeoisie, the schoolmasters and the bureaucrats were still making great exertions to learn by rote, and in some measure to understand, the first elements of Anglo-French political economy, which they regarded as incontestable dogmas, the German proletarian party appeared on the scene. Its theoretical aspect was wholly based on a study of political economy, and German political economy as an independent science dates also from the emergence of this party. The essential foundation of this German political economy is the materialist conception of history whose principal features are briefly outlined in the "Preface" to the above-named work. Since the "Preface" has in the main already been published in Das Volk, we refer to it. The proposition that "the process of social, political and intellectual life is altogether necessitated by the mode of production of material life"; that all social and political relations, all religious and legal systems, all theoretical conceptions which arise in the course of history can only be understood if the material conditions of life obtaining during the relevant epoch have been understood and the former are traced back to these material conditions, was a revolutionary discovery not only for economics but also for all historical sciences - and all branches of science which are not natural sciences are historical. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness." This proposition is so simple that it should be self-evident to anyone not bogged down in idealist humbug. But it leads to highly revolutionary consequences not only in the theoretical sphere but also in the practical sphere. "At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.... The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production - antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence - but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism." The prospect of a gigantic revolution, the most gigantic revolution that has ever taken place, accordingly presents itself to us as soon as we pursue our materialist thesis further and apply it to the present time.

Closer consideration shows immediately that already the first consequences of the apparently simple proposition, that the consciousness of men is determined by their existence and not the other way round, spurn all forms of idealism, even the most concealed ones, rejecting all conventional and customary views of historical matters. The entire traditional manner of political reasoning is upset; patriotic magnanimity indignantly objects to such an unprincipled interpretation. It was thus inevitable that the new point of view should shock not only the exponents of the bourgeoisie but also the mass of French socialists who intended to revolutionise the world by virtue of the magic words, liberté, égalité, fraternite. But it utterly enraged the vociferous German vulgar democrats. They nevertheless have a partiality for attempting to plagiarise the new ideas in their own interest, although with an exceptional lack of understanding.

The demonstration of the materialist conception even upon a single historical example was a scientific task requiring years of quiet research, for it is evident that mere empty talk can achieve nothing in this context and that only an abundance of critically examined historical material which has been completely mastered can make it possible to solve such a problem. Our party was propelled on to the political stage by the February Revolution and thus prevented from pursuing purely scientific aims. The fundamental conception, nevertheless, runs like an unbroken thread through all literary productions of the party. Every one of them shows that the actions in each particular case were invariably initiated by material causes and not by the accompanying phrases, that on the contrary the political and legal phrases, like the political actions and their results, originated in material causes.

After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848-49, at a time when it became increasingly impossible to exert any influence on Germany from abroad, our party relinquished the field of emigrant squabbles - for that was the only feasible action left - to the vulgar democrats. While these were chasing about to their heart's content, scuffling today, fraternising tomorrow and the day after once more washing their dirty linen in public, while they went begging throughout America and immediately afterwards started another row over the division of the few coins they had collected - our party was glad to find once more some quiet time for research work. It had the great advantage that its theoretical foundation was a new scientific conception the elaboration of which provided adequate work; even for this reason alone it could never become so demoralised as the "great men" of the emigration.

The book under consideration is the first result of these studies.

II

[ Das Volk, No. 16, August 20,1859]

The purpose of a work like the one under review cannot simply be desultory criticism of separate sections of political economy or the discussion of one or another economic issue in isolation. On the contrary, it is from the beginning designed to give a systematic résumé of the whole complex of political economy and a coherent elaboration of the laws governing bourgeois production and bourgeois exchange. This elaboration is at the same time a comprehensive critique of economic literature, for economists are nothing but interpreters of and apologists for these laws.

Hardly any attempt has been made since Hegel's death to set forth any branch of science in its specific inner coherence. The official Hegelian school had assimilated only the most simple devices of the master's dialectics and applied them to everything and anything, often moreover with ridiculous incompetence. Hegel's whole heritage was, so far as they were concerned, confined exclusively to a template, by means of which any subject could be knocked into shape, and a set of words and phrases whose only remaining purpose was to turn up conveniently whenever they experienced a lack of ideas and of concrete knowledge. Thus it happened, as a professor at Bonn has said, that these Hegelians knew nothing but could write about everything. The results were, of course, accordingly. For all their conceit these gentlemen were, however, sufficiently conscious of their failings to avoid major problems as far as possible. The superannuated fossilised type of learning held its ground because of its superior factual knowledge, and after Feuerbach's renunciation of the speculative method, Hegelianism gradually died away, and it seemed that science was once more dominated by antiquated metaphysics with its rigid categories.

For this there were quite natural reasons. The rule of the Hegelian Diadochi, which ended in empty phrases, was naturally followed by a period in which the concrete content of science predominated once more over the formal aspect. Moreover, Germany at the same time applied itself with quite extraordinary energy to the natural sciences, in accordance with the immense bourgeois development setting in after 1848; with the coming into fashion of these sciences, in which the speculative trend had never achieved any real importance, the old metaphysical mode of thinking, even down to the extreme triviality of Wolff, gained ground rapidly. Hegel was forgotten and a new materialism arose in the natural sciences; it differed in principle very little from the materialism of the eighteenth century and its main advantage was merely a greater stock of data relating to the natural sciences, especially chemistry and physiology. The narrow-minded mode of thinking of the pre-Kantian period in its most banal form is reproduced by Büchner and Vogt, and even Moleschott, who swears by Feuerbach, frequently flounders in a highly diverting manner through the most simple categories. The jaded cart-horse of the commonplace bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the ditch separating substance from appearance, and cause from effect; but one should not ride carthorses if one intends to go coursing over the very rough ground of abstract reasoning.

In this context, therefore, a question had to be solved which was not connected with political economy as such. Which scientific method should be used? There was, on the one hand, the Hegelian dialectics in the quite abstract "speculative" form in which Hegel had left it, and on the other hand the ordinary, mainly Wolffian, metaphysical method, which had come again into vogue, and which was also employed by the bourgeois economists to write their bulky rambling volumes. The second method had been theoretically demolished by Kant and particularly by Hegel so that its continued use in practice could only be rendered possible by inertia and the absence of an alternative simple method. The Hegelian method, on the other hand, was in its existing form quite inapplicable. It was essentially idealist and the main point in this case was the elaboration of a world outlook that was more materialist than any previous one. Hegel's method took as its point of departure pure thought, whereas here the starting point was to be inexorable facts. A method which, according to its own avowal, "came from nothing through nothing to nothing" was in this shape by no means suitable. It was, nevertheless, the only element in the entire available logical material which could at least serve as a point of origin. It had not been subjected to criticism, not been overthrown; none of the opponents of the great dialectician had been able to make a breach in the proud edifice. It had been forgotten because the Hegelian school did not know how to apply it. Hence, it was first of all essential to carry through a thorough critique of the Hegelian method.

It was the exceptional historical sense underlying Hegel's manner of reasoning which distinguished it from that of all other philosophers. However abstract and idealist the form employed, yet his evolution of ideas runs always parallel with the evolution of universal history, and the latter was indeed supposed to be only the proof of the former. Although this reversed the actual relation and stood it on its head, yet the real content was invariably incorporated in his philosophy, especially since Hegel - unlike his followers - did not rely on ignorance, but was one of the most erudite thinkers of all time. He was the first to try to demonstrate that there is an evolution, an intrinsic coherence in history, and however strange some things in his philosophy of history may seem to us now, the grandeur of the basic conception is still admirable today, compared both with his predecessors and with those who following him ventured to advance general historical observations. This monumental conception of history pervades the Phänomenologies, Asthetik and Geschichte der Philosophie, and the material is everywhere set forth historically, in a definite historical context, even if in an abstract distorted manner.

This epoch-making conception of history was a direct theoretical pre-condition of the new materialist outlook, and already this constituted a connecting link with the logical method as well. Since, even from the standpoint of "pure reasoning," this forgotten dialectics had led to such results, and had moreover with the greatest ease coped with the whole of the former logic and metaphysics, it must at all events comprise more than sophistry and hairsplitting. But the critique of this method, which the entire official philosophy had evaded and still evades, was no small matter.

Marx was and is the only one who could undertake the work of extracting from the Hegelian logic the nucleus containing Hegel's real discoveries in this field, and of establishing the dialectical method, divested of its idealist wrappings, in the simple form in which it becomes the only correct mode of conceptual evolution. The working out of the method which underlies Marx's critique of political economy is, we think, a result hardly less significant than the basic materialist conception.

Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics could still be arranged in two ways - historically or logically. Since in the course of history, as in its literary reflection, the evolution proceeds by and large from the simplest to the more complex relations, the historical development of political economy constituted a natural clue, which the critique could take as a point of departure, and then the economic categories would appear on the whole in the same order as in the logical exposition. This form seems to have the advantage of greater lucidity, for it traces the actual development, but in fact it would thus become, at most, more popular. History moves often in leaps and bounds and in a zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed throughout, it would mean not only that a considerable amount of material of slight importance would have to be included, but also that the train of thought would frequently have to be interrupted; it would, moreover, be impossible to write the history of economy without that of bourgeois society, and the task would thus become immense, because of the absence of all preliminary studies. The logical method of approach was therefore the only suitable one. This, however, is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the historical form and diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history begins must also be the starting point of the train of thought, and its further progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract and theoretically consistent form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is corrected, it is corrected in accordance with laws provided by the actual historical course, since each factor can be examined at the stage of development where it reaches its full maturity, its classical form.

With this method we begin with the first and simplest relation which is historically, actually available, thus in this context with the first economic relation to be found. We analyse this relation. The fact that it is a relation already implies that it has two aspects which are related to each other. Each of these aspects is examined separately; this reveals the nature of their mutual behaviour, their reciprocal action. Contradictions will emerge demanding a solution. But since we are not examining an abstract mental process that takes place solely in our mind, but an actual event which really took place at some time or other, or which is still taking place, these contradictions will have arisen in practice and have probably been solved. We shall trace the mode of this solution and find that it has been effected by establishing a new relation, whose two contradictory aspects we shall then have to set forth, and so on.

Political economy begins with commodities, with the moment when products are exchanged, either by individuals or by primitive communities. The product being exchanged is a commodity. But it is a commodity merely by virtue of the thing, the product being linked with a relation between two persons or communities, the relation between producer and consumer, who at this stage are no longer united in the same person. Here is at once an example of a peculiar fact, which pervades the whole economy and has produced serious confusion in the minds of bourgeois economists - economics is not concerned with things but with relations between persons, and in the final analysis between classes; these relations however are always bound to things and appear as things. Although a few economists had an inkling of this connection in isolated instances, Marx was the first to reveal its significance for the entire economy thus making the most difficult problems so simple and clear that even bourgeois economists will now be able to grasp them.

If we examine the various aspects of the commodity, that is of the fully evolved commodity and not as it at first slowly emerges in the spontaneous barter of two primitive communities, it presents itself to us from two angles, that of use-value and of exchange-value, and thus we come immediately to the province of economic debate. Anyone wishing to find a striking instance of the fact that the German dialectic method at its present stage of development is at least as superior to the old superficially glib metaphysical method as railways are to the mediaeval means of transport, should look up Adam Smith or any other authoritative economist of repute to see how much distress exchange-value and use-value caused these gentlemen, the difficulty they had in distinguishing the two properly and in expressing the determinate form peculiar to each, and then compare the clear, simple exposition given by Marx.

After use-value and exchange-value have been expounded, the commodity as a direct unity of the two is described as it enters the exchange process. The contradictions arising here may be found on pp. 20 and 21. We merely note that these contradictions are not only of interest for theoretical, abstract reasons, but that they also reflect the difficulties originating from the nature of direct interchange, i.e., simple barter, and the impossibilities inevitably confronting this first crude form of exchange. The solution of these impossibilities is achieved by investing a specific commodity - money - with the attribute of representing the exchange-value of all other commodities. Money or simple circulation is then analysed in the second chapter, namely (1) money as a measure of value, and, at the same time, value measured in terms of money, i.e., price, is more closely defined; (2) money as means of circulation and (3) the unity of the two aspects, real money which represents bourgeois material wealth as a whole. This concludes the first part, the conversion of money into capital is left for the second part.

One can see that with this method, the logical exposition need by no means be confined to the purely abstract sphere. On the contrary, it requires historical illustration and continuous contact with reality. A great variety of such evidence is therefore inserted, comprising references both to different stages in the actual historical course of social development and to economic works, in which the working out of lucid definitions of economic relations is traced from the outset. The critique of particular, more or less one-sided or confused interpretations is thus substantially given already in the logical exposition and can be kept quite short.

The economic content of the book will be discussed in a third article.

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Economic Manuscripts: Engels' Review of Marx's Critique of Political Economy

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Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy Review by Frederick Engels Karl Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy" First Published: Das Volk, Nos. 14 & 16, August 6 & 20, 1859; Written: between August 3 and 15, 1859.

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Engels: Karl Marx, "Para a Crítica da Economia Política"

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MIA > Biblioteca > Marx/Engels> Novidades

Friedrich Engels

15 de Agosto de 1859

Transcrição autorizada

Primeira Edição: Escrito por Engels de 3 a 15 de Agosto de 1859. Publicado no jornal Das Volk, n.º 14 e 16 , de 6 e 20 de Agosto de 1859, respectivamente.
Fonte: Obras Escolhidas em três tomos, Editorial"Avante!"
Tradução: José BARATA-MOURA (Publicado segundo o texto do jornal. Traduzido do alemão).
Transcrição e HTML: Fernando A. S. Araújo, agosto 2007.
Direitos de Reprodução: © Direitos de tradução em língua portuguesa reservados por Editorial "Avante!" - Edições Progresso Lisboa - Moscovo, 1982.

I

Em todos os domínios científicos, desde há muito que os alemães demonstraram que estão ao nível das restantes nações civilizadas e, na maior parte deles, que são superiores. Apenas uma ciência não contava com qualquer nome alemão entre os seus corifeus: a Economia Política. A razão é evidente. A Economia Política é a análise teórica da sociedade burguesa moderna e pressupõe, portanto, condições burguesas desenvolvidas, condições que, na Alemanha, desde as guerras da Reforma e dos Camponeses[N275] e, sobretudo, desde a Guerra dos Trinta Anos[N276], não se puderam estabelecer durante séculos. A separação da Holanda do Império[N277] afastou a Alemanha do comércio mundial e reduziu de antemão o seu desenvolvimento industrial às proporções mais mesquinhas; e enquanto os alemães recuperavam tão penosa e lentamente das devastações das guerras civis, enquanto empregavam toda a sua energia cívica - que nunca foi muito grande - na luta estéril contra as barreiras alfandegárias e os regulamentos comerciais loucos que cada príncipe em formato reduzido e cada pequeno barão do Império impunham à indústria dos seus súbditos, enquanto as cidades do Império entravam na decadência dos grémios e do patriciado -, enquanto tudo isto se passava, a Holanda, a Inglaterra e a França conquistavam os primeiros lugares no comércio mundial, estabeleciam colónia atrás de colónia e desenvolviam a indústria manufactureira ao mais alto grau, até que, finalmente, a Inglaterra, por meio do vapor, que só então deu valor às suas jazidas de carvão e de ferro, acedeu ao cume do desenvolvimento burguês moderno. Enquanto, porém, foi preciso conduzir uma luta contra uns restos tão ridiculamente antiquados da Idade Média como aqueles que entravaram até 1830 o desenvolvimento burguês material da Alemanha, nenhuma Economia Política alemã foi possível. Somente com o estabelecimento do Zollverein[N165] ficaram os alemães em situação de poderem quando muito apenas entender a Economia Política. A partir desse tempo, começou de facto a importação da Economia inglesa e francesa para proveito da burguesia alemã. Em breve os círculos científicos e a burocracia se apoderaram da matéria importada e trabalharam-na de uma maneira não muito digna do crédito do "espírito alemão". Da misturada de cavaleiros de indústria literatos, de comerciantes, pedantes e burocratas, gerou-se, então, uma literatura económica alemã que, quanto a sensaboria, falta de profundidade e de ideias, prolixidade e plágio, só tem par no romance alemão. Entre as pessoas com objectivos práticos, desenvolveu-se primeiro a escola proteccionista dos industriais, cuja autoridade, List, foi ainda o melhor que a literatura económica burguesa alemã produziu, apesar de toda a sua obra gloriosa ter sido copiada do francês Ferrier, criador teórico do sistema continental[N15]. Face a esta orientação, formou-se nos anos quarenta a escola do livre-cambismo dos comerciantes nas províncias do Báltico, que papaguearam os argumentos dos free-traders[N148] ingleses com uma fé pueril, mas interessada. Por fim, entre os pedantes e burocratas que tiveram de ocupar-se do lado teórico da disciplina, havia áridos coleccionadores de herbários sem crítica, como o senhor Rau, especuladores que a armar ao esperto traduziam as proposições estrangeiras num Hegelíano mal digerido, como o senhor Stein, ou respigadores beletriantes no domínio "histórico-cultural", como o senhor Riehl. O que acabou por sair daqui foi a Cameralística[N278], um puré de toda a espécie de coisas estranhas, regado com um molho económico ecléctico, do tipo do que um licenciado em direito precisa de saber para o exame de Estado.

Enquanto, deste modo, a burguesia, o pedantismo académico e a burocracia, na Alemanha, ainda tinham dificuldade em aprender de cor e em clarificar em alguma medida os primeiros elementos da economia anglo-francesa como dogmas intangíveis, fazia a sua aparição o partido proletário alemão. Toda a sua existência teórica resultava do estudo da Economia Política e do instante do seu aparecimento data também a Economia alemã científica, autónoma. Esta Economia alemã repousa essencialmente sobre a concepção materialista da história, cujos traços fundamentais são expostos brevemente no prefácio da obra atrás citada(1*). Quanto ao principal, este prefácio foi já reproduzido em Das Volk[N279], pelo que para ele remetemos. Não apenas para a Economia, mas para todas as ciências históricas (e são históricas todas as ciências que não são ciências da natureza), foi uma descoberta revolucionária esta proposição: "O modo de produção da vida material é que condiciona o processo da vida social, política e espiritual"; todas as relações sociais e do Estado, todos os sistemas religiosos e jurídicos, todas as visões teóricas, que emergem na história, só podem, então, ser compreendidas se as condições de vida materiais da época correspondente forem compreendidas e se as primeiras forem derivadas destas condições materiais. "Não é a consciência dos homens que determina o seu ser, mas, inversamente, o seu ser social que determina a sua consciência." A proposição é tão simples que teria de ser evidente para quem não esteja preso nas malhas do logro idealista. A coisa tem, porém, as mais altas consequências revolucionárias, não apenas para a teoria, mas também para a prática: "Numa certa etapa do seu desenvolvimento, as forças produtivas materiais da sociedade entram em contradição com as relações de produção existentes ou, o que é apenas uma expressão jurídica delas,com as relações de propriedade no seio das quais se tinham até aí movido. De formas de desenvolvimento das forças produtivas, estas relações transformam-se em grilhões das mesmas. Ocorre então uma época de revolução social. Com a transformação do fundamento económico revoluciona-se, mais devagar ou mais depressa, toda a imensa superstrutura. [...] As relações de produção burguesas são a última forma antagónica do processo social da produção, antagónica não no sentido de um antagonismo individual, mas de um antagonismo que decorre das condições sociais de vida dos indivíduos; mas as forças produtivas que se desenvolvem no seio da sociedade burguesa criam, ao mesmo tempo, as condições materiais para a resolução deste antagonismo."(2*) A perspectiva de uma poderosa revolução, da revolução mais poderosa de todos os tempos, abre-se, portanto, perante nós, desde logo, com a prossecução da nossa tese materialista e com a sua aplicação ao presente.

Considerando, porém, as coisas mais de perto, verifica-se logo também que a proposição de aparência tão simples como a de que a consciência dos homens depende do seu ser e não inversamente contunde directamente, logo nas suas primeiras consequências, todo o idealismo, mesmo o mais dissimulado. Todas as visões tradicionais e habituais acerca de tudo o que é histórico são por ela negadas. Todo o modo tradicional do raciocínio político cai por terra; toda a patriótica nobreza de alma se levanta indignada contra uma concepção tão desprovida de carácter. A nova maneira de ver choca, portanto, necessariamente, não apenas os representantes da burguesia, mas também a massa dos socialistas franceses que querem levantar o mundo dos gonzos com a fórmula mágica liberte, égalité, fraternité(3*). Causou, porém, o mais consumado furor entre os vociferadores democratas vulgares alemães. Apesar disso, procuraram de preferência explorar as novas ideias, plagiando-as, embora com rara incompreensão.

O desenvolvimento da concepção materialista, mesmo sobre um único exemplo histórico, era um trabalho científico que teria exigido um estudo tranquilo durante anos, pois é evidente que, nesta matéria, nada se pode fazer com simples frases, que só um material histórico em massa, criticamente considerado e completamente dominado, pode habilitar para a solução de uma tal tarefa. A revolução de Fevereiro lançou o nosso partido na cena política e tornou-lhe, assim, impossível a prossecução de fins puramente científicos. Apesar disso, esta visão fundamental atravessa como fio condutor todas as produções literárias do partido. Em todas elas, em cada caso sempre se prova como a acção todas as vezes brotou de impulsos materiais directos, e não das frases que os acompanhavam e como, pelo contrário, as frases políticas e jurídicas saíram dos impulsos materiais tal como a acção política e os seus resultados.

Quando, depois da derrota da revolução de 1848/1849, houve um momento em que a acção sobre a Alemanha a partir do estrangeiro se tornava cada vez mais impossível, o nosso partido abandonou o terreno das disputas de emigração - pois essa era a única acção possível - à democracia vulgar. Enquanto esta se agitava à saciedade, andando hoje à pancada para amanhã confraternizar e depois de amanhã, novamente, lavar toda a roupa suja diante de toda a gente, enquanto ela ia por toda a América pedir esmola para, logo de seguida, armar um novo escândalo acerca da repartição dos tostões apanhados - o nosso partido ficou contente por, de novo, encontrar alguma calma para estudar. Tinha a grande vantagem de ter uma nova visão científica como base teórica, cuja elaboração lhe dava suficientemente que fazer; logo por isso nunca podia descer tão baixo como os "grandes homens" da emigração.

O primeiro fruto destes estudos é o livro que temos diante de nós.

II

Num escrito como este não se pode tratar de uma mera critica desultória de capítulos isolados da Economia, do tratamento separado desta ou daquela questão económica polémica. Ele visa antes, desde logo, uma visão de conjunto sistemática de todo o complexo da ciência económica, um desenvolvimento coerente das leis da produção burguesa e da troca burguesa. Como os economistas não são mais do que os intérpretes e os apologistas destas leis, este desenvolvimento é, ao mesmo tempo, a crítica de toda a literatura económica.

Desde a morte de Hegel quase nenhuma tentativa foi feita para desenvolver uma ciência no seu próprio encadeamento interno. Da dialéctica do mestre, a escola hegeliana oficial tinha-se apropriado apenas da manipulação dos artifícios mais simples, que aplicava a toda e qualquer coisa e, frequentemente ainda, com uma ridícula falta de jeito. Todo o legado de Hegel se limitava, para ela, a um puro chavão, com a ajuda do qual cada tema era construído de uma forma apropriada, e a um índice de palavras e de maneiras de dizer que não tinham qualquer outro fim do que estarem presentes no momento certo em que as ideias e os conhecimentos positivos faltassem. Aconteceu, assim, que, tal como um professor de Bona disse, estes hegelianos não percebiam nada de nada, mas podiam escrever sobre tudo. E certamente assim era. No entanto, estes senhores, apesar da sua suficiência, tinham, contudo, uma tal consciência da sua debilidade que se mantinham o mais possível afastados das grandes tarefas; a velha e antiquada ciência conservava o seu terreno, em virtude da sua superioridade em saber positivo; e só quando Feuerbach despediu o conceito especulativo é que a hegelianice se foi gradualmente apagando e pareceu que o império da velha metafísica com as suas categorias fixas tinha começado de novo na ciência.

A coisa tinha o seu fundamento natural. Ao regime dos Diádocos[N280] de Hegel, que se tinha perdido em pura fraseologia, seguia-se naturalmente uma época em que o conteúdo positivo da ciência prevalecia de novo sobre o seu lado formal. A Alemanha, porém, lançava-se também ao mesmo tempo com uma energia deveras extraordinária para as ciências da natureza, correspondendo ao poderoso desenvolvimento burguês desde 1848; e com o tornar-se moda destas ciências, em que a tendência especulativa nunca tinha alcançado qualquer valor significativo, a velha maneira metafísica de pensar, inclusive a banalidade wollfiana mais extrema, propagou-se de novo. Hegel tinha desaparecido, desenvolvera-se o novo materialismo das ciências da natureza que, teoricamente, em quase nada se distingue do do século XVIII e que, na maioria dos casos, só tem a vantagem de um material científico-natural mais rico, designadamente químico e fisiológico. Reproduzido até à mais extrema banalidade encontramos o tacanho modo de pensar filisteu do período pré-kantiano de Büchner e de Vogt, e mesmo de Moleschott, que jura por Feuerbach e a cada instante se perde, do modo mais divertido, entre as categorias mais simples. A pileca ancilosada do entendimento quotidiano burguês estaca naturalmente embaraçada perante o fosso que separa a essência do fenómeno, a causa do efeito; mas, quando se vai à caça a cavalo com galgos, no terreno muito acidentado do pensamento abstracto, precisamente, de modo algum, se pode montar uma pileca.

Havia, portanto, aqui uma outra questão para resolver, que não tinha nada a ver com a Economia Política em si. Como tratar da ciência? De um lado, encontrava-se a dialéctica de Hegel, na forma "especulativa", completamente abstracta, em que Hegel a tinha deixado; do outro lado, o método ordinário, essencialmente metafísico-wollfiano, agora novamente na moda, segundo o qual os economistas burgueses tinham escrito os seus grossos livros falhos de coerência. Este último tinha sido de tal modo teoricamente aniquilado por Kant e, sobretudo, por Hegel, que só a inércia e a falta de um outro método simples puderam tornar possível a sua persistência prática. Por outro lado, na sua forma presente, o método de Hegel era absolutamente inutilizável. Ele era essencialmente idealista, e aqui tratava-se de desenvolver uma visão do mundo que era mais materialista do que todas as anteriores. Ele partia do pensamento puro, e aqui devia partir-se dos factos mais obstinados. Um método que, segundo o seu próprio testemunho, "de nada através de nada chegava a nada"[N281], não estava, nesta [sua] forma, de modo algum, no lugar [certo]. Apesar disso, de entre todo o material lógico actual, era o único fragmento a que ao menos se podia ligar. Não tinha sido criticado, não tinha sido superado; nenhum dos adversários do grande dialéctico tinha podido abrir uma brecha no seu glorioso edifício; tinha desaparecido, porque a escola de Hegel não tinha sabido agarrá-lo. Antes do mais, tratava-se, portanto, de submeter o método de Hegel a uma crítica eficaz.

O que distinguia o modo de pensar de Hegel do de todos os outros filósofos era o enorme sentido histórico que lhe estava subjacente. Por abstracta e idealista que fosse a forma, o desenvolvimento do seu pensamento não deixava de ir sempre em paralelo com o desenvolvimento da história universal, e esta última, propriamente, não deverá ser senão a prova do primeiro. Ainda que, por este facto, a relação correcta tenha sido também invertida e posta de pernas para o ar, o seu conteúdo real penetrou, contudo, por todo o lado, na filosofia; tanto mais que Hegel se diferenciava dos seus discípulos em que não se gabava, como eles, da sua ignorância, mas era uma das cabeças mais sábias de todos os tempos. Foi ele o primeiro a procurar mostrar um desenvolvimento, um encadeamento interno, na história e, por estranha que agora muita coisa na sua filosofia da história nos possa parecer, a grandiosidade da própria visão fundamental é ainda hoje digna de admiração, quando se lhe comparam os seus predecessores ou mesmo aqueles que depois dele se permitiram reflexões universais sobre a história. Na Fenomenologia, na Estética, na História da Filosofia, por toda a parte perpassa esta grandiosa concepção da história e, por toda a parte, a matéria é tratada historicamente, numa conexão determinada, ainda que também abstractamente distorcida, com a história.

Esta concepção da história que fez época foi o pressuposto teórico directo da nova visão materialista e, já por este facto, fornecia também um ponto de partida para o método lógico. Se esta dialéctica desaparecida, a partir da posição do "pensamento puro", tinha conduzido já a semelhantes resultados, se, além disso, tinha acabado, como que a brincar, com toda a lógica e a metafísica anteriores, tinha em todo o caso de haver nela mais do que sofística e bizantinice. Mas a crítica deste método, perante a qual toda a filosofia oficial tinha recuado e recua ainda, não era coisa de pouca monta.

Marx era, e é, o único que podia entregar-se ao trabalho de tirar da casca da lógica hegeliana o núcleo que encerra as descobertas reais de Hegel neste domínio e de restabelecer o método dialéctico, despido das suas roupagens idealistas, na forma simples em que ele se torna a única forma correcta de desenvolvimento do pensamento. Consideramos a elaboração do método que está na base da crítica de Marx à Economia Política como um resultado que, pelo seu significado, em quase nada é inferior à visão materialista fundamental.

Mesmo depois de adquirido o método, a crítica da Economia podia ainda ser abordada de duas maneiras: historicamente ou logicamente. Como na história, tal como no seu reflexo literário, o desenvolvimento, a traços largos, progride das relações mais simples para as mais complicadas, o desenvolvimento histórico-literário da Economia Política fornecia um fio condutor natural a que a crítica se podia ligar e, a traços largos, as categorias económicas apareceriam na mesma ordem do que o desenvolvimento lógico. Esta forma tem aparentemente a vantagem de uma maior clareza, pois, assim, segue-se o desenvolvimento real; de facto, porém, no máximo tornar-se-ia apenas mais popular. A história procede frequentemente por saltos e em ziguezague e, se houvesse que segui-la ao mesmo tempo por toda a parte, teria não apenas de recolher muito material de pouca importância, como também o curso do pensamento teria frequentemente que ser interrompido; além disso, não se poderia escrever a história da economia sem a da sociedade burguesa e, deste modo, o trabalho tornar-se-ia infindável, úma vez que faltam os trabalhos preparatórios. Portanto, o modo lógico de tratamento era o único que estava no seu lugar. Este [modo], porém, não é de facto senão o histórico, despido apenas da forma histórica e das casualidades perturbadoras. Por onde esta história começa, por aí tem de começar igualmente o curso do pensamento, e o seu avanço ulterior não será mais do que o reflexo, numa forma abstracta e teoricamente consequente, do decurso histórico; um reflexo corrigido, mas corrigido segundo leis que o próprio decurso histórico real fornece, na medida em que cada momento pode ser considerado no ponto de desenvolvimento da sua plena maturidade, da sua forma clássica.

Com este método, partimos da primeira e mais simples relação que historicamente, facticamente, se nos apresenta - neste caso, portanto, da primeira relação económica com que deparamos. Analisamos esta relação. Pelo facto de que é uma relação, acontece ja que tem dois lados que se relacionam um com o outro. Cada um destes lados é considerado por si; decorre daí o modo do seu relacionamento mútuo, a sua acção recíproca. Dar-se-ão contradições que reclamam uma solução. Como, porém, não consideramos aqui um processo de pensamento abstracto, que se passa apenas na nossa cabeça, mas um processo real, que se passou realmente ou ainda se passa num tempo qualquer, estas contradições desenvolveram-se na prática e verosimilmente encontraram [aí] a sua solução. Seguiremos o modo dessa solução e verificaremos que foi causada pela produção de uma nova relação, cujos dois lados contrapostos teremos doravante que desenvolver, etc.

A Economia Política começa com a mercadoria, com o momento em que produtos são trocados por outros, quer por indivíduos quer por comunidades naturais. O produto que entra na troca é mercadoria. Ele só é, porém, mercadoria porque à coisa, ao produto, se liga uma relação entre duas pessoas ou comunidades, a relação entre o produtor e o consumidor, que aqui não mais se encontram unidos na mesma pessoa. Temos aqui, desde logo, um exemplo de um facto peculiar que perpassa toda a Economia e estabeleceu uma lamentável confusão na cabeça dos economistas burgueses: a Ecomonia não trata de coisas, mas de relações entre pessoas e, em última instância, entre classes; estas relações estão, porém, sempre ligadas a coisas e aparecem como coisas. Esta conexão que, em casos isolados, este ou aquele economista, sem dúvida vislumbrou, descobriu-a Marx pela primeira vez no seu valor para toda a Economia e, por esse facto, tornou as questões mais difíceis de tal modo simples e claras que agora mesmo os economistas burgueses as poderão compreender.

Se considerarmos agora a mercadoria segundo os seus vários aspectos e, designadamente, a mercadoria tal como se desenvolveu completamente, e não tal como ela só penosamente se desenvolve no comércio de troca natural de duas comunidades primitivas, ela apresenta-se-nos sob os dois pontos de vista de valor de uso e de valor de troca; e entramos aqui, de pronto, no domínio do debate económico. Quem quiser ter um exemplo flagrante de como o método dialéctico alemão, no seu estádio actual de formação, é superior ao antigo [método] metafísico, chão e politiqueiro, pelo menos tanto como os caminhos-de-ferro o são relativamente aos meios de transporte da Idade Média, leia, em Adam Smith ou em qualquer outro economista oficial de nomeada, que suplícios o valor de troca e o valor de uso causaram a estes senhores, como se torna para eles difícil distingui-los ordenadamente e apreender cada um deles na sua própria determinatez [Bestimmtheit], e faça a comparação com o desenvolvimento simples e claro de Marx.

Ora, uma vez desenvolvidos o valor de uso e o valor de troca, a mercadoria é apresentada como unidade imediata de ambos, tal como entra no processo de troca. Que contradições é que aqui se dão pode ler-se nas páginas 20-21(4*). Observamos apenas que estas contradições não têm só um interesse teórico, abstracto, mas que reflectem, ao mesmo tempo, as dificuldades provenientes da natureza da relação de troca imediata, do comércio de troca simples, as impossibilidades a que necessariamente chega esta primeira forma grosseira de troca. A solução destas impossibilidades encontra-se no facto de a propriedade de representar o valor de troca de todas as outras mercadorias ser transposta para uma mercadoria especial - o dinheiro. O dinheiro, ou a circulação simples, é, então, desenvolvido no segundo capítulo e, designadamente: 1. o dinheiro como medida dos valores, pelo que, então, o valor medido em dinheiro, o preço, recebe a sua determinação mais aproximada; 2. como meio de circulação, e 3. como unidade de ambas as determinações como dinheiro real, como representante de toda a riqueza material burguesa. Com isto termina o desenvolvimento do primeiro fascículo, reservando-se o segundo para a passagem do dinheiro a capital.

Vê-se como com este método o desenvolvimento lógico não precisa de se manter no domínio puramente abstracto. Pelo contrário, ele requer a ilustração histórica, o contacto contínuo com a realidade. Estes elementos de referência são inseridos, portanto, também com grande diversidade e, designadamente, tanto as alusões ao decurso histórico real em diferentes estádios do desenvolvimento social como à literatura económica, em que, desde o princípio, se procura a elaboração clara das determinações das relações económicas. A crítica dos modos singulares mais ou menos unilaterais ou confusos de conceber [a matéria], no essencial, está já dada, então, no próprio desenvolvimento lógico e pode ser brevemente exposta.

Num terceiro artigo, entraremos no conteúdo económico do próprio livro[N274].
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Notas de rodapé:

(1*) Ver o presente tomo, pp. 529-533. (Nota da edição portuguesa.) ( retornar ao texto)

(2*) Ver o presente tomo, pp. 530-531. (Nota da edição portuguesa.) ( retornar ao texto)

(3*) Em francês no texto: liberdade, igualdade, fraternidade. (Nota da edição portuguesa.) ( retornar ao texto)

(4*) Ver Karl Marx, Para a Crítica da Economia Política. (Nota da edição portuguesa.) ( retornar ao texto)
Notas de Fim de Tomo:
[N5] Diádocos: generais de Alexandre Magno que, após a sua morte, iniciaram uma aguda luta entre si pela conquista do poder. No decurso desta luta (fim do século IV e início do século III antes da nossa era) a monarquia de Alexandre, que constituía em si mesma uma união militar-administrativa sem solidez, dividiu-se numa série de Estados separados. ( retornar ao texto)

[N15] Sistema continental ou bloqueio continental: proibição, imposta em 1806 por Napoleão I aos países do continente europeu, de comerciarem com a Inglaterra. O bloqueio continental caiu após a derrota de Napoleão na Rússia. ( retornar ao texto)

[N148] Free-traders (livre-cambistas): partidários da liberdade de comércio e da não intervenção do Estado na vida económica. Nos anos 40-50 do século XIX os livre-cambistas constituíram um agrupamento político à parte, que posteriormente entrou para o Partido Liberal. ( retornar ao texto)

[N165] Zollverein ( União Aduaneira), fundada em 1834 sob os auspícios da Prússia. Agrupava quase todos os Estados alemães; estabelecendo uma fronteira alfandegária comum, facilitou a futura unificação política da Alemanha. ( retornar ao texto)

[N274] Este artigo de Engels é uma recensão do livro de K. Marx Para a Crítica da Economia Política. Engels caracteriza-o como eminente conquista científica do partido proletário e importante etapa da elaboração da concepção científica proletária do mundo. A recensão ficou por acabar. Publicaram-se apenas as duas primeiras partes. A terceira parte, na qual Engels se propunha fazer uma análise do conteúdo económico do livro, não apareceu impressa devido à suspensão do jornal; o manuscrito não foi encontrado. ( retornar ao texto)

[N275] Reforma: vasto movimento contra a Igreja Católica que conquistou muitos países europeus no século XVI. Na maioria dos países o movimento da Reforma foi acompanhado por grandes batalhas de classe; a guerra camponesa de 1524-1525 na Alemanha decorreu sob a bandeira ideológica da Reforma. ( retornar ao texto)

[N276] Guerra dos Trinta Anos (1618-1648): guerra europeia geral suscitada pela luta entre os protestantes e os católicos. A Alemanha tornou-se o campo principal desta luta e foi objecto da pilhagem militar e das pretensões de conquista dos participantes na guerra. ( retornar ao texto)

[N277] Entre 1477 e 1555 a Holanda fez parte do Sacro Império Romano-Germânico; depois da dissolução deste caiu sob o domínio da Espanha. Em resultado da revolução burguesa do século XVI a Holanda libertou-se do domínio espanhol e tornou-se uma república burguesa independente. ( retornar ao texto)

[N278] Cameralística: sistema de disciplinas administrativas, financeiras, económicas e outras ensinadas nas universidades medievais, e mais tarde também nas universidades burguesas, de vários países da Europa. ( retornar ao texto) ( retornar ao texto)

[N279] Das Volk ( O Povo): jornal publicado em língua alemã em Londres de 7 de Maio a 20 de Agosto de 1859 com a participação directa de Marx; no início de Julho tornou-se de facto seu redactor. ( retornar ao texto)

[N280] Aqui, alusão irónica aos hegelianos de direita que, nos anos 30-40 do século XIX, ocupavam muitas cátedras em universidades alemãs e que utilizavam a sua posição para atacar os representantes de tendências mais radicais em filosofia. Sobre os diádocos ver a nota 5. ( retornar ao texto)

[N281] Ver Wissenschaft der Logik, Teill, Abt. 2 ( Ciência da Lógica, de Hegel, primeira parte, secção 2). ( retornar ao texto)
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Engels: Karl Marx, "Para a Crítica da Economia Política"

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MIA > Biblioteca > Marx/Engels> Novidades Transcrição autorizada Primeira Edição: Escrito por Engels de 3 a 15 de Agosto de 1859. Publicado no jornal Das Volk, n.º 14 e 16 , de 6 e 20 de Agosto de 1859, respectivamente. Fonte: Obras Escolhidas em três tomos, Editorial"Avante!"

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Grundrisse: Introduction

Late August - Mid-September 1857

1. Production, Consumption, Distribution, Exchange (Circulation)

(1) PRODUCTION

Independent Individuals. Eighteenth-century Ideas

The object before us, to begin with, material production.

Individuals producing in society - hence socially determined individual production - is, of course, the point of departure. The individual and isolated hunter and fisherman, with whom Smith and Ricardo begin, belongs among the unimaginative conceits of the eighteenth-century Robinsonades, [1] which in no way express merely a reaction against over-sophistication and a return to a misunderstood natural life, as cultural historians imagine. As little as Rousseau's contrat social, which brings naturally independent, autonomous subjects into relation and connection by contract, rests on such naturalism. This is the semblance, the merely aesthetic semblance, of the Robinsonades, great and small. It is, rather, the anticipation of 'civil society', in preparation since the sixteenth century and making giant strides towards maturity in the eighteenth. In this society of free competition, the individual appears detached from the natural bonds etc. which in earlier historical periods make him the accessory of a definite and limited human conglomerate. Smith and Ricardo still stand with both feet on the shoulders of the eighteenth-century prophets, in whose imaginations this eighteenth-century individual - the product on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century - appears as an ideal, whose existence they project into the past. Not as a historic result but as history's point of departure. As the Natural Individual appropriate to their notion of human nature, not arising historically, but posited by nature. This illusion has been common to each new epoch to this day. Steuart [2] avoided this simple-mindedness because as an aristocrat and in antithesis to the eighteenth century, he had in some respects a more historical footing.

The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole: in a still quite natural way in the family and in the family expanded into the clan [ Stamm]; then later in the various forms of communal society arising out of the antitheses and fusions of the clan. Only in the eighteenth century, in 'civil society', do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes, as external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations. The human being is in the most literal sense a ζῶον πολιτιχόν, [3] not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. Production by an isolated individual outside society - a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness - is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other. There is no point in dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned if this twaddle, which had sense and reason for the eighteenth-century characters, had not been earnestly pulled back into the centre of the most modern economics by Bastiat, [4] Carey, [5] Proudhon etc. Of course it is a convenience for Proudhon et al. to be able to give a historico-philosophic account of the source of an economic relation, of whose historic origins he is ignorant, by inventing the myth that Adam or Prometheus stumbled on the idea ready-made, and then it was adopted, etc. Nothing is more dry and boring than the fantasies of a locus communis. [6]

Eternalization of historic relations of production. - Production and distribution in general. - Property

Whenever we speak of production, then, what is meant is always production at a definite stage of social development - production by social individuals. It might seem, therefore, that in order to talk about production at all we must either pursue the process of historic development through its different phases, or declare beforehand that we are dealing with a specific historic epoch such as e.g. modern bourgeois production, which is indeed our particular theme. However, all epochs of production have certain common traits, common characteristics. Production in general is an abstraction, but a rational abstraction in so far as it really brings out and fixes the common element and thus saves us repetition. Still, this general category, this common element sifted out by comparison, is itself segmented many times over and splits into different determinations. Some determinations belong to all epochs, others only to a few. [Some] determinations will be shared by the most modern epoch and the most ancient. No production will be thinkable without them; however even though the most developed languages have laws and characteristics in common with the least developed, nevertheless, just those things which determine their development, i.e. the elements which are not general and common, must be separated out from the determinations valid for production as such, so that in their unity - which arises already from the identity of the subject, humanity, and of the object, nature - their essential difference is not forgotten. The whole profundity of those modern economists who demonstrate the eternity and harmoniousness of the existing social relations lies in this forgetting. For example. No production possible without an instrument of production, even if this instrument is only the hand. No production without stored-up, past labour, even if it is only the facility gathered together and concentrated in the hand of the savage by repeated practice. Capital is, among other things, also an instrument of production, also objectified, past labour. Therefore capital is a general, eternal relation of nature; that is, if I leave out just the specific quality which alone makes 'instrument of production' and 'stored-up labour' into capital. The entire history of production relations thus appears to Carey, for example, as a malicious forgery perpetrated by governments.

If there is no production in general, then there is also no general production. Production is always a particular branch of production - e.g. agriculture, cattle-raising, manufactures etc. - or it is a totality. But political economy is not technology. The relation of the general characteristics of production at a given stage of social development to the particular forms of production to be developed elsewhere (later). Lastly, production also is not only a particular production. Rather, it is always a certain social body, a social subject, which is active in a greater or sparser totality of branches of production. Nor does the relationship between scientific presentation and the real movement belong here yet. Production in general. Particular branches of production. Totality of production.

It is the fashion to preface a work of economics with a general part - and precisely this part figures under the title 'production' (see for example J. St. Mill) [7] - treating of the general preconditions of all production. This general part consists or is alleged to consist of (1) the conditions without which production is not possible. I.e. in fact, to indicate nothing more than the essential moments of all production. But, as we will see, this reduces itself in fact to a few very simple characteristics, which are hammered out into flat tautologies; (2) the conditions which promote production to a greater or lesser degree, such as e.g. Adam Smith's progressive and stagnant state of society. While this is of value in his work as an insight, to elevate it to scientific significance would require investigations into the periodization of degrees of productivity in the development of individual peoples - an investigation which lies outside the proper boundaries of the theme, but, in so far as it does belong there, must be brought in as part of the development of competition, accumulation etc. In the usual formulation, the answer amounts to the general statement that an industrial people reaches the peak of its production at the moment when it arrives at its historical peak generally. In fact. The industrial peak of a people when its main concern is not yet gain, but rather to gain. Thus the Yankees over the English. Or, also, that e.g. certain races, locations, climates, natural conditions such as harbours, soil fertility etc. are more advantageous to production than others. This too amounts to the tautology that wealth is more easily created where its elements are subjectively and objectively present to a greater degree.

But none of all this is the economists' real concern in this general part. The aim is, rather, to present production - see e.g. Mill - as distinct from distribution etc., as encased in eternal natural laws independent of history, at which opportunity bourgeois relations are then quietly smuggled in as the inviolable natural laws on which society in the abstract is founded. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole proceeding. In distribution, by contrast, humanity has allegedly permitted itself to be considerably more arbitrary. Quite apart from this crude tearing-apart of production and distribution and of their real relationship, it must be apparent from the outset that, no matter how differently distribution may have been arranged in different stages of social development, it must be possible here also, just as with production, to single out common characteristics, and just as possible to confound or to extinguish all historic differences under general human laws. For example, the slave, the serf and the wage labourer all receive a quantity of food which makes it possible for them to exist as slaves, as serfs, as wage labourers. The conqueror who lives from tribute, or the official who lives from taxes, or the landed proprietor and his rent, or the monk and his alms, or the Levite and his tithe, all receive a quota of social production, which is determined by other laws than that of the slave's, etc. The two main points which all economists cite under this rubric are: (1) property; (2) its protection by courts, police, etc. To this a very short answer may be given:

to 1. All production is appropriation of nature on the part of an individual within and through a specific form of society. In this sense it is a tautology to say that property (appropriation) is a precondition of production. But it is altogether ridiculous to leap from that to a specific form of property, e.g. private property. (Which further and equally presupposes an antithetical form, non-property.) History rather shows common property (e.g. in India, among the Slavs, the early Celts, etc.) to be the more [8] original form, a form which long continues to play a significant role in the shape of communal property. The question whether wealth develops better in this or another form of property is still quite beside the point here. But that there can be no production and hence no society where some form of property does not exist is a tautology. An appropriation which does not make something into property is a contradictio in subjecto.

to 2. Protection of acquisitions etc. When these trivialities are reduced to their real content, they tell more than their preachers know. Namely that every form of production creates its own legal relations, form of government, etc. In bringing things which are organically related into an accidental relation, into a merely reflective connection, they display their crudity and lack of conceptual understanding. All the bourgeois economists are aware of is that production can be carried on better under the modern police than e.g. on the principle of might makes right. They forget only that this principle is also a legal relation, and that the right of the stronger prevails in their 'constitutional republics' as well, only in another form.

When the social conditions corresponding to a specific stage of production are only just arising, or when they are already dying out, there are, naturally, disturbances in production, although to different degrees and with different effects.

To summarize: There are characteristics which all stages of production have in common, and which are established as general ones by the mind; but the so-called general preconditions of all production are nothing more than these abstract moments with which no real historical stage of production can be grasped.

(2) THE GENERAL RELATION OF PRODUCTION TO DISTRIBUTION, EXCHANGE, CONSUMPTION

Before going further in the analysis of production, it is necessary to focus on the various categories which the economists line up next to it.

The obvious, trite notion: in production the members of society appropriate (create, shape) the products of nature in accord with human needs; distribution determines the proportion in which the individual shares in the product; exchange delivers the particular products into which the individual desires to convert the portion which distribution has assigned to him; and finally, in consumption, the products become objects of gratification, of individual appropriation. Production creates the objects which correspond to the given needs; distribution divides them up according to social laws; exchange further parcels out the already divided shares in accord with individual needs; and finally, in consumption, the product steps outside this social movement and becomes a direct object and servant of individual need, and satisfies it in being consumed. Thus production appears as the point of departure, consumption as the conclusion, distribution and exchange as the middle, which is however itself twofold, since distribution is determined by society and exchange by individuals. The person objectifies himself in production, the thing subjectifies itself in the person; [9] in distribution, society mediates between production and consumption in the form of general, dominant determinants; in exchange the two are mediated by the chance characteristics of the individual.

Distribution determines the relation in which products fall to individuals (the amount); exchange determines the production [10] in which the individual demands the portion allotted to him by distribution.

Thus production, distribution, exchange and consumption form a regular syllogism; production is the generality, distribution and exchange the particularity, and consumption the singularity in which the whole is joined together. This is admittedly a coherence, but a shallow one. Production is determined by general natural laws, distribution by social accident, and the latter may therefore promote production to a greater or lesser extent; exchange stands between the two as formal social movement; and the concluding act, consumption, which is conceived not only as a terminal point but also as an end-in-itself, actually belongs outside economics except in so far as it reacts in turn upon the point of departure and initiates the whole process anew.

The opponents of the political economists - whether inside or outside its realm - who accuse them of barbarically tearing apart things which belong together, stand either on the same ground as they, or beneath them. Nothing is more common than the reproach that the political economists view production too much as an end in itself, that distribution is just as important. This accusation is based precisely on the economic notion that the spheres of distribution and of production are independent, autonomous neighbours. Or that these moments were not grasped in their unity. As if this rupture had made its way not from reality into the textbooks, but rather from the textbooks into reality, and as if the task were the dialectic balancing of concepts, and not the grasping of real relations!

[Consumption and Production]

(a ₁) Production is also immediately consumption. Twofold consumption, subjective and objective: the individual not only develops his abilities in production, but also expends them, uses them up in the act of production, just as natural procreation is a consumption of life forces. Secondly: consumption of the means of production, which become worn out through use, and are partly (e.g. in combustion) dissolved into their elements again. Likewise, consumption of the raw material, which loses its natural form and composition by being used up. The act of production is therefore in all its moments also an act of consumption. But the economists admit this. Production as directly identical with consumption, and consumption as directly coincident with production, is termed by them productive consumption. This identity of production and consumption amounts to Spinoza's thesis: determinatio est negatio. [11]

But this definition of productive consumption is advanced only for the purpose of separating consumption as identical with production from consumption proper, which is conceived rather as the destructive antithesis to production. Let us therefore examine consumption proper.

Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant. It is clear that in taking in food, for example, which is a form of consumption, the human being produces his own body. But this is also true of every kind of consumption which in one way or another produces human beings in some particular aspect. Consumptive production. But, says economics, this production which is identical with consumption is secondary, it is derived from the destruction of the prior product. In the former, the producer objectified himself, in the latter, the object he created personifies itself. Hence this consumptive production - even though it is an immediate unity of production and consumption - is essentially different from production proper. The immediate unity in which production coincides with consumption and consumption with production leaves their immediate duality intact.

Production, then, is also immediately consumption, consumption is also immediately production. Each is immediately its opposite. But at the same time a mediating movement takes place between the two. Production mediates consumption; it creates the latter's material; without it, consumption would lack an object. But consumption also mediates production, in that it alone creates for the products the subject for whom they are products. The product only obtains its last finish in consumption. A railway on which no trains run, hence which is not used up, not consumed, is a railway only δυνάμει, [13] and not in reality. Without production, no consumption; but also, without consumption, no production; since production would then be purposeless. Consumption produces production in a double way, (1) because a product becomes a real product only by being consumed. For example, a garment becomes a real garment only in the act of being worn; a house where no one lives is in fact not a real house; thus the product, unlike a mere natural object, proves itself to be, becomes, a product only through consumption. Only by decomposing the product does consumption give the product the finishing touch; for the product is production not as [14] objectified activity, but rather only as object for the active subject; (2) because consumption creates the need for new production, that is it creates the ideal, internally impelling cause for production, which is its presupposition. Consumption creates the motive for production; it also creates the object which is active in production as its determinant aim. If it is clear that production offers consumption its external object, it is therefore equally clear that consumption ideally posits the object of production as an internal image, as a need, as drive and as purpose. It creates the objects of production in a still subjective form. No production without a need. But consumption reproduces the need.

Production, for its part, correspondingly (1) furnishes the material and the object for consumption. [15] Consumption without an object is not consumption; therefore, in this respect, production creates, produces consumption. (2) But the object is not the only thing which production creates for consumption. Production also gives consumption its specificity, its character, its finish. Just as consumption gave the product its finish as product, so does production give finish to consumption. Firstly, the object is not an object in general, but a specific object which must be consumed in a specific manner, to be mediated in its turn by production itself. Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nail and tooth. Production thus produces not only the object but also the manner of consumption, not only objectively but also subjectively. Production thus creates the consumer. (3) Production not only supplies a material for the need, but it also supplies a need for the material. As soon as consumption emerges from its initial state of natural crudity and immediacy - and, if it remained at that stage, this would be because production itself had been arrested there - it becomes itself mediated as a drive by the object. The need which consumption feels for the object is created by the perception of it. The object of art - like every other product - creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty. Production thus not only creates an object for the subject, but also a subject for the object. Thus production produces consumption (1) by creating the material for it; (2) by determining the manner of consumption; and (3) by creating the products, initially posited by it as objects, in the form of a need felt by the consumer. It thus produces the object of consumption, the manner of consumption and the motive of consumption. Consumption likewise produces the producer's inclination by beckoning to him as an aim-determining need.

The identities between consumption and production thus appear threefold:

(1) Immediate identity: Production is consumption, consumption is production. Consumptive production. Productive consumption. The political economists call both productive consumption. But then make a further distinction. The first figures as reproduction, the second as productive consumption. All investigations into the first concern productive or unproductive labour; investigations into the second concern productive or non-productive consumption.

(2) [In the sense] that one appears as a means for the other, is mediated by the other: this is expressed as their mutual dependence; a movement which relates them to one another, makes them appear indispensable to one another, but still leaves them external to each other. Production creates the material, as external object, for consumption; consumption creates the need, as internal object, as aim, for production. Without production no consumption; without consumption no production. [This identity] figures in economics in many different forms.

(3) Not only is production immediately consumption and consumption immediately production, not only is production a means for consumption and consumption the aim of production, i.e. each supplies the other with its object (production supplying the external object of consumption, consumption the conceived object of production); but also, each of them, apart from being immediately the other, and apart from mediating the other, in addition to this creates the other in completing itself, and creates itself as the other. Consumption accomplishes the act of production only in completing the product as product by dissolving it, by consuming its independently material form, by raising the inclination developed in the first act of production, through the need for repetition, to its finished form; it is thus not only the concluding act in which the product becomes product, but also that in which the producer becomes producer. On the other side, production produces consumption by creating the specific manner of consumption; and, further, by creating the stimulus of consumption, the ability to consume, as a need. This last identity, as determined under (3), [is] frequently cited in economics in the relation of demand and supply, of objects and needs, of socially created and natural needs.

Thereupon, nothing simpler for a Hegelian than to posit production and consumption as identical. And this has been done not only by socialist belletrists but by prosaic economists themselves, e.g. Say; [16] in the form that when one looks at an entire people, its production is its consumption. Or, indeed, at humanity in the abstract. Storch [17] demonstrated Say's error, namely that e.g. a people does not consume its entire product, but also creates means of production, etc., fixed capital, etc. To regard society as one single subject is, in addition, to look at it wrongly; speculatively. With a single subject, production and consumption appear as moments of a single act. The important thing to emphasize here is only that, whether production and consumption are viewed as the activity of one or of many individuals, they appear in any case as moments of one process, in which production is the real point of departure and hence also the predominant moment. Consumption as urgency, as need, is itself an intrinsic moment of productive activity. But the latter is the point of departure for realization and hence also its predominant moment; it is the act through which the whole process again runs its course. The individual produces an object and, by consuming it, returns to himself, but returns as a productive and self-reproducing individual. Consumption thus appears as a moment of production.

In society, however, the producer's relation to the product, once the latter is finished, is an external one, and its return to the subject depends on his relations to other individuals. He does not come into possession of it directly. Nor is its immediate appropriation his purpose when he produces in society. Distribution steps between the producers and the products, hence between production and consumption, to determine in accordance with social laws what the producer's share will be in the world of products.

Now, does distribution stand at the side of and outside production as an autonomous sphere?

Distribution and production

(b ₁) When one examines the usual works of economics, it is immediately striking that everything in them is posited doubly. For example, ground rent, wages, interest and profit figure under distribution, while land, labour and capital figure under production as agents of production. In the case of capital, now, it is evident from the outset that it is posited doubly, (1) as agent of production, (2) as source of income, as a determinant of specific forms of distribution. Interest and profit thus also figure as such in production, in so far as they are forms in which capital increases, grows, hence moments of its own production. Interest and profit as forms of distribution presuppose capital as agent of production. They are modes of distribution whose presupposition is capital as agent of production. They are, likewise, modes of reproduction of capital.

The category of wages, similarly, is the same as that which is examined under a different heading as wage labour: the characteristic which labour here possesses as an agent of production appears as a characteristic of distribution. If labour were not specified as wage labour, then the manner in which it shares in the products would not appear as wages; as, for example, under slavery. Finally, to take at once the most developed form of distribution, ground rent, by means of which landed property shares in the product, presupposes large-scale landed property (actually, large-scale agriculture) as agent of production, and not merely land as such, just as wages do not merely presuppose labour as such. The relations and modes of distribution thus appear merely as the obverse of the agents of production. An individual who participates in production in the form of wage labour shares in the products, in the results of production, in the form of wages. The structure [ Gliederung] of distribution is completely determined by the structure of production. Distribution is itself a product of production, not only in its object, in that only the results of production can be distributed, but also in its form, in that the specific kind of participation in production determines the specific forms of distribution, i.e. the pattern of participation in distribution. It is altogether an illusion to posit land in production, ground rent in distribution, etc.

Thus, economists such as Ricardo, who are the most frequently accused of focusing on production alone, have defined distribution as the exclusive object of economics, because they instinctively conceived the forms of distribution as the most specific expression into which the agents of production of a given society are cast.

To the single individual, of course, distribution appears as a social law which determines his position within the system of production within which he produces, and which therefore precedes production. The individual comes into the world possessing neither capital nor land. Social distribution assigns him at birth to wage labour. But this situation of being assigned is itself a consequence of the existence of capital and landed property as independent agents of production.

As regards whole societies, distribution seems to precede production and to determine it in yet another respect, almost as if it were a pre-economic fact. A conquering people divides the land among the conquerors, thus imposes a certain distribution and form of property in land, and thus determines production. Or it enslaves the conquered and so makes slave labour the foundation of production. Or a people rises in revolution and smashes the great landed estates into small parcels, and hence, by this new distribution, gives production a new character. Or a system of laws assigns property in land to certain families in perpetuity, or distributes labour [as] a hereditary privilege and thus confines it within certain castes. In all these cases, and they are all historical, it seems that distribution is not structured and determined by production, but rather the opposite, production by distribution.

In the shallowest conception, distribution appears as the distribution of products, and hence as further removed from and quasi-independent of production. But before distribution can be the distribution of products, it is: (1) the distribution of the instruments of production, and (2), which is a further specification of the same relation, the distribution of the members of the society among the different kinds of production. (Subsumption of the individuals under specific relations of production.) The distribution of products is evidently only a result of this distribution, which is comprised within the process of production itself and determines the structure of production. To examine production while disregarding this internal distribution within it is obviously an empty abstraction; while conversely, the distribution of products follows by itself from this distribution which forms an original moment of production. Ricardo, whose concern was to grasp the specific social structure of modern production, and who is the economist of production par excellence, declares for precisely that reason that not production but distribution is the proper study of modern economics. [18] This again shows the ineptitude of those economists who portray production as an eternal truth while banishing history to the realm of distribution.

The question of the relation between this production-determining distribution, and production, belongs evidently within production itself. If it is said that, since production must begin with a certain distribution of the instruments of production, it follows that distribution at least in this sense precedes and forms the presupposition of production, then the reply must be that production does indeed have its determinants and preconditions which form its moments. At the very beginning these may appear as spontaneous, natural. But by the process of production itself they are transformed from natural into historic determinants, and if they appear to one epoch as natural presuppositions of production, they were its historic product for another. Within production itself they are constantly being changed. The application of machinery, for example, changed the distribution of instruments of production as well as of products. Modern large-scale landed property is itself the product of modern commerce and of modern industry, as well as of the application of the latter to agriculture.

The questions raised above all reduce themselves in the last instance to the role played by general-historical relations in production, and their relation to the movement of history generally. The question evidently belongs within the treatment and investigation of production itself.

Still, in the trivial form in which they are raised above, they can be dealt with equally briefly. In all cases of conquest, three things are possible. The conquering people subjugates the conquered under its own mode of production (e.g. the English in Ireland in this century, and partly in India); or it leaves the old mode intact and contents itself with a tribute (e.g. Turks and Romans); or a reciprocal interaction takes place whereby something new, a synthesis, arises (the Germanic conquests, in part). In all cases, the mode of production, whether that of the conquering people, that of the conquered, or that emerging from the fusion of both, is decisive for the new distribution which arises. Although the latter appears as a presupposition of the new period of production, it is thus itself in turn a product of production, not only of historical production generally, but of the specific historic mode of production.

The Mongols, with their devastations in Russia, e.g., were acting in accordance with their production, cattle-raising, for which vast uninhabited spaces are a chief precondition. The Germanic barbarians, who lived in isolation on the land and for whom agriculture with bondsmen was the traditional production, could impose these conditions on the Roman provinces all the more easily as the concentration of landed property which had taken place there had already entirely overthrown the earlier agricultural relations.

It is a received opinion that in certain periods people lived from pillage alone. But, for pillage to be possible, there must be some thing to be pillaged, hence production. And the mode of pillage is itself in turn determined by the mode of production. A stock-jobbing nation, for example, cannot be pillaged in the same manner as a nation of cow-herds.

To steal a slave is to steal the instrument of production directly. But then the production of the country for which the slave is stolen must be structured to allow of slave labour, or (as in the southern part of America etc.) a mode of production corresponding to the slave must be created.

Laws may perpetuate an instrument of production, e.g. land, in certain families. These laws achieve economic significance only when large-scale landed property is in harmony with the society's production, as e.g. in England. In France, small-scale agriculture survived despite the great landed estates, hence the latter were smashed by the revolution. But can laws perpetuate the small-scale allotment? Despite these laws, ownership is again becoming concentrated. The influence of laws in stabilizing relations of distribution, and hence their effect on production, requires to be determined in each specific instance.

(c ₁) Exchange, Finally, and Circulation

Exchange and production

Circulation itself [is] merely a specific moment of exchange, or [it is] also exchange regarded in its totality.

In so far as exchange is merely a moment mediating between production with its production-determined distribution on one side and consumption on the other, but in so far as the latter itself appears as a moment of production, to that extent is exchange obviously also included as a moment within the latter.

It is clear, firstly, that the exchange of activities and abilities which takes place within production itself belongs directly to production and essentially constitutes it. The same holds, secondly, for the exchange of products, in so far as that exchange is the means of finishing the product and making it fit for direct consumption. To that extent, exchange is an act comprised within production itself. Thirdly, the so-called exchange between dealers and dealers is by its very organization entirely determined by production, as well as being itself a producing activity. Exchange appears as independent of and indifferent to production only in the final phase where the product is exchanged directly for consumption. But (1) there is no exchange without division of labour, whether the latter is spontaneous, natural, or already a product of historic development; (2) private exchange presupposes private production; (3) the intensity of exchange, as well as its extension and its manner, are determined by the development and structure of production. For example. Exchange between town and country; exchange in the country, in the town etc. Exchange in all its moments thus appears as either directly comprised in production or determined by it.

The conclusion we reach is not that production, distribution, exchange and consumption are identical, but that they all form the members of a totality, distinctions within a unity. Production predominates not only over itself, in the antithetical definition of production, but over the other moments as well. The process always returns to production to begin anew. That exchange and consumption cannot be predominant is self-evident. Likewise, distribution as distribution of products; while as distribution of the agents of production it is itself a moment of production. A definite production thus determines a definite consumption, distribution and exchange as well as definite relations between these different moments. Admittedly, however, in its one-sided form, production is itself determined by the other moments. For example if the market, i.e. the sphere of exchange, expands, then production grows in quantity and the divisions between its different branches become deeper. A change in distribution changes production, e.g. concentration of capital, different distribution of the population between town and country, etc. Finally, the needs of consumption determine production. Mutual interaction takes place between the different moments. This the case with every organic whole.

(3) THE METHOD OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

When we consider a given country politico-economically, we begin with its population, its distribution among classes, town, country, the coast, the different branches of production, export and import, annual production and consumption, commodity prices etc.

It seems to be correct to begin with the real and the concrete, with the real precondition, thus to begin, in economics, with e.g. the population, which is the foundation and the subject of the entire social act of production. However, on closer examination this proves false. The population is an abstraction if I leave out, for example, the classes of which it is composed. These classes in turn are an empty phrase if I am not familiar with the elements on which they rest. E.g. wage labour, capital, etc. These latter in turn presuppose exchange, division of labour, prices, etc. For example, capital is nothing without wage labour, without value, money, price etc. Thus, if I were to begin with the population, this would be a chaotic conception [ Vorstellung] of the whole, and I would then, by means of further determination, move analytically towards ever more simple concepts [ Begriff], from the imagined concrete towards ever thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest determinations. From there the journey would have to be retraced until I had finally arrived at the population again, but this time not as the chaotic conception of a whole, but as a rich totality of many determinations and relations. The former is the path historically followed by economics at the time of its origins. The economists of the seventeenth century, e.g., always begin with the living whole, with population, nation, state, several states, etc.; but they always conclude by discovering through analysis a small number of determinant, abstract, general relations such as division of labour, money, value, etc. As soon as these individual moments had been more or less firmly established and abstracted, there began the economic systems, which ascended from the simple relations, such as labour, division of labour, need, exchange value, to the level of the state, exchange between nations and the world market. The latter is obviously the scientifically correct method. The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation [ Anschauung] and conception. Along the first path the full conception was evaporated to yield an abstract determination; along the second, the abstract determinations lead towards a reproduction of the concrete by way of thought. In this way Hegel fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths, and unfolding itself out of itself, by itself, whereas the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the mind. But this is by no means the process by which the concrete itself comes into being. For example, the simplest economic category, say e.g. exchange value, presupposes population, moreover a population producing in specific relations; as well as a certain kind of family, or commune, or state, etc. It can never exist other than as an abstract, one-sided relation within an already given, concrete, living whole. As a category, by contrast, exchange value leads an antediluvian existence. Therefore, to the kind of consciousness - and this is characteristic of the philosophical consciousness - for which conceptual thinking is the real human being, and for which the conceptual world as such is thus the only reality, the movement of the categories appears as the real act of production - which only, unfortunately, receives a jolt from the outside - whose product is the world; and - but this is again a tautology - this is correct in so far as the concrete totality is a totality of thoughts, concrete in thought, in fact a product of thinking and comprehending; but not in any way a product of the concept which thinks and generates itself outside or above observation and conception; a product, rather, of the working-up of observation and conception into concepts. The totality as it appears in the head, as a totality of thoughts, is a product of a thinking head, which appropriates the world in the only way it can, a way different from the artistic, religious, practical and mental appropriation of this world. The real subject retains its autonomous existence outside the head just as before; namely as long as the head's conduct is merely speculative, merely theoretical. Hence, in the theoretical method, too, the subject, society, must always be kept in mind as the presupposition.

But do not these simpler categories also have an independent historical or natural existence pre-dating the more concrete ones? That depends. Hegel, for example, correctly begins the Philosophy of Right with possession, this being the subject's simplest juridical relation. But there is no possession preceding the family or master-servant relations, which are far more concrete relations. However, it would be correct to say that there are families or clan groups which still merely possess, but have no property. The simple category therefore appears in relation to property as a relation of simple families or clan groups. In the higher society it appears as the simpler relation of a developed organization. But the concrete substratum of which possession is a relation is always presupposed. One can imagine an individual savage as possessing something. But in that case possession is not a juridical relation. It is incorrect that possession develops historically into the family. Possession, rather, always presupposes this 'more concrete juridical category.' There would still always remain this much, however, namely that the simple categories are the expressions of relations within which the less developed concrete may have already realized itself before having posited the more many-sided connection or relation which is mentally expressed in the more concrete category; while the more developed concrete preserves the same category as a subordinate relation. Money may exist, and did exist historically, before capital existed, before banks existed, before wage labour existed, etc. Thus in this respect it may be said that the simpler category can express the dominant relations of a less developed whole, or else those subordinate relations of a more developed whole which already had a historic existence before this whole developed in the direction expressed by a more concrete category. To that extent the path of abstract thought, rising from the simple to the combined, would correspond to the real historical process.

It may be said on the other hand that there are very developed but nevertheless historically less mature forms of society, in which the highest forms of economy, e.g. cooperation, a developed division of labour, etc., are found, even though there is no kind of money, e.g. Peru. Among the Slav communities also, money and the exchange which determines it play little or no role within the individual communities, but only on their boundaries, in traffic with others; it is simply wrong to place exchange at the centre of communal society as the original, constituent element. It originally appears, rather, in the connection of the different communities with one another, not in the relations between the different members of a single community. Further, although money everywhere plays a role from very early on, it is nevertheless a predominant element, in antiquity, only within the confines of certain one-sidedly developed nations, trading nations. And even in the most advanced parts of the ancient world, among the Greeks and Romans, the full development of money, which is presupposed in modern bourgeois society, appears only in the period of their dissolution. This very simple category, then, makes a historic appearance in its full intensity only in the most developed conditions of society. By no means does it wade its way through all economic relations. For example, in the Roman Empire, at its highest point of development, the foundation remained taxes and payments in kind. The money system actually completely developed there only in the army. And it never took over the whole of labour. Thus, although the simpler category may have existed historically before the more concrete, it can achieve its full (intensive and extensive) development precisely in a combined form of society, while the more concrete category was more fully developed in a less developed form of society.

Labour seems a quite simple category. The conception of labour in this general form - as labour as such - is also immeasurably old. Nevertheless, when it is economically conceived in this simplicity, 'labour' is as modern a category as are the relations which create this simple abstraction. The Monetary System [19] for example, still locates wealth altogether objectively, as an external thing, in money. Compared with this standpoint, the commercial, or manufacture, system took a great step forward by locating the source of wealth not in the object but in a subjective activity - in commercial and manufacturing activity - even though it still always conceives this activity within narrow boundaries, as money-making. In contrast to this system, that of the Physiocrats posits a certain kind of labour - agriculture - as the creator of wealth, and the object itself no longer appears in a monetary disguise, but as the product in general, as the general result of labour. This product, as befits the narrowness of the activity, still always remains a naturally determined product - the product of agriculture, the product of the earth par excellence.

It was an immense step forward for Adam Smith to throw out every limiting specification of wealth-creating activity - not only manufacturing, or commercial or agricultural labour, but one as well as the others, labour in general. With the abstract universality of wealth-creating activity we now have the universality of the object defined as wealth, the product as such or again labour as such, but labour as past, objectified labour. How difficult and great was this transition may be seen from how Adam Smith himself from time to time still falls back into the Physiocratic system. Now, it might seem that all that had been achieved thereby was to discover the abstract expression for the simplest and most ancient relation in which human beings - in whatever form of society - play the role of producers. This is correct in one respect. Not in another. Indifference towards any specific kind of labour presupposes a very developed totality of real kinds of labour, of which no single one is any longer predominant. As a rule, the most general abstractions arise only in the midst of the richest possible concrete development, where one thing appears as common to many, to all. Then it ceases to be thinkable in a particular form alone. On the other side, this abstraction of labour as such is not merely the mental product of a concrete totality of labours. Indifference towards specific labours corresponds to a form of society in which individuals can with ease transfer from one labour to another, and where the specific kind is a matter of chance for them, hence of indifference. Not only the category, labour, but labour in reality has here become the means of creating wealth in general, and has ceased to be organically linked with particular individuals in any specific form. Such a state of affairs is at its most developed in the most modern form of existence of bourgeois society - in the United States. Here, then, for the first time, the point of departure of modern economics, namely the abstraction of the category 'labour', 'labour as such', labour pure and simple, becomes true in practice. The simplest abstraction, then, which modern economics places at the head of its discussions, and which expresses an immeasurably ancient relation valid in all forms of society, nevertheless achieves practical truth as an abstraction only as a category of the most modern society. One could say that this indifference towards particular kinds of labour, which is a historic product in the United States, appears e.g. among the Russians as a spontaneous inclination. But there is a devil of a difference between barbarians who are fit by nature to be used for anything, and civilized people who apply themselves to everything. And then in practice the Russian indifference to the specific character of labour corresponds to being embedded by tradition within a very specific kind of labour, from which only external influences can jar them loose.

This example of labour shows strikingly how even the most abstract categories, despite their validity - precisely because of their abstractness - for all epochs, are nevertheless, in the specific character of this abstraction, themselves likewise a product of historic relations, and possess their full validity only for and within these relations.

Bourgeois society is the most developed and the most complex historic organization of production. The categories which express its relations, the comprehension of its structure, thereby also allows insights into the structure and the relations of production of all the vanished social formations out of whose ruins and elements it built itself up, whose partly still unconquered remnants are carried along within it, whose mere nuances have developed explicit significance within it, etc. Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape. The intimations of higher development among the subordinate animal species, however, can be understood only after the higher development is already known. The bourgeois economy thus supplies the key to the ancient, etc. But not at all in the manner of those economists who smudge over all historical differences and see bourgeois relations in all forms of society. One can understand tribute, tithe, etc., if one is acquainted with ground rent. But one must not identify them. Further, since bourgeois society is itself only a contradictory form of development, relations derived from earlier forms will often be found within it only in an entirely stunted form, or even travestied. For example, communal property. Although it is true, therefore, that the categories of bourgeois economics possess a truth for all other forms of society, this is to be taken only with a grain of salt. They can contain them in a developed, or stunted, or caricatured form etc., but always with an essential difference. The so-called historical presentation of development is founded, as a rule, on the fact that the latest form regards the previous ones as steps leading up to itself, and, since it is only rarely and only under quite specific conditions able to criticize itself - leaving aside, of course, the historical periods which appear to themselves as times of decadence - it always conceives them one-sidedly. The Christian religion was able to be of assistance in reaching an objective understanding of earlier mythologies only when its own self-criticism had been accomplished to a certain degree, so to speak, δυνάμει. [20] Likewise, bourgeois economics arrived at an understanding of feudal, ancient, oriental economics only after the self-criticism of bourgeois society had begun. In so far as the bourgeois economy did not mythologically identify itself altogether with the past, its critique of the previous economies, notably of feudalism, with which it was still engaged in direct struggle, resembled the critique which Christianity levelled against paganism, or also that of Protestantism against Catholicism.

In the succession of the economic categories, as in any other historical, social science, it must not be forgotten that their subject - here, modern bourgeois society - is always what is given, in the head as well as in reality, and that these categories therefore express the forms of being, the characteristics of existence, and often only individual sides of this specific society, this subject, and that therefore this society by no means begins only at the point where one can speak of it as such; this holds for science as well. This is to be kept in mind because it will shortly be decisive for the order and sequence of the categories. For example, nothing seems more natural than to begin with ground rent, with landed property, since this is bound up with the earth, the source of all production and of all being, and with the first form of production of all more or less settled societies - agriculture. But nothing would be more erroneous. In all forms of society there is one specific kind of production which predominates over the rest, whose relations thus assign rank and influence to the others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the other colours and modifies their particularity. It is a particular ether which determines the specific gravity of every being which has materialized within it. For example, with pastoral peoples (mere hunting and fishing peoples lie outside the point where real development begins). Certain forms of tillage occur among them, sporadic ones. Landed property is determined by this. It is held in common, and retains this form to a greater or lesser degree according to the greater or lesser degree of attachment displayed by these peoples to their tradition, e.g. the communal property of the Slavs. Among peoples with a settled agriculture - this settling already a great step - where this predominates, as in antiquity and in the feudal order, even industry, together with its organization and the forms of property corresponding to it, has a more or less landed-proprietary character; is either completely dependent on it, as among the earlier Romans, or, as in the Middle Ages, imitates, within the city and its relations, the organization of the land. In the Middle Ages, capital itself - apart from pure money-capital - in the form of the traditional artisans' tools etc., has this landed-proprietary character. In bourgeois society it is the opposite. Agriculture more and more becomes merely a branch of industry, and is entirely dominated by capital. Ground rent likewise. In all forms where landed property rules, the natural relation still predominant. In those where capital rules, the social, historically created element. Ground rent cannot be understood without capital. But capital can certainly be understood without ground rent. Capital is the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society. It must form the starting-point as well as the finishing-point, and must be dealt with before landed property. After both have been examined in particular, their interrelation must be examined.

It would therefore be infeasible and wrong to let the economic categories follow one another in the same sequence as that in which they were historically decisive. Their sequence is determined, rather, by their relation to one another in modern bourgeois society, which is precisely the opposite of that which seems to be their natural order or which corresponds to historical development. The point is not the historic position of the economic relations in the succession of different forms of society. Even less is it their sequence 'in the idea' (Proudhon) [21] (a muddy notion of historic movement). Rather, their order within modern bourgeois society.

The purity (abstract specificity) in which the trading peoples - Phoenicians, Carthaginians - appear in the old world is determined precisely by the predominance of the agricultural peoples. Capital, as trading-capital or as money-capital, appears in this abstraction precisely where capital is not yet the predominant element of societies. Lombards, Jews take up the same position towards the agricultural societies of the Middle Ages.

As a further example of the divergent positions which the same category can occupy in different social stages: one of the latest forms of bourgeois society, joint-stock companies. These also appear, however, at its beginning, in the great, privileged monopoly trading companies.

The concept of national wealth creeps into the work of the economists of the seventeenth century - continuing partly with those of the eighteenth - in the form of the notion that wealth is created only to enrich the state, and that its power is proportionate to this wealth. This was the still unconsciously hypocritical form in which wealth and the production of wealth proclaimed themselves as the purpose of modern states, and regarded these states henceforth only as means for the production of wealth.

The order obviously has to be (1) the general, abstract determinants which obtain in more or less all forms of society, but in the above-explained sense. (2) The categories which make up the inner structure of bourgeois society and on which the fundamental classes rest. Capital, wage labour, landed property. Their interrelation. Town and country. The three great social classes. Exchange between them. Circulation. Credit system (private). (3) Concentration of bourgeois society in the form of the state. Viewed in relation to itself. The 'unproductive' classes. Taxes. State debt. Public credit. The population. The colonies. Emigration. (4) The international relation of production. International division of labour. International exchange. Export and import. Rate of exchange. (5) The world market and crises. [22]

(4) PRODUCTION. MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION. RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION AND RELATIONS OF CIRCULATION. FORMS OF THE STATE AND FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN RELATION TO RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION. LEGAL RELATIONS. FAMILY RELATIONS.

Notabene in regard to points to be mentioned here and not to be forgotten:

(1) War developed earlier than peace; the way in which certain economic relations such as wage labour, machinery etc. develop earlier, owing to war and in the armies etc., than in the interior of bourgeois society. The relation of productive force and relations of exchange also especially vivid in the army.

(2) Relation of previous ideal historiography to the real. Namely of the so-called cultural histories, which are only histories of religions and of states. (On that occasion something can also be said about the various kinds of previous historiography. The so-called objective. Subjective (moral among others). The philosophical.)

(3) Secondary and tertiary matters; in general, derivative, inherited, not original relations of production. Influence here of international relations.

(4) Accusations about the materialism of this conception. Relation to naturalistic materialism.

(5) Dialectic of the concepts productive force (means of production) and relation of production, a dialectic whose boundaries are to be determined, and which does not suspend the real difference.

(6) The uneven development of material production relative to e.g. artistic development. In general, the concept of progress not to be conceived in the usual abstractness. Modern art etc. This disproportion not as important or so difficult to grasp as within practical-social relations themselves. E.g. the relation of education. Relation of the United States to Europe. But the really difficult point to discuss here is how relations of production develop unevenly as legal relations. Thus e.g. the relation of Roman private law (this less the case with criminal and public law) to modern production.

(7) This conception appears as necessary development. But legitimation of chance. How. (Of freedom also, among other things.) (Influence of means of communication. World history has not always existed; history as world history a result.)

(8) The point of departure obviously from the natural characteristic; subjectively and objectively. Tribes, races etc.

(1) In the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are out of all proportion to the general development of society, hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure as it were, of its organization. For example, the Greeks compared to the moderns or also Shakespeare. It is even recognized that certain forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world epoch-making, classical stature as soon as the production of art, as such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of artistic development. If this is the case with the relation between different kinds of art within the realm of the arts, it is already less puzzling that it is the case in the relation of the entire realm to the general development of society. The difficulty consists only in the general formulation of these contradictions. As soon as they have been specified, they are already clarified.

Let us take e.g. the relation of Greek art and then of Shakespeare to the present time. It is well known that Greek mythology is not only the arsenal of Greek art but also its foundation. Is the view of nature and of social relations on which the Greek imagination and hence Greek [mythology] is based possible with self-acting mule spindles and railways and locomotives and electrical telegraphs? What chance has Vulcan against Roberts and Co., Jupiter against the lightning-rod and Hermes against the Crédit Mobilier? All mythology overcomes and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in the imagination and by the imagination; it therefore vanishes with the advent of real mastery over them. What becomes of Fama alongside Printing House Square? Greek art presupposes Greek mythology, i.e. nature and the social forms already reworked in an unconsciously artistic way by the popular imagination. This is its material. Not any mythology whatever, i.e. not an arbitrarily chosen unconsciously artistic reworking of nature (here meaning everything objective, hence including society). Egyptian mythology could never have been the foundation or the womb of Greek art. But, in any case, a mythology. Hence, in no way a social development which excludes all mythological, all mythologizing relations to nature; which therefore demands of the artist an imagination not dependent on mythology.

From another side: is Achilles possible with powder and lead? Or the Iliad with the printing press, not to mention the printing machine? Do not the song and the saga and the muse necessarily come to an end with the printer's bar, hence do not the necessary conditions of epic poetry vanish?

But the difficulty lies not in understanding that the Greek arts and epic are bound up with certain forms of social development. The difficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model.

A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish. But does he not find joy in the child's naïvité, and must he himself not strive to reproduce its truth at a higher stage? Does not the true character of each epoch come alive in the nature of its children? Why should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding, as a stage never to return, exercise an eternal charm? There are unruly children and precocious children. Many of the old peoples belong in this category. The Greeks were normal children. The charm of their art for us is not in contradiction to the undeveloped stage of society on which it grew. [It] is its result, rather, and is inextricably bound up, rather, with the fact that the unripe social conditions under which it arose, and could alone arise, can never return.

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Grundrisse: Introduction Late August - Mid-September 1857 Independent Individuals. Eighteenth-century Ideas The object before us, to begin with, material production. Individuals producing in society - hence socially determined individual production - is, of course, the point of departure.

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MIA> Biblioteca> Karl Marx > Novidades

Karl Marx

1857
Primeira Edição: O presente texto, que constitui o terceiro dos quatro tópicos da "Introdução à crítica da economia política" (1857), oferece uma das mais aprofundadas sínteses de Karl Marx sobre o método do materialismo dialético - e merece estudo cuidadoso.
Fonte: LavraPalavra e Crítica Marxista

Tradução: Fausto Castilho

HTML: Fernando Araújo.

Direitos de Reprodução: licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons.

Ao considerar a economia política de um dado país, começamos por sua população, sua divisão em classes, distribuída pela cidade, campo e mar; os diversos ramos da produção, a exportação e a importação, a produção anual e o consumo anual, os preços das mercadorias etc.

É que parece correto começar pelo real e pelo concreto, pela pressuposição efetivamente real e, assim, em economia, por exemplo, pela população: fundamento e sujeito do ato todo da produção social. A uma consideração mais precisa, contudo, isto se revela falso. A população, por exemplo, se omito as classes que a constituem, é uma mera abstração. Estas últimas, por sua vez, são uma expressão vazia se não conheço os elementos sobre que repousam, a saber, o trabalho assalariado, o capital etc. E esses pressupõem a troca, a divisão do trabalho, os preços etc., de sorte que o capital, por exemplo, nada é, sem o valor, o dinheiro, o preço etc. Se começasse pela população, haveria de início uma representação caótica do todo, e só através de determinação mais precisa eu chegaria analiticamente, cada vez mais, a conceitos mais simples. Partindo do concreto representado, chegaria a abstratos sempre mais tênues, até alcançar, por fim, as determinações mais simples. Dali, a viagem recomeçaria pelo caminho de volta, até que reencontrasse finalmente a população, não já como a representação caótica de um todo, e sim como uma rica totalidade de muitas determinações e relações. O primeiro caminho é aquele que a Economia percorreu em sua gênese histórica. Exemplo: os economistas do século XVII que sempre começam por um todo vivo - população, nação, Estado, vários estados etc. -, mas sempre terminam por algumas relações gerais, abstratas, determinantes - divisão do trabalho, dinheiro, valor etc. - que eles descobriram por análise. Tão logo esses aspectos individuais isolados achavam-se mais ou menos abstraídos e fixados, os sistemas econômicos começavam a elevar-se a partir dos elementos simples - o trabalho, a divisão do trabalho, as necessidades, o valor de troca, até o Estado, o intercâmbio entre as nações e o mercado mundial. É manifesto que este último caminho é o método cientificamente correto.

O concreto é concreto por ser uma síntese de muitas determinações, logo, uma unidade do múltiplo. Eis a razão por que aparece no pensamento como processo de concentração (síntese), como um resultado e não como um ponto de partida, embora ele seja o ponto de partida efetivamente real e, assim, também, o ponto de partida da intuição e da representação.

No primeiro caminho, toda a representação se desvanece em determinação abstrata, ao passo que, no segundo, as determinações abstratas conduzem à reprodução do concreto no plano do pensamento. Foi o que levou Hegel a extraviar-se na ilusão de conceber o real como resultado de um pensamento que, em si mesmo se concentra, em si se aprofunda e por si se move, enquanto o método de se elevar do abstrato ao concreto é apenas a maneira de o pensamento apropriar-se do concreto e o reproduzir como concreto espiritual, mas de maneira nenhuma se trata do processo da gênese do próprio concreto. Por exemplo, a categoria econômica mais simples, digamos o valor de troca: ele já pressupõe a população, uma população que produz sob relações determinadas; pressupõe igualmente certa espécie de família ou de comuna ou de Estado etc. Ele jamais pode existir a não ser como uma relação abstrata, unilateral de um todo vivo, concreto, já dado. E, sem embargo, como categoria, o valor de troca tem, ao contrário, uma existência antediluviana. Por isso, para a consciência - e isto determina a consciência filosófica -, para a consciência, só o pensamento conceitual é o homem efetivamente real e somente o mundo conceituado possui, como tal, efetiva realidade. De sorte que, para a consciência, o movimento das categorias assume a aparência de um ato efetivamente real de produção - recebendo de fora apenas um empurrão, aliás, deplorável -, cujo resultado é o Mundo. Isto é correto - trata-se, porém, novamente de uma tautologia -, mas correto somente na medida em que a totalidade concreta é tomada como totalidade pensada, como um concreto pensado, in fact, como um produto do pensamento, do conceito. De modo algum, porém, como produto de um pensamento alheio à intuição e à representação ou que se lhes sobreponha, como produto de um conceito que, pensando, a si mesmo se gera, mas como produto da elaboração conceitual da intuição e da representação. O todo, tal como ele na cabeça aparece - um todo de pensamento -, é o produto de uma cabeça pensante, que se apropria do mundo do único modo que lhe é possível e que difere dos modos de apropriação do mundo que são o artístico, o religioso ou o do espírito prático. Enquanto a cabeça procede de modo somente especulativo, isto é, teoricamente, o sujeito real, tanto antes como depois, subsiste, em sua independência, fora dela. Assim, no método teórico também, é preciso que o sujeito, a Sociedade, esteja sempre presente enquanto pressuposição.

Mas, acaso essas categorias simples não têm também uma existência independente, seja histórica, seja natural, anterior à existência das mais concretas? Ça dépend. Por exemplo, Hegel começa de modo correto a Filosofia do Direito pela posse, que é a relação juridicamente mais simples de um sujeito de direito, embora não haja posse antes da família e das relações de domínio e servidão, muito mais concretas do que ela. Seria, assim, correto dizer, pelo contrário, que existem famílias, grupos tribais que ainda só possuem e não têm propriedade. No que se refere à propriedade, a categoria mais simples aparece, então, como relação entre comunidades simples de famílias ou de tribos. Na sociedade superior, ela aparece como a relação mais simples de uma organização mais desenvolvida. O substrato mais concreto, cuja relação é a posse, está, porém, sempre pressuposto. Podemos nos representar um indivíduo silvícola isolado que possui. Mas a posse, no caso, não seria uma relação jurídica. É incorreto dizer que a posse desenvolve- -se historicamente até a família, quando, ao contrário, ela sempre pressupõe esta "categoria jurídica mais concreta". Continua, no entanto, a ser sempre uma verdade que as categorias simples são uma expressão de relações sob as quais o concreto não desenvolvido pode realizar-se, sem ainda ter posto a relação mais multilateral, que é expressa espiritualmente na categoria mais concreta, ao passo que o concreto mais desenvolvido conserva a mesma categoria como uma relação subordinada. O dinheiro pode existir e existiu historicamente, antes de existirem o capital, os bancos, o trabalho assalariado etc. Por esse lado, é também lícito dizer que a categoria mais simples pode exprimir relações dominantes de um todo não desenvolvido ou relações subordinadas de um todo mais desenvolvido que já existiam historicamente antes de esse todo se desenvolver por esse lado expresso numa categoria mais concreta. Em tal medida, a marcha do pensamento abstrato, ao se elevar do mais simples ao complexo, corresponderia ao processo histórico efetivamente real.

Por outro lado, pode-se dizer que há formas de sociedade muito desenvolvidas e que são, no entanto, historicamente imaturas, como o Peru, por exemplo, onde ocorrem formas superiores de economia - cooperação, divisão do trabalho etc. -, mas onde não há nenhuma forma de dinheiro. Nas comunidades eslavas, do mesmo modo, o dinheiro e a troca por ele condicionada não aparecem ou aparecem pouco dentro de cada comunidade isoladamente, e sim em suas fronteiras, nas relações de uma comunidade com as outras, de sorte que é falsa, em geral, a tese que faz da troca no interior da comunidade individual, o elemento que originariamente a constitui. Ao contrário, ela surge inicialmente na relação entre as comunidades diversas antes que entre seus membros, no interior de uma única e mesma comunidade. E mais: embora o dinheiro exerça desde muito cedo um papel multilateral, na Antiguidade ele só tem o papel de elemento dominante em nações unilateralmente determinadas, a saber, nas nações comerciantes. E, mesmo na parte mais adiantada da Antiguidade, entre os gregos e os romanos, o seu pleno desenvolvimento - um pressuposto da moderna sociedade burguesa - só se manifesta no período de sua desagregação. Assim, essa categoria totalmente simples, no que diz respeito à sua intensidade, não aparece historicamente, mas nos estádios mais desenvolvidos da sociedade. De modo nenhum, porém, ela atravessa facilmente todas as relações econômicas, e o exemplo é ainda o Império Romano que, mesmo depois de alcançar seu maior desenvolvimento, continua a ter no imposto in natura e na prestação in natura o seu fundamento. O dinheiro propriamente dito só se desenvolve completamente no exército e nunca se apoderou da totalidade do trabalho. Embora a categoria mais simples possa ter existido historicamente antes da mais concreta, em seu pleno desenvolvimento intensivo e extensivo, ela pode pertencer precisamente a uma forma de sociedade complexa, enquanto a categoria mais concreta se havia desenvolvido plenamente em uma forma de sociedade pouco desenvolvida.

O trabalho parece ser uma categoria de todo simples; além disso, sua representação, na universalidade do trabalho como tal, é, também ela, antiquíssima. Entretanto, concebido economicamente nessa simplicidade, o "trabalho" é uma categoria tão moderna quanto as relações que produzem essa abstração simples. Por exemplo, o sistema monetário ainda põe a riqueza, de modo inteiramente objetivo, como coisa fora de si, no dinheiro. Em face desse ponto de vista, há um grande progresso na transposição da fonte da riqueza do objeto para a atividade subjetiva, feita pelo sistema comercial ou manufatureiro, se bem que uma atividade ainda sempre concebida como limitada a fazer dinheiro. A esse sistema, o fisiocrático opõe uma forma determinada de trabalho - a agricultura - como criadora de riqueza, deixando, assim, o objeto de ser um disfarce do dinheiro, para se tornar produto enquanto tal, como resultado geral do trabalho. Esse produto, dados os limites dessa atividade, é ainda sempre um produto determinado da Natureza: produto agrícola, produto da terra par excellence.

Houve um imenso progresso, quando Adam Smith afastou todo determinismo da atividade criadora da riqueza: o trabalho pura e simplesmente e não já o manufatureiro ou o comercial ou o agrícola, mas tanto um quanto o outro. Paralela a essa universalidade da atividade criadora da riqueza aparece agora também a universalidade do objeto da riqueza, determinado como produto como tal ou, de igual modo, como trabalho enquanto tal, só que trabalho passado, trabalho objetivado. Um passo difícil e importante, pois o próprio Adam Smith às vezes regride ao sistema fisiocrático, como se o que foi encontrado fosse apenas a expressão abstrata da relação mais simples e mais antiga em que os homens sempre ingressam enquanto produtores, qualquer que seja a forma de sociedade. Isto é, de um lado, correto, de outro, não. A indiferença em relação a uma espécie determinada de trabalho pressupõe a existência efetiva de uma totalidade muito desenvolvida de espécies de trabalho, onde já nenhuma delas predomina sobre todas as outras. Assim, as abstrações mais gerais só surgem como tais no desenvolvimento concreto mais rico, onde o que é comum a muitos aparece como comum a todos. Desaparece, então, a possibilidade de se pensar em uma forma particular. Por outro lado, essa abstração do trabalho como tal não é apenas o resultado espiritual de uma totalidade concreta de trabalhos. A indiferença em relação a uma forma determinada de trabalho corresponde a uma forma de sociedade em que os indivíduos passam facilmente de um trabalho a outro, tornando-se-lhes fortuita e, portanto, indiferente a espécie determinada de trabalho.

O trabalho, aqui, não está somente na categoria, tornou-se uma realidade efetiva como meio de criação da riqueza em geral e deixou de ser uma determinação vinculada ao que os indivíduos têm de peculiar. Estado de coisas que se encontra mais desenvolvido, na mais moderna forma de existência das sociedades burguesas, nos Estados Unidos. Apenas ali, a abstração da categoria "trabalho", "trabalho em geral", trabalho sans phrase, ponto de partida da economia moderna, torna-se praticamente verdadeira. Assim, a abstração mais simples - que a Economia moderna coloca acima de todas e que exprime uma relação antiquíssima, válida para todas as formas de sociedade - somente se manifesta, porém, nessa abstração praticamente verdadeira, como categoria da mais moderna sociedade. Dir-se-ia que o que se manifesta nos Estados Unidos como um produto histórico - a indiferença em relação ao trabalho determinado - aparece, por exemplo, entre os russos, como uma disposição natural. Só que há uma diferença dos diabos entre, de um lado, bárbaros dispostos a aceitar que os empreguem em tudo e, do outro, civilizados que em tudo se empregam por si mesmos. Essa indiferença dos russos diante da determinabilidade do trabalho corresponde, na prática, à sua tradicional sujeição a um trabalho totalmente determinado, de onde só são retirados por uma influência externa.

O exemplo do trabalho mostra, de modo convincente, que, embora possuam validade em todas as épocas - em virtude justamente de sua abstração -, mesmo as categorias mais abstratas, na determinidade de sua abstração, são um produto de relações históricas e só possuem plena validade para tais relações e no seu interior.

A sociedade burguesa é a organização histórica da produção mais desenvolvida e a mais múltipla. As categorias que exprimem suas relações e a compreensão de sua articulação garantem, ao mesmo tempo, uma percepção que penetra na estrutura e nas relações de produção de todas as formas de sociedade desaparecidas, com cujas ruínas e cujos elementos a sociedade burguesa foi edificada e que nela em parte subsistem, como restos invictos, meros sinais que se desenvolveram para constituir significações completas etc. A anatomia do homem é uma chave para a do macaco. Os indícios que, nas espécies animais inferiores, apontam para o que é superior a elas, só podem ser entendidos quando a própria espécie superior já é conhecida. Assim, a economia burguesa fornece a chave da Antiguidade etc. Mas, de maneira nenhuma, à maneira dos economistas, que cancelam todas as diferenças históricas e em todas as formas de sociedade enxergam a forma burguesa. Pode-se entender o tributo, o dízimo, quando se conhece a renda fundiária. Mas não há que identificar uns com os outros. Além disso, a sociedade burguesa, ela mesma, não é senão uma forma antagônica de desenvolvimento, as relações de formas de sociedade anteriores com frequência nela se encontram, ou já de todo estioladas ou mesmo travestidas, caso da propriedade comunal, por exemplo. Por isso, se é verdade que as categorias da Economia burguesa possuem uma validade para todas as outras formas de sociedade, trata-se de uma verdade que deve ser aceita só cum grano salis. Elas podem conter as outras formas ou desenvolvidas ou estioladas ou caricaturadas etc., mas sempre segundo uma diferença essencial. O chamado desenvolvimento histórico repousa em geral sobre o fato de que a última forma considera as formas passadas como degraus que a ela conduzem. E, sendo raro e só sob condições bem determinadas que ela seja capaz de criticar-se a si mesma - não falamos naturalmente dos períodos históricos que a si mesmos se consideram épocas de decadência - sua percepção é sempre unilateral. A religião cristã só foi capaz de contribuir para uma compreensão objetiva das mitologias anteriores quando terminou, em certo grau, por assim dizer, dynamei (potencialmente) sua autocrítica. De igual maneira, a Economia burguesa só chegou a compreender a feudal, a antiga, a oriental assim que se iniciou a autocrítica da sociedade burguesa. Na medida em que a Economia burguesa não mitologizou, identificando-se com o passado, sua crítica das sociedades anteriores - nomeadamente da feudal, contra a qual ainda tinha de lutar diretamente - foi comparável à crítica do cristianismo ao paganismo ou mesmo do protestantismo ao catolicismo.

Do mesmo modo que em toda ciência histórica ou social, em geral também no que se refere à marcha das categorias econômicas, é preciso ter presente e de modo firme que o sujeito, a saber, a moderna sociedade burguesa, é dado tanto na realidade efetiva como na cabeça; que as categorias são, assim, formas de existir, determinações de existência, e com frequência só exprimem aspectos particulares e isolados dessa sociedade determinada, desse sujeito; e que, também do ponto de vista científico, de maneira nenhuma ela só começa no momento em que se trata dela como tal. É preciso ter isto presente, porque põe de imediato em nossas mãos o que há de decisivo na divisão da matéria. Por exemplo, nada parece mais natural do que começar pela renda fundiária, pela propriedade do solo, dada a sua ligação com a terra, fonte de toda produção e de toda existência e, pois, com a primeira forma de produção de todas as sociedades que, de alguma maneira, tornaram-se estáveis - a agricultura. Entretanto, nada seria mais falso. Em todas as formas de sociedade há uma determinada produção que designa a posição respectiva e a influência de todas as outras e de suas relações. É como que uma iluminação geral a banhar todas as cores, modificando-as em sua particularidade, um éter particular determinando o peso específico de toda existência que ganhe relevo. Por exemplo, entre os povos pastores (os meros caçadores e pescadores ficam fora do ponto em que principia o desenvolvimento), ocorre certa forma esporádica de agricultura e a propriedade fundiária é por ela determinada: ela é comum e conserva mais ou menos essa forma, dependendo de que esses povos mantenham mais ou menos a sua tradição, por exemplo, a propriedade comunal dos eslavos. Entre povos de agricultura firmemente assentada - o assentamento já constitui uma fase de grande importância - onde ela predomina, como entre os antigos e os feudais, a própria indústria, sua organização e as formas respectivas de propriedade têm, mais ou menos, o caráter de propriedade fundiária. A indústria depende totalmente da agricultura, como entre os romanos antigos, ou imita nas cidades e nas relações urbanas a organização do campo, como na Idade Média. Na Idade Média, o próprio capital - na medida em que não é puro capital em dinheiro - como instrumento do artesanato tradicional etc., possui caráter de propriedade fundiária. Na sociedade burguesa ocorre o inverso: cada vez mais a agricultura se torna mero ramo da indústria e é dominada inteiramente pelo capital. O mesmo com a renda fundiária: em todas as formas em que a renda fundiária domina, predomina ainda a relação com a natureza, e onde o capital domina, prevalece o elemento social e historicamente criado. Sem o capital, a renda fundiária não pode ser compreendida, ao passo que, sem ela, o capital pode sê-lo muito bem. O capital é a força que tudo domina na sociedade burguesa. Deve constituir tanto o ponto de partida como o de chegada e sua exposição deve ser desenvolvida antes da propriedade fundiária. Após a consideração particular de um e outra, é preciso considerar a relação recíproca de ambos.

Seria, além de impossível, falso ordenar as categorias econômicas na sucessão em que foram historicamente determinantes. Sua ordem é antes determinada pela relação que elas mantêm entre si, na sociedade burguesa moderna, precisamente o inverso do que parece ser a sua ordem natural ou a correspondente sucessão do desenvolvimento histórico. Não se trata da relação que se estabelece historicamente entre as relações econômicas na sucessão das diversas formas de sociedade e menos ainda da sua ordem "na ideia" (Proudhon) (uma representação confusa do movimento histórico), e sim de sua articulação no interior da sociedade burguesa moderna.

A pureza (a determinidade abstrata) com que os povos comerciantes - fenícios, cartagineses - surgem no Mundo Antigo ocorre, também ela, mediante o predomínio dos povos agricultores. Como capital comercial ou capital em dinheiro, o capital manifesta-se precisamente nessa abstração, onde ele ainda não é o elemento dominante da sociedade. Os lombardos, os judeus, ocupam a mesma situação diante das sociedades agrícolas medievais.

É mais um exemplo da situação diversa que as mesmas categorias assumem em etapas diversas da sociedade: uma das últimas formas da sociedade burguesa, a forma das sociedades por ações aparece, no entanto, também no início da sociedade burguesa, nas grandes companhias comerciais, privilegiadas e monopolistas.

O próprio conceito de riqueza nacional só lentamente penetra na ciência econômica do século XVII - representação que subsiste, em parte, entre os economistas do século XVIII -; a riqueza é produzida meramente para o Estado e seu poderio é proporcional a ela. Era a fórmula, ainda inconscientemente hipócrita, em que se anunciava que a própria riqueza e sua produção são a meta dos Estados modernos, considerados exclusivamente como meios de produzir riqueza.

É manifesto que a matéria deve ser dividida como segue:
Início da página

1. As determinações gerais abstratas que convêm, por isso, mais ou menos, a todas as formas de sociedade, porém no sentido exposto anteriormente.

2. As categorias constitutivas da articulação interna da sociedade burguesa, sobre as quais as classes fundamentais repousam. O capital, o trabalho assalariado, a propriedade fundiária. Suas relações recíprocas. A cidade e o campo. As três grandes classes sociais. O intercâmbio entre elas. A circulação. O crédito (privado).

3. A concentração da sociedade burguesa na forma do Estado. Considerado na sua relação consigo próprio. As classes "improdutivas". O imposto. A dívida do Estado. O crédito público. A população. As colônias. A emigração.

4. A relação internacional de produção. A divisão internacional do trabalho. A troca internacional. A exportação e a importação. O curso do câmbio.

5. O mercado mundial e as crises.

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MIA> Biblioteca> Karl Marx > Novidades Primeira Edição: O presente texto, que constitui o terceiro dos quatro tópicos da "Introdução à crítica da economia política" (1857), oferece uma das mais aprofundadas sínteses de Karl Marx sobre o método do materialismo dialético - e merece estudo cuidadoso.

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Soviet Psychology: Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete by Evald Ilyenkov

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Ilyenkov
The dialectics of the Abstract & the Concrete in Marx's Capital
Chapter One - Dialectical & Metaphysical Conception of the Concrete

The Definition of the Concrete in Marx

Marx defines the concrete as 'the unity of diverse aspects. [Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy] This definition may appear paradoxical from the standpoint of traditional formal logic: the reduction of the sensually given diversity to unity appears at first sight to be the task of abstract knowledge of things rather than of concrete one. From the point of view of this logic, to realise unity in the sensually perceived diversity of phenomena means to reveal the abstractly general, identical elements that all of these phenomena possess. This abstract unity, recorded in consciousness by means of a general term, appears at first sight to be that very 'unity' which is the only thing to be treated in logic.

Indeed, if one is to interpret the transition from living contemplation and notion to the concept, from the sensual stage of cognition to the rational, only as reduction of the sensually given diversity to abstract unity, Marx's definition will certainly seem hardly justifiable in 'logical' terms.

The whole point is, however, that Marx's views are based on a conception of thinking, its goals and tasks, quite different from those on which old, non-dialectical logic built its theory. This is reflected not only in the substance of the solution of logical problems but in terminology as well. And that is inevitable: 'Every new aspect of a science involves a revolution in the technical terms of that science'. [Marx, Capital 1886 Preface]

When Marx defines the concrete as unity of diverse aspects, he assumes a dialectical interpretation of unity, diversity, and of their relationship. In dialectics, unity is interpreted first and foremost as connection, as interconnection and interaction of different phenomena within a certain system or agglomeration, and not as abstract likeness of these phenomena. Marx's definition assumes exactly this dialectical meaning of the term 'unity'.

If one unfolds somewhat Marx's aphoristically laconic formula, his definition of the concrete means literally the following: the concrete, concreteness, are first of all synonyms of the real links between phenomena, of concatenation and interaction of all aspects and moments of the object given to man in a notion. The concrete is thereby interpreted as an internally divided totality of various forms of existence of the object, a unique combination of which is characteristic of the given object only. Unity thus conceived is realised not through similarity of phenomena to each other but, on the contrary, through their difference and opposition.

This conception of unity in diversity (or concreteness) is not merely different from the one which old logic proceeded from, but is its direct opposite. The conception approaches that of the concept of integrity or wholeness. Marx uses this term in those cases when he has to characterise the object as an integral whole unified in all its diverse manifestations, as an organic system of mutually conditioning phenomena in contradiction to a metaphysical conception of it as a mechanical agglomeration of immutable constituent parts that are linked with each other only externally, more or less accidentally.

The most important aspect of Marx's definition of the concrete is that the concrete is treated first of all as an objective characteristic of a thing considered quite independently from any evolutions that may take place in the cognising subject. The object is concrete by and in itself, independent from its being conceived by thought or perceived by sense organs. Concreteness is not created in the process of reflection of the object by the subject either at the sensual stage of reflection or at the rational-logical one.

In other words, 'the concrete' is first of all the same kind of objective category as any other category of materialist dialectics, as 'the necessary' and 'the accidental', 'essence, and 'appearance'. It expresses a universal form of development of nature, society, and thinking. In the system of Marx's views, 'the concrete' is by no means a synonym for the sensually given, immediately contemplated.

Insofar as 'the concrete' is opposed to 'the abstract' the latter is treated by Marx first and foremost objectively. For Marx, it is by no means a synonym of the 'purely ideal', of a product of mental activity, a synonym of the subjectively psychological phenomenon occurring in man's brain only. Time and again Marx uses this term to characterise real phenomena and relations existing outside consciousness, irrespective of whether they are reflected in consciousness or not.

For instance, Marx speaks in Capital of abstract labour. Abstractness appears here as an objective characteristic of the form which human labour assumes in developed commodity production, in capitalist production. Elsewhere he stresses that the reduction of different kinds of labour to uniform simple labour devoid of any distinctions 'is an abstraction which is made every day in the social process of production'. It is 'no less real (an abstraction) than the resolution of all organic bodies into air'. [Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy]

The definition of gold as material being of abstract wealth also expresses its specific function in the organism of the capitalist formation and not in the consciousness of the theoretician or practical worker, by any means.

This use of the term 'abstract' is not a terminological whim of Marx's at all: it is linked with the very essence of his logical views, with the dialectical interpretation of the relation of forms of thinking and those of objective reality, with the view of practice (sensual activity involving objects) as a criterion of the truth of the abstractions of thought.

Still less can this usage be explained as 'a throwback to Hegelianism': it is against Hegel that Marx's proposition is directed to the effect that 'the simplest economic category, e.g., exchange value ... cannot exist except as an abstract, unilateral relation of an already existing concrete organic whole '. [ ibid.]

'The abstract' in this kind of context, very frequent in Marx, assumes the meaning of the 'simple', undeveloped, one-sided, fragmentary, 'pure' (i.e., uncomplicated) by any deforming influences). It goes without saying that 'the abstract' in this sense can be an objective characteristic of real phenomena, and not only of phenomena of consciousness.

'It is precisely the predominance of agricultural peoples in the ancient world which caused the merchant nations - Phoenicians, Carthaginians - to develop in such purity (abstract precision)' [ ibid.]; it was not, of course, the result of predominance of the 'abstractive power of thought' of Phoenicians or the scholars writing the history of Phoenicia. 'The abstract' in this sense is by no means the product and result of thinking. This fact is just as little dependent on thinking as the circumstance that 'the abstract law of multiplying exists only for plants and animals'.

According to Marx, 'the abstract' (just as its counterpart, 'the concrete') is a category of dialectics as the science of universal forms of development of nature, society and thought, and on this basis also a category of logic, for dialectics is also the Logic of Marxism.

This objective interpretation of the category of the abstract is spearheaded against all kinds of neo-Kantian logic and epistemology which oppose, in a crudely metaphysical way, 'pure forms of thought' to forms of objective reality. For these schools in logic, 'the abstract' is only a form of thought, whereas 'the concrete', a form of a sensually given image. This interpretation, in the Mill-Humean and Kantian traditions in logic (e.g., Chelpanov and Vvedensky in Russia), is alien and hostile to the very essence of dialectics as logic and theory of knowledge.

The narrow epistemological (that is, essentially psychological, in the final analysis) interpretation of the categories of the abstract and the concrete became firmly rooted in modern bourgeois philosophy. Here is a fresh example - definitions from the Philosophical Dictionary by Max Apel and Peter Ludz [Berlin 1958]:

' abstract: divorced from a given connection and considered by itself only. Thus abstract acquires the meaning of conceptual, conceived, in opposition to given in contemplation.

'abstraction: the logical process for ascending, through omission of features, from that given in contemplation to a general notion and from the given concept to a more general one. Abstraction decreases the content and extends the volume. Opposed to determination.

'concrete: the immediately given in contemplation; concrete concepts denote that which is contemplated, individual objects of contemplation. Opposed to abstract.'

This one-sided definition (abstraction is, of course, mental separation, among other things, but it is by no means reducible to it) varies but insignificantly from dictionary to dictionary. It has been polished in dozens of editions and has become generally accepted among philosophers in capitalist countries. That is certainly no proof of its correctness.

A 'concrete concept' is reduced by these definitions to 'designating' the sensually contemplated individual things, to a mere sign, or symbol. In other words, 'the concrete' is only nominally present in thought, only in the capacity of the 'designating name'. On the other hand, .'the concrete' is made into a synonym of uninterpreted, indefinite 'sensual givenness'. Neither the concrete nor the abstract can, according to these definitions, be used as characteristics of theoretical knowledge in regard of its real objective content. They characterise only the 'form of cognition': 'the concrete', the form of sensual cognition, and 'the abstract', the form of thought, the form of rational cognition. In other words, they belong to different spheres of the psyche, to different objects. There is nothing abstract where there is something concrete, and vice versa. That is all there is to these definitions.

The problem of the relation of the abstract to the concrete appears in quite a different light from Marx's point of view, the point of view of dialectics as logic and theory of knowledge.

It is only at first sight that this question might seem a), merely 'epistemological' one, a question of the relation of', a mental abstraction to the sensually perceived image. In; actual fact its real content is much wider and deeper than.' that, and it is inevitably supplanted by quite a different problem in the course of analysis - the problem of the relation of the object to itself, that is, relationship between different elements within a certain concrete whole. That is why the problem is solved, first and foremost, within the framework of objective dialectics - the teaching of the universal forms and laws of development of nature, society and thought itself, and not on the narrow epistemological plane, as neo-Kantians and positivists do.

Insofar as Marx treats the epistemological aspect of the problem, he interprets the abstract as any one-sided, incomplete, lopsided reflection of the object in consciousness, as opposed to concrete knowledge which is well developed, all-round, comprehensive knowledge. It does not matter at all in what subjective psychological form this knowledge is 'experienced' by the subject - in sensually perceived images or in abstract verbal form. The logic (dialectics) of Marx and Lenin establishes its distinctions in regard of the objective sense and meaning of knowledge rather than in regard of the subjective form of experience. Poor, meagre, lopsided knowledge may be assimilated in the form of a sensual image. In this case, logic will have to define it as 'abstract' knowledge, despite its being embodied in a sensually given image. Contrariwise, abstract verbal form, the language of formulas, may express rich, well-developed, profound and comprehensive knowledge, that is, concrete knowledge.

'Concreteness' is neither a synonym for nor a privilege of the sensual-image form of reflection of reality in consciousness, just as 'abstractness' is not a specific characteristic of rational theoretical knowledge. Certainly we speak, as often as not, of the concreteness of a sensual image and of abstract thought.

A sensual image, an image of contemplation, may just as often be very abstract, too. Suffice it to remember a geometric figure or a work of abstract painting. And vice versa, thinking in concepts may and even must be concrete in the full and strict meaning of the word. We know that there is no abstract truth, that truth is always concrete. And that does not mean at all that only the sensually perceived image, the contemplation of an individual thing may be true.

The concrete in thinking also appears, according to Marx's definition, in the form of combination (synthesis) of numerous definitions. A logically coherent system of definitions is precisely that 'natural' form in which concrete truth is realised in thought. Each of the definitions forming part of the system naturally reflects only a part, a fragment, an element, an aspect of the concrete reality - and that is why it is abstract if taken by itself, separately from other definitions. In other words, the concrete is realised in thinking through the abstract, through its own opposite, and it is impossible without it. But that is, in general, the rule rather than an exception in dialectics. Necessity is in just the same kind of relation with chance, essence with appearance, and so on.

On the other hand, each of the numerous definitions forming part of the conceptual system of a concrete science, loses its abstract character in it, being filled with the sense and meaning of all the other definitions connected with it. Separate abstract definitions mutually complement each other, so that the abstractness of each of them, taken separately, is overcome. In short, herein lies the dialectics of the relation of the abstract to the concrete in thinking which reflects the concrete in reality. The dialectics of the abstract and the concrete in the course of theoretical processing of the material of living contemplation, in processing the results of contemplation and notions in terms of concepts is the subject-matter of study in the present work.

Of course, we cannot claim to offer an exhaustive solution to the problem of the abstract and the concrete at all the stages of the process of cognition in general, in all forms of reflection. The formation of the sensually perceived image of a thing involves its own dialectics of the abstract and the concrete, and a very complicated one, and that is even more true of the formation of the notion connected with speech, with words. Memory, which also plays an enormous role in cognition, contains in its structure a no less complex relation of the abstract to the concrete. These categories also have a bearing on artistic creativity. We are compelled to leave all of these aspects out of consideration, as subject-matter of a special study.

The path of cognition loading from living contemplation to abstract thought and from it to practice, is a very complicated path. A complex and dialectically contradictory transformation of the concrete into the abstract and vice versa takes place in each link of this path. Even sensation gives a rougher picture of reality than it actually is, even in direct perception there is an element of transition from the concrete in reality to the abstract in consciousness. The transition from living contemplation to abstract thought is by no means the same thing as the movement 'from the concrete to the abstract'. It is by no means reducible to this moment, although the latter is always present in it. It is the same thing only for those who interpret the concrete as a synonym of an immediate sensual image, and the abstract, as a synonym of the mental, the ideal, the conceptual.

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Soviet Psychology: Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete by Evald Ilyenkov

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Evald Ilyenkov’s study of Marx’s Capital and the dialectical use of concepts

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Evald Vasilievich Ilienkov 3. A Definição do Concreto em Marx Marx define o concreto como "a unidade da diversidade". Essa definição pode parecer paradoxal a partir da perspectiva da lógica formal tradicional: a redução da diversidade sensorialmente determinada na unidade aparece, à primeira vista, sendo a tarefa do conhecimento abstrato das coisas, ao invés do conhecimento concreto.

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Soviet Psychology: Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete by Evald Ilyenkov

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Ilyenkov
The dialectics of the Abstract & the Concrete in Marx's Capital
Chapter One - Dialectical & Metaphysical Conception of the Concrete

The Concept of Man and Some Conclusions from its Analysis

Let us now consider the concept of man in the light of the above. What is man? At first sight, the question appears to be ridiculously simple. Each of us links up quite a definite notion with this word, easily distinguishing man from any other being or object on the basis of this notion. From the standpoint of pre-Marxian logic that means that every individual of common sense possesses the concept of man, However, no other concept, it seems, has occasioned more, acrimonious debate among philosophers than this one.

According to the metaphysical (anti-dialectical) view it is not difficult to define this concept, just as any other. For this purpose one should abstract that general element that is equally inherent in every individual representative of the human race but not in any other beings.

An attempt to carry out this recommendation, however, immediately runs into a number of difficulties of fundamental philosophical significance. It turns exit that before making such an abstraction, on(, has to decide first of all what living beings could be included in the human race and what could not. Considerations that are by no means of formal nature immediately come into play fierce. For instance, Aristotle did not take slaves into account ill working exit his famous definition of man as a 'political being'. Slaves were included into a different 'genus', namely that of 'instruments', albeit 'speaking' ones. For Aristotle as an ideologue of his own class, only the activity of a free citizen was 'genuinely human'.

Elementary analysis of the concept of man discloses at once that it is bound by a thousand ties to the existence and struggle of classes and their worldviews and to a definite interpretation of humanism that has never been non-partisan or purely academic.

The bourgeois system, asserting itself in the struggle against feudal law, proved its advantages by insisting that it was the only structure to conform to the genuine nature of man, while feudalism was based on distorted and false preconceptions of his nature. The ideologists of contemporary imperialism endeavour to prove that socialism is incompatible with 'the demands of human nature' only to be satisfied under the 'free enterprise' system.

Let us analyse in this connection the situation depicted in a novel by Vercors, a progressive French author. In a generalised, acute, and witty form, the novel outlines the typical views of man conflicting in the modern world. The plot is as follows. A community of strange creatures is discovered ill a remote part of tropical forest. According to some criteria current in modern science these are anthropoid apes, according to others, they are men. One thing is clear: it is an extraordinary previously unknown transitional form between the animal, biological world and the human, social world. The whole question is whether they have made the step across that hardly perceptible boundary that separates man from animal, or not.

That is seemingly a purely academic question with which only a specialist in biology or anthropology may be concerned. In these days, however, there are no purely academic questions, and neither can there be. The tropi (as the creatures invented by the author are called) very soon become, the centre of conflicts of diverse interests and therefore o different viewpoint. An abstract theoretical question, 'Are these men or animals?' demands a definite and quite concrete answer. The main protagonist of the novel consciously kills one of these beings. If tropi are men, then he is a murderer who will have to be executed. If they are animals, there is no corpus delicti. The same question torments the, old clergyman. If tropi are men, he is obliged to save their souls, to perform the rite of baptism. But supposing these are merely animals? In that case he risks a repetition of the sacrilege of St Maël who, being purblind, baptised penguins. Another powerful interest is that of an industrial company that sees the tropi as ideal labour force. Trained animals that know neither trade unions nor class struggle nor needs above the physiological ones - what can be better from the point of view of a capitalist?

The company on whose territory the tropi are discovered tries to prove that these are animals constituting the company's private property. The debate about the nature of the tropi involves hundreds of men, dozens of theories and doctrines, its scope gets wider and the problem itself more and more entangled, the whole thing growing into a debate about quite different objects and values. The characters of the novel are compelled to ponder the criterion for solving the question in a rigorous and unambiguous manner. This proves to be a more difficult task than might seem at first sight.

If preference is given to a certain 'property of man', the tropi are included in the category of men, and if another one is preferred, they are not. Working out a series of such features does not help either, for in this case the question arises as to the number of such features, and the difficulty remains the same. By increasing the number of men's properties, including in this number those which the tropi do not have, one automatically leaves the tropi outside the human race. By paring down the number of features, leaving only those that both the previously known men and the tropi have, one obtains a definition which includes the tropi in the family of men. The thinking gets into the rut of a vicious circle: to define the nature of the tropi, one has to have a previous definition of man. But one cannot define man unless one has decided beforehand whether one will include the tropi as a species of the homo sapiens or not.

Besides, interpretation of each of the features immediately leads to explosive debate. What is one to understand by thinking? How is one to interpret speech? How is one to define labour? And so on and so forth. In one sense of these concepts, the tropi possess both thinking and speech, while in a different sense they do not. In other words, on each attribute of man the same kind of debate flares up as regards the concept of man itself. There is no visible end to the debate, it reaches the sphere of the most general philosophical concepts only to flare up with greater force and fury.

The debate becomes particularly acute when it touches on the subject of which of the modes of life activity should be regarded as 'genuinely human', what organisation of life 'conforms with man's nature', and wherein lies this 'nature'?

All attempts to establish that 'general and essential feature' that would permit to distinguish strictly between man and non-man, again and again run into an ancient difficulty. Such a feature may only be defined if a boundary between man and his nearest animal forebears is previously drawn; but how is one to draw this boundary line unless one has in one's head that very 'general feature' which has to be determined? It is not difficult to tell very cold water from very hot; bait what about warm water? One stone does not make a heap, and neither do two stones. How many stones does one need to make a heap? Where is the point at which a balding man becomes bald? Does such a clear-cut boundary exist at all? Isn't it simply an arbitrary imaginary line drawn for the sake of convenience of classification only? In that case, where should it lie? It will be drawn where the powers that be will want to draw it-that is the conviction to which the hero of the novel comes. Indeed, the subjective idealist doctrines (pragmatism, instrumentalism, etc.) hand over the solution of this question to the powers that be. ]'heir voice becomes the criterion of truth; everything is made dependent on their will and caprice. All the misfortunes of this world stem from the fact that men have not grasped yet what man is, and they have not agreed about what they would like him to be-that is the way the protagonist of the novel philosophises.

Having found from practical experience that the general and essential feature of man is not so easy to discover as might appear at first sight, the heroes of the novel are compelled to look for a solution in philosophical and sociological conceptions. But where is one to find the criterion of the truth of the latter? Here it all begins from the beginning. Vercors and his heroes are familiar with Marxist answer to this question. Yet it appears 'one-sided' to them. Vercors believes that a conception proceeding from 'the real relations of men in material production' ignores 'other forms of human solidarity', first of all 'ritual philosophy': 'there are many tribes in the world whose human solidarity is built on hunting, wars, or fetishist rituals rather than on material production'; 'the strongest tie now binding 300 million Hindus is their ritual philosophy rather than their backward agriculture'. The heroes of the novel vacillate, at the author's will, between the Marxist and the idealist Christian definition of the general and essential criterion of the human being, daring to accept neither. They are looking for a third one, that would reconcile dialectical materialism and Christianity.

'Each man is a man first and foremost, and only then is he a follower of Plato, Christ, or Marx,' wrote Vercors in the afterward to the Russian edition of the book. 'In my view it is much more important to show the way in which points of contact may be found between Marxism and Christianity proceeding from such a criterion, than to emphasise as such regardless of their differences.' The essence of man the ideological differences, does not lie in adherence to some doctrine or other. But wherein does it lie? In the fact that ,man is first and foremost ... man'. That is the only answer that Vercors was able to oppose to the 'one-sided' view of dialectical materialism. But this kind of 'answer' takes us back to the starting point - to a simple name unendowed with any definite content. To move away from the tautology, one will have to take up the line of reasoning from the very beginning.

The position so vividly and wittily outlined by Vercors expresses very well the attitudes of those sections of Western intellectuals who struggle agonisingly with the burning issues of our times yet have not solved so far the problem for themselves - where lie the ways of redeeming the noble ideals of humanism? They see clearly that capitalism is innately hostile to these ideals. Yet they do not dare to take up communism for fear of losing in it 'independence of thinking', the sham 'privileges of the thinking part of mankind'. While this part of mankind agonises over the choice between these two real poles of the modern world, any uncomplicated theoretical question grows out of any proportion into a most intricate and completely insoluble problem, while attempts to solve it with the aid of the most sophisticated instruments of formal logic ultimately lead to a tautology: A = A, man is man. Nothing else can result from a search for a definition of man through establishing the abstractly identical property which each individual representative of present-day mankind possesses. Logic based on this kind of axiom is absolutely powerless to do anything here. The essence of man to be expressed in the universal definition is by no means an abstraction inherent in each individual, it is not the identical feature which each individual representative of the human race taken separately possesses. A universal definition of man cannot be obtained on this path. here one needs a different kind of logic, a logic based on the dialectical materialist conception of the relationship between the universal and the individual. This essence is impossible to discover in a series of abstract features inherent in every individual. The universal cannot be found here however hard one might look for it. The search along this path is fruitless also in the case when it is assisted by most sophisticated logic. An excellent illustration of this point is to be found in Dialectic, by Gustav E. Mueller, an American philosopher. Judging from the book, the author has learnt something from Hegel. He even assimilated the Hegelian propositions oil the interpenetration of opposites, on the role of contradictions in the development of scientific theses, on the relation of consciousness to self-consciousness, and many other things. However, all this formal dialectical erudition runs idle, resulting in vacuity.

'Man could not know what man is, could he not identity man with himself; yet equally man could have no experience of man, if he could not differentiate himself from what he experiences of himself.' [1953] A series of 'identifications' and 'differentiations' which Mueller's man carries out within himself according to the rules of formal dialectical schemes bring him to constructions so unintelligible and involved that their creator cannot untangle them himself. The end result of this pseudo-dialectical logic is as follows: man is so complicated and contradictory a being that the more you study him, the less you can hope to understand him. The only 'general feature' that Mueller manages to isolate in the intricate complexity of interacting individuals ultimately proves to be the 'power of reflection' and 'love for reflection'. 'His true humanity lies in this power of reflection... And the better the self thus knows itself, the more questionable and uncertain it appears. To embrace in the questionable individual the absolute, is what Plato calls Eros, love. Man's true self is Love.' [ ibid.]

One would be hard put to it to discern here the 'power of reflection'. Powerlessness is much more in evidence. Man's essence certainly has nothing to do with this. What is expressed here is merely the essence of a philosopher and his love for contemplating the way he contemplates. Reproaching Mueller himself for all this is both unkind and useless. The impotence of his thought is first of all to be blamed on the conditions that create such a one-sided and abstract psychology-the psychology of an intellectual completely divorced from the real life and struggle of the masses, the psychology of the man who contemplates only the manner in which he contemplates. If Mueller sees this contemplation of contemplation as 'true humanity', it is easy to appreciate his position: after all, one must have some consolation. However, real humanity, the working and fighting humanity, will hardly agree to its essence being identified with the individuality of a personalist philosopher nurturing in solitude his love for impotent contemplation and contemplation about this impotent love.

The essence of modern humanity, and thereby a universal definition of man, is of course a subject-matter worthy of the closest attention of a philosopher. A clear view of the world is the first and necessary premise for approaching this problem correctly. But one also needs a more developed logic than that which suggests that the solution lies in searching for the 'general and essential property' inherent in all the individual representatives of modern mankind taken separately and reducing the universal to the merely identical. Such logic cannot yield anything but empty tautologies. Besides, the abstract motto, 'Look for the general, and thou shalt find the knowledge of the essence', gives a free hand to arbitrariness and subjectivism in delimiting the range of facts from which the general is abstracted.

All of this is evidence of the fact that the links between logic and worldview are integral ones, just as those between the operations of generalisation and a definite party position in life and philosophy. A most sophisticated system of formal rules for generalisation will not ensure true generalisation unless it is combined with a clear and progressive worldview principle.

And another thing is no less true. A progressive worldview cannot be mechanically combined with a logic that posits its neutrality with regard to any worldview as a virtue, restricting itself to working out such abstract rules as may be employed this way and that, depending on the irrationally emotional bias for some worldview or other.

The Marxist-Leninist world-view is based on a scientifically worked out conception of facts rather than on ethical postulates. It is logical through and through. However, the logic with the aid of which this worldview has been worked out also contains within itself, in its own propositions, rather than somewhere outside, a certain worldview principle. The warmest emotional attachment to the working class and communist ideals will not redeem a theoretician if he employs the ancient purely formal logic with its claim to 'non-partisanship'. Such a theoretician will never arrive at correct conclusions and generalisations.

In his theses on Feuerbach Marx opposed his dialectical materialist conception of the essence of man to all previous attempts to define this much talked-of essence, saying that 'the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual'. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations'. [Theses on Feuerbach]. This expresses not only a world-view, sociological truth but also a profound logical tenet or principle, one of the most important propositions of dialectical logic. It is easy to see that this proposition assumes a conception of the categories of the abstract, the concrete, the universal, and the individual quite different from the one on which old, non-dialectical logic was based. Translated into the language of logic, this proposition means: it is useless to look for universal definitions of the essence of a genus through abstraction of the identical property possessed by each individual representative of this genus.

An expression of the essence of a genus is not to be found in a series of 'abstractions', hard as one might try, for it is not contained in this series.

The essence of human nature in general, and thereby the genuine human nature of each man, can only be revealed through quite a concrete study of the 'ensemble of the social relations', through a concrete analysis of those laws which govern the birth and development of human society as a whole and of each human individual.

Human society is a most typical case of concrete community, and the relation of a human individual to society is a characteristic instance of the relation of the individual to the universal. The dialectical nature of this relation appears here in sharp relief, while the question of the relation of the abstract to the concrete is closely interwoven with the problem of the relation of the universal to the particular and the individual.

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Soviet Psychology: Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete by Evald Ilyenkov

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Ilyenkov The dialectics of the Abstract & the Concrete in Marx's CapitalChapter One - Dialectical & Metaphysical Conception of the Concrete Let us now consider the concept of man in the light of the above. What is man? At first sight, the question appears to be ridiculously simple.

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Soviet Psychology: Lev Vygotsky's The Crisis in Psychology

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Soviet Psychology: Lev Vygotsky's The Crisis in Psychology

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Written: 1927; Source: The Collected Works of Vygotsky; Publisher: Plenum Press, 1987; Translated: translated Rene Van Der Veer; Transcribed: Andy Blunden; HTML Markup: Andy Blunden.

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O significado histórico da crise na psicologia: uma investigação metodológica

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Lev Vygotsky

1927

Primeira Edição: ....

Fonte: As obras escolhidas de Vygotsky; Editora: Plenum Press, 1987.

Tradução: Reinaldo Pedreira Cerqueira da Silva

Direitos de Reprodução: licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons.

"Quando misturamos o problema epistemológico com o problema ontológico , introduzindo na psicologia não toda a argumentação, mas seus resultados finais, isso leva à distorção de ambos . Na Rússia, o subjetivo é identificado com o mental e depois fica provado que o mental não pode ser objetivo. A consciência epistemológica como parte da antinomia "sujeito-objeto" é confundida com a consciência psicológica e empírica e então é afirmado que a consciência não pode ser material, que assumir isso seria o Machismo. E como resultado, termina-se com o neoplatonismo, no sentido de essências infalíveis para as quais o ser e o fenômeno coincidem. Eles fogem do idealismo apenas para mergulhar nele." Duas Psicologias.

"A história é uma ciência sobre o passado, reconstruída por seus traços e não uma ciência sobre os traços do passado." [Capítulo 8]

Índice

Capítulo 1 - A Natureza da Crise
Capítulo 2 - Nossa Abordagem
Capítulo 3 - O Desenvolvimento das Ciências
Capítulo 4 - Tendências Atuais da Psicologia
Capítulo 5 - Da Generalização à Explicação
Capítulo 6 - As Tendências Objetivas no desenvolvimento de uma Ciência
Capítulo 7 - O Inconsciente . A fusão de teorias díspares
Capítulo 8 - A hipótese biogenética. Empréstimos das ciências naturais
Capítulo 9 - Sobre Linguagem Científica
Capítulo 10 - Interpretações da Crise na Psicologia e seu Significado
Capítulo 11 - Falência da ideia de criar uma psicologia empírica
Capítulo 12 - As Forças Condutoras da Crise
Capítulo 13 - Duas Psicologias
Capítulo 14 - Conclusão
Início da página

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O significado histórico da crise na psicologia: uma investigação metodológica

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Primeira Edição: .... Fonte: As obras escolhidas de Vygotsky; Editora: Plenum Press, 1987. Tradução: Reinaldo Pedreira Cerqueira da Silva Direitos de Reprodução: licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons. "Quando misturamos o problema epistemológico com o problema ontológico , introduzindo na psicologia não toda a argumentação, mas seus resultados finais, isso leva à distorção de ambos .

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Lev Vygotsky 1930

Source: Vygotsky Reader, edited by René van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner, Blackwell, 1994;
First Published: as Vygotsky, L. 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

Scientific psychology has established as its basic thesis the fact that the modern psychological human type is a product of two evolutionary lines. On the one hand, this modern type of human being developed in a lengthy process of biological evolution from which the biological species homo sapiens has arisen, with all its inherent characteristics from the point of view of body structure, the functions of various organs and certain types of reflexes and instinctive activity, which have become hereditarily fixed and which are passed on from generation to generation.

But together with the beginning of social and historical human life and the fundamental changes in the conditions to which he had to adapt himself, the very character of the subsequent course of human evolution also changed very radically. As far as one is able to judge on the basis of the available factual material, which has been obtained mainly by comparing biological types of primitive peoples at the most primitive stages of their cultural development with representatives of the most culturally advanced races, as far as this question can be resolved by contemporary psychological theory, there are strong reasons to suppose that the biological human type has changed remarkably little during the course of the historical development of man. It is not, of course, that biological evolution has come to a stop and that the species 'man' is a stable, unchangeable, constant quantity, but rather that the basic laws and the essential factors which direct the process of biological evolution have receded to the background and have either completely fallen away or have become a reduced or sub-dominant part of new and more complex laws governing human social development.

Indeed, the struggle for existence and natural selection, the two driving forces of biological evolution within the animal world, lose their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical development of man. New laws, which regulate the course of human history and which cover the entire process of the material and mental development of human society, now take their place.

As an individual only exists as a social being, as a member of some social group within whose context he follows the road of his historical development, the composition of his personality and the structure of his behaviour turn out to be a quantity which is dependent on social evolution and whose main aspects are determined by the latter. Already in primitive societies, which are only just taking their first steps along the road of their historical development, the entire psychological makeup of individuals can be seen to depend directly on the development of technology, the degree of development of the production forces and on the structure of that social group to which the individual belongs. Research in the field of ethnic psychology has provided incontrovertible proof that both of these factors, whose intrinsic interdependence has been established by the theory of historical materialism, are the decisive factors of the whole psychology of primitive man.

Nowhere else, according to Plekhanov, does that dependence of consciousness on the way of life manifest itself in a more obvious and direct manner as it does in the life of primitive man. This is due to the fact that the factors which mediate between technological and psychological progress are very meagre and primitive and this is the reason why this dependence can be observed almost in the raw. But a much more complicated relationship between these two factors can be observed in a highly developed society which has acquired a complex class structure. Here the influence of the basis on the psychological superstructure of man turns out to be not direct, but mediated by a large number of very complex material and spiritual factors. But even here, the basic law of historical human development, which proclaims that human beings are created by the society in which they live and that it represents the determining factor in the formation of their personalities, remains in force.

In the same way as the life of a society does not represent a single and uniform whole, and society is subdivided into different classes, so, during any given historical period, the composition of human personalities cannot be said to represent something homogeneous and uniform, and psychology must take into account the basic fact that the general thesis which has been formulated just now, can have only one direct conclusion, to confirm the class character, class nature and class distinctions which are responsible for the formation of human types. The various internal contradictions which are to be found in different social systems find their expression both in the type of personality and in the structure of human psychology in that historical period.

In his classic descriptions of the early period of capitalism, Marx frequently dwells on the subject of the corruption of the human personality which is brought about by the growth of capitalist industrial society. On one extreme end of society, the division between intellectual and physical labour, the separation between town and country, the ruthless exploitation of child and female labour, poverty and the impossibility of a free and full development of full human potential, and on the other extreme, idleness and luxury; not only does all this result in the single human type becoming differentiated and fragmented into several separate social class types which stand in sharp contrast to one another, but also in the corruption and distortion of the human personality and its subjection to unsuitable, one-sided development within all these different variants of the human type.

'Along with the division of labour', says Engels, 'man himself became subdivided.' According to Ryazanov, 'every form of material production specifies some social division of labour, and this is responsible for the spiritual division of labour. Beginning already with the corruption of primitive society, we can observe selection of a number of spiritual and organizational functions into special species and subspecies within the scheme of the social division of labour'. Engels further says:

"Already the very first major division of labour, the division of town from country, sentenced the rural population to millennia of mental torpor, and the city dwellers to enslavement, each by his particular work. It destroyed the basis for spiritual development for the former, or physical development for the latter. If a peasant is master of his land and the craftsman of his craft, then in no lesser degree the land rules over the peasant and the craft over the craftsman. The division of labour has caused man himself to become subdivided. All remaining physical and spiritual faculties are sacrificed for the sake of developing just one type of activity.

"This degeneration of man increases at the same rate as the division of labour, which reaches its highest level in manufacture. Manufacture breaks up craftsmanship into fractional operations and assigns each of them to a separate worker as his life vocation and chains him down to a specific fractional operation, to a specific tool of labour for the rest of his life ...

"And it is not only workers, but also the classes who exploit them directly or indirectly, who become enslaved by the instruments of their activities, as a result of the division of labour: the petty bourgeois, by his capital and desire for profit; the lawyer by his ossified juridical ideas which rule over him like an independent force; 'the educated classes' in general, by their particular local limitations and one-sidedness, their physical shortcomings and spiritual myopia. They are crippled by their education which trains them for a certain speciality, by their lifelong enslavery to this speciality, even if this speciality is doing nothing at all."

This is what Engels wrote in 'Anti-Dühring'. We have to proceed from the basic assumption that intellectual production is determined by the form of material production.

"So, for example, a different form of spiritual production than the type which was prevalent during the Middle Ages fits in with capitalism. Each historically defined form of material production has its corresponding form of spiritual production, and this, in its turn, signifies that human psychology, which is the direct instrument of this intellectual production, assumes its specific form at a certain stage of development."

This crippling of human beings, this one-sided and distorted development of his various capabilities which Engels describes, and which appeared together with the division of town and country, is growing at an enormous rate due to the influence of the technological division of labour. Engels writes:

"All the knowledge, the insight and the will which both the independent peasant and craftsman develop albeit on a small scale, like the savage who makes the whole art of war consist of the exercise of his personal cunning - these faculties are now required only for the workshop as a whole. The intellectual potencies of production make them expand in one direction, because they vanish in many others. What is lost by the detail labourers [' teilarbeiter'] is concentrated in the capital that employs them. It is as a result of the division of labour in manufacture that the labourer is brought face to face with the intellectual potencies of the material process of production, as the property of another, and as a ruling power. This process of separation begins in simple co-operation, where the capitalist represents to the single workman the oneness and the will of the social labour [' Arbeitskörpers ']. It is developed in manufacture which cripples the labourer into a detail labourer. It is completed in large scale industry, which separates science as a productive potential from labour and presses it into the service of capital."

As a result of the advance of capitalism, the development of material production simultaneously brought with it the progressive division of labour and the constantly growing distorted development of the human potential. If 'in manufacture and manual labour the worker makes use of his tools, then in a factory he becomes the servant of the machine'. Marx says that in the former case he initiates the movement of his tool, but here he is forced to follow its movement. The workers turn into 'living extensions of machines', and what results is a 'dismal monotony of the endless torment of labour', which Marx [1890/1962, p. 445] says is the characteristic feature of that period in the development of capitalism which he is describing. He is tethered to a specific function, and according to Marx [ ibid, p. 381], this turns him 'from a worker into an abnormality and artificially [' treibhausmäsig '] fosters him in just one special skill whilst suppressing all the remaining wealth of his productive inclinations and talents'.

In our times, child labour represents a particularly horrifying example of the disfigurement of human psychological development. In the pursuit of cheap labour and due to the extreme simplification of the separate functions which the workers have to carry out, large scale recruitment of children becomes possible and this results in a retarded, or a wholly one-sided and distorted development occurring at the most impressionable age when the personality of the person is being formed. Marx's classic research is full of examples of 'intellectual barrenness', 'physical and intellectual degradation', 'transformation of immature human beings into machines for the production of surplus value' [ ibid., pp. 421-2], and he presents [ ibid., p. 514] a vivid picture of the whole process which results in a situation where 'the worker exists for the sake of the production process, and not the production process for the sake of the worker'.

However, all these negative factors do not give a full picture of how the process of human development is influenced by the speedy growth of industry. All these adverse influences are not inherent in large scale industry as such, but in its capitalist organization, which is based on the exploitation of enormous masses of the population and which has resulted in a situation where, instead of every new step toward the conquest of nature by human beings, every new level in the development of the production forces of the society, has not just failed to raise humanity as a whole and each individual human personality to a higher level, but has led to an ever deeper degradation of the human personality and its growth potential.

Whilst observing the crippling effects of the process of progressing civilization upon human beings, philosophers like Rousseau and Tolstoy could not see any other solution than a return to the integral and pure human nature. According to Tolstoy, our ideal is not ahead of us but behind us. In this sense, from the point of view of this reactionary romanticism, the primitive periods of the development of human society appear as that ideal toward which humanity should be striving. And really, a deeper analysis of the economic and historical tendencies which regulate the development of capitalism, shows that this crippling process of human nature which was discussed above, is inherent not only in the very fact of the growth of large scale industry, but in the society's specific capitalist form of organization.

The most fundamental and important contradiction in this whole social structure consists of the fact that within it, under relentless pressure, forces are evolving and preconditions are being created for its destruction and replacement with a new order, which is based on the absence of man's exploitation of man. More than once, Marx demonstrates how labour by itself or large scale industry by itself does not necessarily have to cripple human nature, as a follower of Rousseau or Tolstoy would assume, but, on the contrary, it contains within itself endless possibilities for the development of the human personality.

He says, 'As can be ascertained from the particulars given by Robert Owen, a seed of a future educational system has grown, which will combine productive labour with schooling and physical education for all children above a certain age, not only as a method of increasing social production, but as the only method of producing well rounded educated human beings' [ ibid., pp. 507-8]. So the participation of children in manufacturing, which under the capitalist system, particularly during the period of growth of capitalism described, is the source of physical and intellectual degradation, contains seeds for a future educational system in itself and may well turn out to be a higher form of creation of a new type of human being. The growth of large scale industry in itself makes it necessary to work out a new type of human labour and a new type of human being who would be capable of carrying out these new forms of work. 'The nature of large scale industry stipulates a changing work; a continual changing of functions and an all-round mobility for the worker', says Marx. 'The individual who has been turned into a fraction, the simple bearer of a fractional social function, would be replaced by a fully developed individual for whom the various social functions represent alternating forms of his activities' [ ibid., pp. 511-12].

So it appears that not only will the combination of manufacturing labour with education prove to be a means of creating all-round developed people, but that it will also mean that the type of person who will be required to work in this highly developed manufacturing process, will differ substantially from the type of person used to be the product of production work during the early period of capitalist development. In this respect the end of the capitalist period presents a striking antithesis to its beginning. If in the beginning the individual was transformed into a fraction, into the executor of a fractional function, into a live extension of the machine, then at the end of it, the very requirements of manufacturing require an all-round developed, flexible person, who would be capable of changing the forms of work, and of organizing the production process and controlling it.

No matter which one of the individual features which characterize the human psychological type during either the early or the late periods of the development of capitalism we select, everywhere we will encounter a double meaning and a double character of each critical feature. The source of the degradation of the personality in the capitalist form of manufacturing, also contains within itself the potential for an infinite growth of personality.

To provide an example, let us conclude by examining labour situations where both sexes and all ages have to work together. 'The composition of the whole staff of employees from persons of both sexes and all ages ...', says Marx, 'must, on the contrary, under appropriate circumstances, turn into a source of humane development' [ ibid., p. 514].

From this it can be seen that the growth of large scale industry contains within itself hidden potential for the development of the human personality and that it is only the capitalist form of organization of the industrial process which is responsible for the fact that all these forces exert a one-sided and crippling influence, which retards personal development.

In one of his early works, Marx says that if psychology wishes to become a really meaningful science, it will have to learn to read the history book of material industry which embodies 'the essential powers of man', and which itself is a concrete embodiment of human psychology. As it happens, the whole internal tragedy of capitalism consists in the fact that at the time when this objective, i.e. thing-orientated, psychology of man, which contained within itself infinite potential for mastery over nature and development of his own nature, was growing at a fast pace, his actual spiritual life was degrading and went through the process which Engels so graphically depicts as the crippling of man.

But the essence of this whole matter consists of the fact that this double influence of factors inherent in large scale industry on human personal development, this internal contradiction of the capitalist system, cannot be resolved without the destruction of the capitalist system of organization of industry. In this sense, the partial contradiction which we have already mentioned, between the growing power of man and his degradation which is growing in parallel, between his increasing mastery over nature and freedom on the one hand, and his slavery and the growing dependence on things produced by him, on the other - we wish to reiterate that this contradiction represents only one part of a much more general and all-encompassing contradiction which lies at the base of the whole capitalist system. This general contradiction between the development of the production forces and the social order which was in correspondence with the level of development of these production forces, is being resolved by the socialist revolution and a transition to a new social order and a new form of organization of social relationships.

Alongside this process, a change in the human personality and an alteration of man himself must inevitably take place. This alteration has three basic roots. The first of these consists of the very fact of the destruction of the capitalist forms of organization and production and the forms of human social and spiritual life which will rise on their foundation. Along with the withering away of the capitalist order, all the forces which oppress man and which cause him to become enslaved by machines and which interfere with his free development will also fall away, disappear and be destroyed. Along with the liberation of the many millions of human beings from suppression, will come the liberation of the human personality from its fetters which curb its development. This is the first source - the liberation of man.

The second source from which springs the alteration of man resides in fact that at the same time as the old fetters disappear, an enormous positive potential present in large scale industry, the ever growing power of humans over nature, will be liberated and become operative. All the features discussed above, the most shining example being the entirely new form of creating a future based on the combination of physical and intellectual work, will lose their dual character and will change the course of their influence in a fundamental way. Whereas earlier, their actions were directed against people, now they begin to work for their sake. From their previous role as obstacles, they now turn into powerful moving forces of the development of human personality.

Finally, the third source which initiates the alteration of man is change in the very social relationships between persons. If the relationships between people undergo a change, then along with them the ideas, standards of behaviour, requirements and tastes are also bound to change. As has been ascertained by psychological research, the human personality is formed basically under the influence of social relations, i.e. the system which it is a part of, from the earliest childhood onward. 'My relationship to my environment', says Marx, 'is my consciousness.' A fundamental change of the whole system of these relationships which man is a part of, will also inevitably lead to a change in consciousness, a change in man's whole behaviour.

It is education which should play the central role in the transformation of man this road of conscious social formation of new generations, the basic form to alter the historical human type. New generations and new forms of their education represent the main route which history will follow whilst creating the new type of man. In this sense, the role of social and polytechnical education is extraordinarily important. As it happens, the basic ideas which underpin polytechnical education, consist of an attempt to overcome the division between physical and intellectual work and to reunite thinking and work which have been torn asunder during the process of capitalist development.

According to Marx, polytechnical education provides familiarity with the general scientific principles of all the production processes and, at the same time, it teaches children and adolescents practical skills which makes it possible for them to operate basic tools used in all industries. Krupskaja formulates this idea in the following way:

A polytechnical school can be distinguished from a trade school by the fact that it focuses on the interpretation of work processes, on the development of the ability to unify theory and practice and in the ability to understand the interdependence of certain phenomena, whereas the centre of gravity in a trade school is directed toward providing the pupils with labour skills.

Collectivism, the unification of intellectual and physical labour, a change in the relationships between the sexes, the abolition of the gap between physical and intellectual development, these are the key aspects of that alteration of man which is the subject of our discussion. And the result of achieving this, the crowning glory of this whole process of transforming human nature, should be the appearance of this higher form of human freedom which Marx describes in the following way: 'Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions: only in community therefore, is personal freedom possible.' Just like all human society, the individual personality must make this leap forward from the realm of necessity to the sphere of freedom, as described by Engels.

Whenever the alteration of man and the creation of a new, higher level of human personality and conduct is under discussion, it is inevitable that ideas about a new type of human being connected with Nietzsche's theory of the superman are mentioned. Proceeding from the perfectly true assumption that evolution did not stop with man and that the modern type of human being represents nothing more than a bridge, a transitional form leading to a higher type, that evolution did not exhaust its possibilities when it created man and that the modern type of personality is not the highest achievement and the last word in the process of development, Nietzsche concluded that a new creature can arise during the process of evolution, a superman, who will have the same relation to contemporary man, as contemporary man has to the ape.

However, Nietzsche imagined that the development of this higher type of man was subject to the same law of biological evolution, the struggle for life and selection based on the survival of the fittest, which prevails in the animal world. It is for this reason that the ideal of power, the self assertion of the human personality in all the fullness of its instinctive power and ambition, rugged individualism and outstanding men and women, formed, according to Nietzsche, the road to the creation of a superman.

This theory is erroneous, because it ignores the fact that the laws of historical evolution of man differ fundamentally from the laws of biological evolution and that the basic difference between these two processes consists of the fact that a human being evolves and develops as a historical, social being. Only a raising of all of humanity to a higher level in social life, the liberation of all of humanity, can lead to the formation of a new type of man.

However, this change in human behaviour, this change of the human personality, must inevitably lead to further evolution of man and to the alteration of the biological type of man. Having mastered the processes which determine his own nature, man who is struggling with old age and diseases, undoubtedly will rise to a higher level and transform the very biological organization of human beings. But this is the source of the greatest historical paradox of human development, that this biological transformation of the human type which is mainly achieved through science, social education and the rationalization of the entire way of life, does not represent a prerequisite but instead is a result of the social liberation of man.

In this sense Engels, who had examined the process of evolution from the ape to man, said that it is labour which created man. Proceeding from this, one could say that new forms of labour will create the new man and that this new man will resemble the old kind of man, 'the old Adam', in name only, in the same way as, according to Spinoza's great statement, a dog, the barking animal, resembles the heavenly constellation Dog.

Notes

1 Probably refers to Plekhanov, G. V. 1922: Ocherki po istorii materializma. Moscow.

2 Refers to p. 272 of Engels, F. 1894/1978: Herrn Eugen Duhring's Umwalzung der Wissenschaft [ Anti-Duhring]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

3 It is unclear to which book Vygotsky is referring.

4 Refers to pp. 271-2 of Engels 189411978. See also pp. 381 and 445 of Marx, K. 1890/1962: Das Kapital [ Capital) 4th edn). Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

5 Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter IV §16.

6 A curious mistake. The text attributed to Engels can be found on p. 382 of Marx, K. 1890/1962: Das Kapital [ Capital] (4th edn). Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

7 'We see how the history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of man's essential powers, the perceptibly existing human psychology ... a psychology for which this book, the part of history existing in the most perceptible and accessible form, remains a closed book, cannot become a genuine, comprehensive and real science.' See pp. 302-03 of Marx-Engels Collected Works. Vol, 3: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. New York: International Publishers (1975).

8 Refers to p. 30 of Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1846/1978: Die deutsche Ideologie [ The German Ideology], Berlin: Dietz Verlag. See The German Ideology.

9 Lenin's wife, N. K. Krupskaja, devoted much attention to educational matters. In her book Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe [ Education of the Youth in the Spirit of Lenin] she discussed contemporary international experiments with labour schools (Arbeitsschule) in the light of Marx's ideal of the polytechnic education. See Krupskaja, N. K. 1925/1989: Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe. Moscow: Pedagogika. We haven't been able to establish the exact source of the present citation.

10 See p. 74 of Marx and Engels (1846/1978).

11 See pp. 444-55 of Engels, F. 1925/1978: Dialektik der Natur [ Dialectics of Nature]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

12 One of Vygotsky's favourite quotations from Spinoza's The Ethics. See p. 61 of Spinoza, B. de 1677/1955: On the improvement of the understanding. The ethics. Correspondence. New York: Dover. 'The old Adam' may be an implicit reference to Marx's (1890/1962, p. 118) use of this expression.

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Lev Vygotsky 1930 Source: Vygotsky Reader, edited by René van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner, Blackwell, 1994; First Published: as Vygotsky, L. 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

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Lev Vygotsky: A Tranformação Socialista do Homem

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Lev Vygotsky

1930

Escrito: 1930
Primeira Edição: 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, USSR .
Fonte da presente Tradução: Marxists Internet Archive, english version.
Tradução de: anônimo para o Marxists Internet Archive, Julho de 2004.
HTML por José Braz para o Marxists Internet Archive, Outubro de 2004

A Psicologia científica estabeleceu como sua tese básica o fato que o tipo psicológico do homem moderno é um produto de duas linhas evolutivas. Por um lado, este tipo moderno de ser humano se desenvolveu em um processo prolongado de evolução biológica da qual a espécie homo sapiens surgiu com todas as suas características inerentes do ponto de vista da estrutura corporal, das funções de órgãos diversos e de certos tipos de reflexos e atividades instintivas que foram fixados hereditariamente e que são transmitidos de geração a geração.

Mas, juntamente com o início da vida social e histórica humana e das mudanças fundamentais nas condições às quais ela teve que se adaptar, mudou também, muito radicalmente, o próprio caráter do curso subseqüente da evolução humana. Até onde se pode julgar, com base no material efetivo disponível que foi obtido principalmente comparando os tipos biológicos de povos primitivos às fases mais primitivas de seu desenvolvimento cultural com representantes das raças mais culturalmente avançadas, até onde esta questão pode ser resolvida através de teoria psicológica contemporânea, há razões fortes para supor que o tipo biológico humano mudou notavelmente pouco durante o curso do desenvolvimento histórico do homem. Isto não quer dizer, é claro, que a evolução biológica paralisou-se e que a espécie humana é uma quantidade estável, inalterável, constante, mas sim que as leis fundamentais e os fatores essenciais que dirigem o processo de evolução biológica retrocederam ao plano de fundo e, ou decaíram completamente, ou tornaram-se uma parte reduzida ou sub-dominante das novas e mais complexas leis que governam o desenvolvimento social humano

Realmente, a luta pela sobrevivência e a seleção natural, as duas forças motrizes da evolução biológica no mundo animal, perdem a sua importância decisiva assim que passamos a considerar o desenvolvimento histórico do homem. As novas leis que regulam o curso da história humana e que regem o processo de desenvolvimento material e mental da sociedade humana, agora tomam os seus lugares.

Como um indivíduo só existe como um ser social, como um membro de algum grupo social em cujo contexto ele segue a estrada do desenvolvimento histórico, a composição de sua personalidade e a estrutura de seu comportamento reveste-se de um caráter dependente da evolução social cujos aspectos principais são determinados pelo grupo. Já nas sociedades primitiva, que só há pouco estão dando os seus primeiros passos ao longo da estrada do desenvolvimento histórico, a completa constituição psicológica dos indivíduos pode ser vista como diretamente dependente do desenvolvimento de tecnologia, do grau de desenvolvimento das forças de produção e da estrutura daquele grupo social ao qual o indivíduo pertence. Pesquisas no campo da psicologia étnica forneceram provas incontroversas de que estes fatores, cuja interdependência intrínseca foi estabelecida pela teoria do materialismo histórico, são os componentes decisivos da psicologia integral do homem primitivo.

Em nenhum outro lugar, de acordo com Plekhanov, esta dependência da consciência relativa ao modo de vida manifesta-se de maneira mais óbvia e direta que na vida do homem primitivo. Isto ocorre por serem os fatores que realizam a mediação entre o progresso tecnológico e o psicológico ainda muito deficientes e primitivos, esta é a razão pela qual esta dependência pode ser observada quase que em seu estado bruto. Mas uma relação muito mais complicada entre estes dois fatores pode ser observada em uma sociedade altamente desenvolvida que adquiriu uma estrutura de classes complexa. Aqui a influência da base sobre a superestrutura psicológica do homem não se dá forma direta, mas mediada por um grande número de fatores materiais e espirituais muito complexos. Mas, até mesmo aqui, a lei fundamental do desenvolvimento histórico humano, que proclama serem os seres humanos criados pela sociedade na qual vivem e que ela representa o fator determinante na formação de suas personalidades, permanece em vigor.

Do mesmo modo que a vida de uma sociedade não representa um único e uniforme todo, e a sociedade ela mesma é subdividida em diferentes classes, assim também, não pode ser dito que a composição das personalidades humanas representa algo homogêneo e uniforme em um dado período histórico, e a psicologia tem que levar em conta o fato básico que a tese geral que foi formulada agora mesmo, só pode ter uma conclusão direta, confirmar o caráter de classe, natureza de classe e distinções de classe que são responsáveis pela formação dos tipos humanos. As várias contradições internas que são encontradas nos diferentes sistemas sociais encontram sua expressão tanto no tipo de personalidade quanto na estrutura da psicologia humana naquele período histórico.

Nas descrições clássicas do período inicial do capitalismo, Marx enfatiza freqüentemente o tema da corrupção da personalidade humana que é provocada pelo crescimento da sociedade capitalista industrial. Em um dos extremos da sociedade, a divisão entre o trabalho intelectual e o físico, a separação entre a cidade e o campo, a exploração cruel do trabalho da criança e da mulher, pobreza e a impossibilidade de um desenvolvimento livre e completo do pleno potencial humano, e no outro extremo, ócio e luxo; disso tudo resulta não só que o tipo humano originalmente único torna-se diferenciado e fragmentado em vários tipos nas diversas classes sociais que, por sua vez, permanecem em agudo contraste umas às outras, mas também na corrupção e distorção da personalidade humana e sua sujeição a um desenvolvimento inadequado, unilateral em todas estas diferentes variantes do tipo humano.

'Juntamente com a divisão de trabalho', diz Engels, 'o próprio homem foi subdividido' de acordo com Ryazanov, 'toda forma de produção material especifica alguma divisão social do trabalho, e que é responsável por sua divisão espiritual. A começar pela corrupção da sociedade primitiva, já podemos observar a seleção de várias funções espirituais e organizacionais em espécies e subespécies determinadas correspondentes ao esquema da divisão social de trabalho'. Mais adiante Engels diz:

"Já a primeira grande divisão do trabalho, a divisão entre a cidade e o campo, condenou a população rural a milênios de entorpecimento mental, e os moradores de cidade à escravização, cada um segundo seu trabalho particular. Destruiu a base para desenvolvimento espiritual do primeiro, e a do físico para o último. Se um camponês é o mestre de sua terra e o artesão de sua arte, então, em grau nada menor, a terra governa o camponês e a arte o artesão. A divisão do trabalho causou ao homem sua própria subdivisão. Todas as demais faculdades físicas e espirituais são sacrificadas a partir do momento que se desenvolve somente um tipo de atividade"

"Esta degeneração do homem avança à medida que a divisão do trabalho alcança seu nível mais alto na manufatura. A manufatura 'quebra' o ofício do artesão em operações fracionadas, atribui, na qualidade de vocação, cada uma delas a um trabalhador distinto e os acorrenta a uma operação fracionária específica, a uma ferramenta específica de trabalho para o resto da vida..."

"E não só os trabalhadores, mas também as classes que os exploram diretamente ou indiretamente, que são escravizadas pelos instrumentos de suas atividades, como resultado da divisão de trabalho: os burgueses mesquinhos, por seu capital e desejo por lucro; o advogado pelas idéias jurídicas ossificadas que o governam como uma força independente; 'as classes educadas' em geral, por suas limitações locais particulares e unilaterais, suas deficiências físicas e miopia espiritual. Estão todos mutilados pela educação que os treina para uma certa especialidade, pela escravização vitalícia a esta especialidade, até mesmo se esta especialidade é fazer absolutamente nada."

Isto é o que Engels escreveu em ' O Anti-Dühring '. Nós temos que proceder da suposição básica que produção intelectual é determinada pela forma de produção material.

"Assim, por exemplo, no capitalismo é encontrada uma forma diferente de produção espiritual daquela prevalecente durante a Idade Média. Cada forma historicamente definida de produção material tem sua forma correspondente de produção espiritual, e isto, por sua vez, significa que a psicologia humana, que é o instrumento direto desta produção intelectual, assume uma forma específica a cada fase determinada do desenvolvimento".

Esta incapacitação dos seres humanos, este desenvolvimento unilateral e distorcido das suas várias capacidades, que Engels descreve, e que surge com a divisão entre cidade e campo, está crescendo a uma enorme velocidade devido à influência da divisão tecnológica de trabalho. Engels escreve:

"Todo conhecimento, perspicácia e vontade que o camponês e o artesão independentes desenvolvem, embora em uma escala pequena, como o selvagem que age como se toda a arte da guerra consistisse no exercício de sua astúcia pessoal, estas faculdades agora são requeridas apenas da fábrica como um todo. As potências intelectuais de produção as fazem desenvolver em um só sentido, porque as fazem extinguir em muitos outros. O que foi perdido pelos trabalhadores especializados ['teilarbeiter'] está concentrado no capital que os emprega. Como resultado da divisão de trabalho no seio da manufatura, o trabalhador é levado a encarar as potências intelectuais do processo material de produção como propriedade alheia, e como um poder que o domina. Este processo de separação começa em co-operação simples na qual o capitalista representa para o trabalhador particular a unidade e a vontade do trabalho social ['Arbeitskörpers'].Isto que começa na manufatura, que mutila o trabalhador transformando-o em um trabalhador especializado, é terminado pela indústria de larga escala que separa a ciência, como um potencial produtivo, do trabalho e a coloca a serviço do capital."

Como resultado do avanço do capitalismo, o desenvolvimento da produção material trouxe simultaneamente consigo a divisão progressiva do trabalho e o crescente desenvolvimento distorcido do potencial humano. Se 'na manufatura e no trabalho artesanal o trabalhador faz uso de suas ferramentas, então na fábrica ele se torna o criado da máquina'. Marx diz que no primeiro caso ele inicia o movimento da ferramenta, mas no segundo ele é forçado a seguir seu movimento. Os trabalhadores se transformam em 'extensões vivas das máquinas', o que resulta na 'tenebrosa monotonia do infinito tormento do trabalho' que Marx [1890/1962, pág. 445] diz ser o elemento característico daquele período no desenvolvimento do capitalismo que ele está descrevendo. O trabalhador é preso a uma função específica, e de acordo com Marx [ibid, pág. 381], isto o transforma 'de um trabalhador em uma anormalidade que artificialmente ['treibhausmäsig'] é nutrida por apenas uma habilidade especial, suprimindo toda a riqueza restante de seus talentos e inclinações produtivas'.

Nos dias atuais, o trabalho da criança representa um exemplo particularmente horrorizante da deformação do desenvolvimento psicológico humano. Na busca por trabalho barato e devido à simplificação extrema das funções que os trabalhadores têm que levar a cabo, o recrutamento em larga escala de crianças tornou-se possível, o que resulta em um desenvolvimento retardado, ou um completamente unilateral e distorcido que acontece na idade mais impressionante, quando a personalidade da pessoa está sendo formada. A pesquisa clássica de Marx está cheia de exemplos de 'esterilidade intelectual', 'degradação física e intelectual', transformação 'de seres humanos imaturos em máquinas para a produção de mais-valia' [ibid., pp. 421-2], e ele apresenta um quadro vívido de todo o processo que resulta em uma situação na qual 'o trabalhador existe em função do processo de produção, e não o processo de produção em função do trabalhador'[ibid., pág. 514].

Porém, todos estes fatores negativos não dão um quadro completo de como o processo de desenvolvimento humano é influenciado pelo crescimento acelerado da indústria. Todas estas influências adversas não são inerentes à indústria de larga escala como tal, mas à sua organização capitalista que está baseada na exploração de enormes massas da população e que resultou em uma situação na qual em vez de todo passo novo para a conquista da natureza pelos seres humanos, todo novo patamar de desenvolvimento da força produtiva da sociedade, não só não elevou a humanidade como um todo, e cada personalidade humana individual, para um nível mais alto, mas conduziu a uma degradação mais profunda da personalidade humana e de seu potencial de crescimento.

Enquanto observadores dos efeitos incapacitantes do processo de progresso da civilização sobre os seres humanos, filósofos como Rousseau e Tolstói não puderam ver nenhuma outra solução que um retorno à integralidade e pureza da natureza humana. De acordo com Tolstói, nosso ideal não está à nossa frente, mas atrás de nós. Neste sentido, do ponto de vista deste romantismo reacionário, os períodos primitivos de desenvolvimento da sociedade humana apresentam-se como aquele ideal que a humanidade deveria estar perseguindo. Realmente, uma análise mais profunda das tendências econômicas e históricas que regulam o desenvolvimento do capitalismo mostra que este processo de mutilação da natureza humana, acima discutida, é inerente não só ao crescimento da indústria de grande escala, mas à específica forma de organização da sociedade capitalista.

A mais fundamental e importante contradição em toda esta estrutura social consiste no fato que dentro dela, sob pressão inexorável, estão evoluindo forças para sua destruição, e estão sendo criadas as precondições para sua substituição por uma nova ordem baseada na ausência da exploração do homem pelo homem. Mais de uma vez, Marx demonstra como o trabalho, ou a indústria de larga escala, em si mesmos, não levam necessariamente à mutilação da natureza humana, como um seguidor de Rousseau ou Tolstói assumiria, mas, pelo contrário, contêm dentro de si mesmos possibilidades infinitas para o desenvolvimento da personalidade humana.

Ele diz, 'como pode ser averiguado a partir dos exemplos dados por Robert Owen, tem crescido a semente de um sistema educacional futuro que combinará o trabalho produtivo com a educação formal e física para todas as crianças acima de uma certa idade, não só como um método de aumento da produção, mas como o único método de produzir seres humanos bem equilibradamente educados' [ibid., pp. 507-8]. Assim a participação das crianças nas fábricas, que sob o sistema capitalista, particularmente durante o período descrito de crescimento do capitalismo, é a fonte da degradação física e intelectual, contém em si mesma as sementes para um sistema educacional futuro e pode vir a constituir-se na forma mais elevada de criação de um tipo novo de ser humano. O crescimento da indústria de grande escala faz necessário, por si só, que se construa um novo tipo de trabalho humano e um novo tipo de ser humano que seja capaz de levar a cabo estas novas formas de trabalho. 'A natureza da indústria de larga escala estipula um trabalho mutável; uma mudança ininterrupta de funções e uma completa mobilidade para o trabalhador', diz Marx: 'o indivíduo que foi se transformado em uma fração, o portador simples de uma função social fracionária, será substituído por um indivíduo completamente desenvolvido para quem as funções sociais diversas representam formas alternativas de suas atividades ' [ibid., pp. 511-12].

Assim não só se demonstra que a combinação do trabalho industrial com a educação provou ser uns meios de criar pessoas plenamente desenvolvidas, mas também que o tipo de pessoa que será exigida para trabalhar neste processo industrial altamente desenvolvido, diferirá substancialmente do tipo de pessoa era o produto do trabalho voltado para a produção durante o período inicial do desenvolvimento capitalista. Neste aspecto o fim do período capitalista apresenta uma antítese notável relativa a seu começo. Se no princípio o indivíduo foi transformado em uma fração, no executor de uma função fracionária, em uma extensão viva da máquina, então ao término, as próprias exigências da indústria requererão uma pessoa plenamente desenvolvida, flexível e que seja capaz de alterar as formas de trabalho, de organizar o processo de produção e de controlá-lo.

Não importa qual característica particular e definidora do tipo psicológico humano que tomemos, seja nos períodos iniciais ou recentes do desenvolvimento do capitalismo, em todos os casos nós encontraremos sempre um significado e um caráter duplos em cada característica crucial. A fonte da degradação da personalidade na forma capitalista de produção, também contém em si mesma o potencial para um crescimento infinito da personalidade.

Para dar um exemplo, concluiremos examinando situações de trabalho onde pessoas de ambos os sexos e de todas as idades têm que trabalhar juntas. 'A composição do quadro geral de empregados por pessoas de ambos sexos e todas as idades...', diz Marx, 'deve, pelo contrário, sob circunstâncias apropriadas, se transformar em uma fonte de desenvolvimento humano' [ibid., pág. 514].

Disto pode se tirar que o crescimento da indústria de grande escala contém dentro de si mesmo o potencial escondido para o desenvolvimento da personalidade humana e que somente a forma capitalista de organização do processo industrial é a responsável pelo fato de todas estas forças exercerem uma influência unilateral e incapacitante que retarda o desenvolvimento pessoal.

Em um de seus primeiros trabalhos, Marx escreve que se a psicologia desejar se tornar uma ciência realmente relevante, terá que aprender ler o livro da história da indústria material que encarna 'os poderes essenciais de homem', e que é uma encarnação concreta da psicologia humana. Da maneira como se dá, toda a tragédia interior do capitalismo consiste no fato que na ocasião em que o estudo objetivo da psicologia do homem, que continha dentro de si potencial infinito de domínio sobre a natureza e sobre o desenvolvimento de sua própria natureza, crescia a passo acelerado, sua vida espiritual real estava degradando e passando pelo processo que Engels descreveu tão vividamente como a mutilação do homem.

Mas a essência de toda esta discussão consiste no fato que esta dupla influência de fatores inerentes à indústria de grande escala sobre o desenvolvimento pessoal do homem, esta contradição interna do sistema capitalista, não pode ser solucionada sem a destruição do sistema capitalista de organização industrial. Neste sentido, a contradição parcial que nós já mencionamos, entre o poder crescente do homem e sua degradação que paralelamente aprofunda-se, entre seu crescente domínio sobre a natureza, e sua liberdade por um lado, e a sua escravidão e dependência crescentes das coisas produzidas por ele mesmo, no outro-nós desejamos reiterar que esta contradição representa só uma parte de uma contradição muito mais geral e totalizadora que subjaz ao sistema capitalista tomado como um todo. Esta contradição geral. entre o desenvolvimento das forças de produção e a ordem social que correspondente a este nível de desenvolvimento das forças de produção, é resolvida pela revolução socialista e uma transição para uma nova ordem social e uma nova forma de organização das relações sociais.

Paralelamente a esse processo, uma mudança na personalidade humana e uma alteração do próprio homem deve inevitavelmente acontecer. Esta alteração tem três raízes básicas. A primeira delas consiste no fato mesmo da destruição das formas capitalistas de organização e produção e das formas de vida social e espiritual que a partir daí irão surgir. Junto com o desfacelamento da ordem capitalista, todas as forças que oprimem o homem e que o mantêm escravizado pelas máquinas e que interferem com o seu livre desenvolvimento também desaparecerão e serão destruídas. Junto com a liberação dos muitos milhões de seres humanos da opressão, virá a libertação da personalidade humana das correntes que restringem seu desenvolvimento. Esta é a primeira fonte-a liberação de homem.

A segunda fonte de qual emerge a alteração de homem reside no fato de que ao mesmo tempo em que as velhas correntes desaparecem, o enorme potencial positivo presente na indústria de grande escala, o já crescente poder dos homens sobre a natureza, será liberado e tornado operativo. Todas as características discutidas acima, das quais o exemplo mais notório é a forma completamente nova de criar um futuro baseado na combinação de trabalho físico e intelectual, perderão seu caráter dual e mudarão o curso de sua influência de um modo fundamental. Considerando que anteriormente suas ações foram dirigidas contra as pessoas, agora elas começam a trabalhar por causa delas. De seu papel de obstáculos desempenhado outrora, elas se transformam em forças poderosas de promoção do desenvolvimento da personalidade humana.

Finalmente, a terceira fonte que inicia a alteração de homem é mudança nas próprias relações sociais entre as pessoas. Se as relações entre pessoas sofrem uma mudança, então junto com elas as idéias, padrões de comportamento, exigências e gostos também mudarão. Como foi averiguado por pesquisa psicológica a personalidade humana é formada basicamente pela influência das relações sociais, i.e., o sistema do qual o indivíduo é apenas uma parte desde a infância mais tenra. 'Minha relação para com meu ambiente', diz Marx, 'é minha consciência'. Uma mudança fundamental do sistema global destas relações, das quais o homem é uma parte, também conduzirá inevitavelmente a uma mudança de consciência, uma mudança completa no comportamento do homem.

A educação deve desempenhar o papel central na transformação do homem, nesta estrada de formação social consciente de gerações novas, a educação deve ser a base para alteração do tipo humano histórico. As novas gerações e suas novas formas de educação representam a rota principal que a história seguirá para criar o novo tipo de homem. Neste sentido, o papel da educação social e politécnica é extraordinariamente importante. As idéias básicas que justificam a educação politécnica consistem em uma tentativa de superar a divisão entre trabalho físico e intelectual e reunir pensamento e trabalho que foram separados durante o processo de desenvolvimento capitalista.

De acordo com Marx, a educação politécnica proporciona a familiaridade com os princípios científicos gerais a todos os processos de produção e, ao mesmo tempo, ensina as crianças e adolescentes que habilidades práticas tornam possível para eles operarem as ferramentas básicas utilizadas em todas as indústrias. Krupskaja formula esta idéia da seguinte maneira:

"Uma escola politécnica pode ser distinguida de uma escola de comércio pelo fato de centrar-se na interpretação de processos de trabalho, no desenvolvimento da habilidade para unificar teoria e prática e na habilidade para entender a interdependência de certos fenômenos, enquanto em uma escola de comércio o centro de gravidade está em proporcionar para os alunos habilidades para o trabalho".

Coletivismo, a unificação do trabalho físico e intelectual, uma mudança nas relações entre os sexos, a abolição da separação entre desenvolvimento físico e intelectual, estes são os aspectos fundamentais daquela alteração do homem que é o assunto de nossa discussão. E o resultado a ser alcançado, a glória e coroamento de todo esse processo de transformação da natureza humana, deveria ser o aparecimento da forma mais alta de liberdade humana que Marx descreve da seguinte maneira: 'Somente em comunidade,[com os outros, cada] indivíduo [possui] os meios de cultivar seus talentos em todas as direções: só em comunidade, então, é possível a liberdade pessoal'. Assim como a sociedade humana, a personalidade individual precisa dar este salto que a leva do reino da necessidade à esfera de liberdade, como foi descrito por Engels.

Sempre que a alteração do homem e a criação de um novo nível mais elevado de personalidade e conduta humanas são postas em discussão, é inevitável que sejam mencionadas idéias sobre um tipo novo de ser humano relacionado à teoria de Nietzsche sobre o super-homem. Partindo das perfeitamente verdadeiras suposições que a evolução não parou no homem e que o tipo moderno de ser humano representa nada além de uma ponte, uma forma transitória, que conduz a um tipo mais elevado, que a evolução não esgotou suas possibilidades quando criou o homem e que o tipo moderno de personalidade não é a realização mais alta e a última palavra no processo de desenvolvimento, Nietzsche concluiu que uma criatura nova pode surgir durante o processo de evolução, um super-homem que guardará a mesma relação com homem contemporâneo que o homem contemporâneo guarda com o macaco.

Porém, Nietzsche imaginou que o desenvolvimento deste tipo mais elevado de homem estava sujeito à mesma lei de evolução biológica, a luta pela vida e a seleção baseada na sobrevivência do mais apto, que prevalece no mundo animal. É por isto que o ideal de poder, a auto-afirmação da personalidade humana em toda sua abundância de poder e ambição instintivos, o individualismo áspero de homens e mulheres fora de série, de acordo com Nietzsche, formariam, a estrada para a criação de um super-homem.

Esta teoria é errônea, porque ignora o fato que as leis de evolução histórica do homem diferem fundamentalmente das leis da evolução biológica e que a diferença básica entre estes dois processos consiste no fato que um ser humano evolui e se desenvolve como um ser histórico, social. Só uma elevação de toda a humanidade a um nível mais alto de vida social, a liberação de toda a humanidade, pode conduzir à formação de um novo tipo de homem.

Porém, esta mudança do comportamento humano, esta mudança da personalidade humana, tem que conduzir, inevitavelmente, à evolução do homem para um tipo superior, para a alteração do tipo biológico humano. Tendo dominado os processos que determinam sua própria natureza, o homem que hoje está lutando contra velhice e doenças, ascenderá, indubitavelmente, a um nível mais elevado e transformará sua própria organização biológica. Mas esta é a fonte do maior paradoxo histórico do desenvolvimento contido nesta transformação biológica do tipo humano, que ela é alcançada principalmente por meio da ciência, da educação social e da racionalização dos modos de vida. A alteração biológica do homem não representa uma condição prévia para estes fatores, mas, ao invés disso, é um resultado da liberação social do homem.

Neste sentido Engels, que tinha examinado o processo de evolução do macaco ao homem, disse que trabalho que criou o homem. Partindo daí, poder-se-ia dizer que novas formas de trabalho criarão o novo homem e que este homem novo se assemelhará ao tipo antigo de homem, 'o antigo Adão', apenas no nome, da mesma maneira como, de acordo com a grande declaração de Spinoza, um cão, o animal que late, se assemelha a Cão constelação celeste.
Início da página Notas:
(1) Nota da tradução para língua portuguesa: cabem algumas observações acerca desta tradução:
a) Esta tradução é feita a partir da versão em língua inglesa do texto, portanto está mais sujeita a incorreções que o próprio texto que lhe serviu de base, dado que este já era por si só uma tradução.
b) O tradutor é brasileiro, e nessa qualidade efetuou toda a tradução tendo em vista as normas da língua portuguesa vigentes no Brasil, ainda assim, por não ser profissional do ramo das Letras, o tradutor pede desculpas por qualquer eventual erro.
c) Relativamente ao trabalho que serviu de modelo a esta tradução foi suprimida uma das notas, a nota número 5, por isso, a partir desta número as notas desta tradução não correspondem àquelas da numeração do texto original. O motivo da omissão foi não haver no corpo do texto indicação da nota, apenas constando a mesma do "rodapé".
d) Ao contrário do tradutor para língua inglesa do texto original, o tradutor deste texto não buscou as traduções para a língua portuguesa dos textos originais citados. Nas notas que seguem (que também são traduções do texto base da tradução) são feitas referências às obras em língua inglesa, alemã ou russa dependendo do caso. É importante lembrar que as traduções dos textos originais aqui citados também são traduções livres do tradutor do presente texto. ( retornar ao texto)

(2) Provavelmente se refere a Plekhanov, G. V. 1922: Ocherki po istorii materializma. Moscou. ( retornar ao texto)

(3) Refere-se à pág. 272 de Engels, F. 1894/1978: Herrn Eugen Duhring's Umwalzung der Wissenschaft [Anti-Duhring]. Dietz Verlag. ( retornar ao texto)

(4) É obscuro a que livro que Vygotsky está se referindo. ( retornar ao texto)

(7) 'Entendemos que a história da indústria e a atual existência objetiva da indústria são o livro aberto dos poderes essenciais do homem, percebemos a psicologia humana existente... uma psicologia para qual este livro, a parte de história que existe na forma mais perceptível e acessível, permanece um livro fechado, não pode se tornar uma ciência genuína, geral e real'. Ver pp. 302-03 of Marx- Engels Collected Works. Vol, 3: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. New York: International Publishers (1975). ( retornar ao texto)

(9) A esposa de Lênin, N. K. Krupskaja, devotou muita atenção à questões educacionais. Em seu livro, Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe [Educação da Mocidade no Espírito de Lenin] ela discutiu experiências internacionais suas contemporâneas com escolas de trabalho (Arbeitsschule) à luz do ideal de Marx da educação politécnica. Ver Krupskaja, N. K. 1925/1989: Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe. Moscow: Pedagogika. Nós não pudemos estabelecer a fonte exata da presente citação. ( retornar ao texto)

(11) Conferir pp. 444-55 de Engels, F. 1925/1978: Dialektik der Natur [A Dialética da Natureza]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag. ( retornar ao texto)

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Lev Vygotsky: A Tranformação Socialista do Homem

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Escrito: 1930 Primeira Edição: 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, USSR . Fonte da presente Tradução: Marxists Internet Archive, english version. Tradução de: anônimo para o Marxists Internet Archive, Julho de 2004. HTML por José Braz para o Marxists Internet Archive, Outubro de 2004 A Psicologia científica estabeleceu como sua tese básica o fato que o tipo psicológico do homem moderno é um produto de duas linhas evolutivas.

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Science and Humanity- Hegel, Marx and Dialectic

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Marx at the Millennium by Cyril Smith
this chapter reprinted from Common Sense, April 1994

Science and Humanity -
Hegel, Marx and Dialectic

Karl Marx and the Origins of 'Marxism'

It was in the 1890s, when Karl Marx had been safely dead for a decade, that Kautsky and Plekhanov invented 'Marxism'. This total falsification of Marx's work incorporated a story about a couple of 'Young Hegelians', who extracted the 'dialectical method' from Hegel's system, and transplanted it into a materialist world-view. Then - so ran the tale - they could 'apply' materialism to history. The inventors of 'Marxism' gave their mythical beast the name 'dialectical materialism'.

This fable about Marx was bound up with another one - equally false - about Hegel. It was a stirring philosophical yarn about an 'Idealist', who believed that the world was made of mind-stuff of which ordinary matter was no more than a shadow. This ghost-world jerked forward in a contradictory, automated dance called 'dialectic'. Spirit, exuding a strong religious odour, pulled the strings which kept History moving, individual humans being mere puppets, and not very life-like ones either. The state, which took charge of the workings of society, was supposedly modelled by Hegel on the authoritarian Prussian state.

Many people nowadays know that this is a caricature of the real Hegel. In this respect, he is luckier than Marx, who is still either attacked or praised as if he were indeed the figure depicted by 'Marxism'. (Although the 'Marxists' swallowed the Hegel legend whole, it would be unfair to blame them for it, since it was concocted by the 'Hegelians'.)

In order to contribute to the work of correcting these stereotypes, I want to focus on the meaning each of these two thinkers gives to the word 'science'. I argue that to think Marx and Hegel employ the same 'dialectical logic' is to falsify both of them. Marx meant precisely what he said in the 'Afterword' to the second edition of Capital: they were 'direct opposites'.

Hegel was no revolutionary, but neither was he the conservative of legend. He was one of those thinkers who tried to illuminate the path of reform in Germany, in response to the French Revolution. After 1819, this path was blocked by the conservative forces in Prussia, and Hegel kept his newly acquired place in the Berlin University Chair of Philosophy only with the greatest difficulty. Some of his students were still less fortunate and ended up in the prisons of the Prussian state.

Like Schiller, Goethe, Schelling, Holderlin and others in Germany at that time, Hegel tried to grasp the social developments lying in store for Europe. His study of Adam Smith, James Steuart and Adam Ferguson gave him a picture of a world governed by individual self-interest, where the mass of atomised, fragmented human beings was condemned to a life of utterly dehumanising labour. Could the fate which had already overtaken England and Scotland be avoided by their country, and, in any case, what had happened to the promise of the Enlightenment?

The backwardness of Germany gave these thinkers a distinctive angle on such questions. Like the Scots whose work they studied so carefully, they were both inside and outside the developing 'civil society'. Vital for them all was an idealised picture of the ancient Greek polis, whose harmony was contrasted with the discord of the modern world. (Hegel saw the need for philosophy as originating in the break-up of this harmony in the fifth century BC.) They were especially. impressed by Ferguson, the Gaelic-speaking Highlander, who pointed to parallels between the polis, the Highland clans and indigenous North Americans, contrasting them favourably with 'civil society'.

Hegel refused to evade such issues by capitulation to conservatism (like Schelling), an aesthetic and romantic search for another world (Goethe, Schiller), or poetry and madness (Holderlin). Hegel did not ignore the repulsive forms of nascent bourgeois society which were appearing throughout Europe, but, looking them in the face, tried to reconcile them with the advance of humanity towards freedom.

But how could the discordant forces which were tearing modern society apart be grasped as a united whole? Hegel struggled with this contradiction in every one of his major works. It is not hard to see this in his early writings, or in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Philosophy of History and the Philosophy of Right. It is less easy to perceive but is nonetheless the unstated question at the heart of the Logic. Hegel believed that to answer it was the task of Science (' Wissenschaft ').

Living with the consequences of nineteenth-century natural science as we do, we can easily misunderstand the term 'science', as it was used by Hegel. The modern scientist is taught to think of himself or herself as an individual operator, living by their privately owned wits and studying objects in an external nature. 'Scientific objectivity' is taken to mean that the thinkers themselves are excluded from the object of study. (I don't have in mind here the ideas of natural scientists themselves, so much as what the philosophers of science tell them they ought to think.)

The procedure known as the 'scientific method' restricts itself from the start by accepting its presuppositions and methods as a matter of faith. To follow it guarantees that you can question neither the meaning of what you are doing, nor the validity of your methods of doing it. Indeed, meaning itself can only be thought of as something external to science, imported subjectively - thus illegally - into the world. Why test that particular hypothesis? Why should failure of a test destroy its truth? What is truth, anyway? Such questions are banned from science and referred to another department.

During the last century, these impoverished forms of thought became widely accepted as the model for all thinking. They show their bankruptcy most plainly when people try to imitate these procedures and attitudes of the natural sciences in those pseudo-sciences called 'social'. 'Marxism', hearing about the transformation of socialism into a science, assumed Marx was some kind of 'social scientist'.

The conceptions of science held by Marx and Hegel, while opposed to each other, are united in rejecting all of this. Hegel spent his life searching for ways to show how, seen correctly, the antagonistic particles which make up modern society could be understood as parts of a whole. But how could he harmonise the cacophonous clash of weapons on 'the battlefield of private interest'? He set himself- and philosophy - a tremendous task. In a world of disunity and oppression, he wanted a science which could grasp human society as organically developing towards unity and freedom. Reflecting on the outcome of the French Revolution, he decided that to be self-determined was only possible in the realm of systematic thought.

Hegel saw science as essentially a communal activity and knowledge as a historical process. To engage in scientific work was to participate in the purposive activity of Spirit, the entire movement of History. Only through it could the isolated individual, the inhabitant of 'civil society', get hold of the picture as a whole.

The task of leading the individual from his uneducated standpoint to knowledge had to be seen in its universal sense, just as it was the universal individual, self-conscious Spirit, whose formative education had to be studied.... The single individual is incomplete Spirit, a concrete shape in whose whole existence one determinatedness predominates.

Reason was the unifying power in knowledge, described by Hegel as 'purposive activity'. It was not the activity or purpose of any individual thinker which did this work, but the action of Spirit, the subjectivity of an entire social organism. This is what Hegel means when he says: 'Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject.'

Such knowledge could not base itself on individual opinions, as Hegel explained in his very first lecture in Berlin: 'An opinion [ Meinung] is mine, it is not an inherently universal absolute.... Philosophy is an objective science of truth, a science of its necessity, of conceptual knowing; it is no opining and no web-spinning of opinions.' Philosophical science was not spun out of the heads of great thinkers, but was rooted in all the life and work of the whole of humanity.

The possession of self-conscious rationality, a possession belonging to us, to our contemporary world, has not been gained suddenly.... It is essentially an inheritance and . . . the result of labour, the labour of all the preceding generations of the human race. The arts of the externals of our life, the mass of means and skills, the arrangements and customs of social and political associations, all these are the result of the reflection, invention, needs, misery and misfortune, the will and achievement of the history which has preceded our life of today.

What science must achieve is not just knowledge of something outside us, but self-knowledge, where 'self' refers to the entire spiritual collective. It was at once a subjective and an objective activity, tracing the path taken by the past movement of Spirit, but only the past. The method of this science, logic, was itself a science, and thus a part of History. It revealed the pattern of inner connections which bind reason into a unity. Reason was not a set of external rules to be followed by correct thinking, nor was logic a kind of calculus, merely pointing to the formal links between the forms of objects. The forms were inseparable from their content. The logical structure of Hegel's science had to demonstrate how its objects were necessarily connected. 'Logic being the science of the absolute form, this formal science, in order to be true, must possess in its own self a content adequate to its form.'

A logical judgement - 'the rose is red', 'Socrates is a man' - appears to be an assertion that the subject and object are judged by us to have some relationship. But, Hegel believed, in his account of Being and Essence he had demonstrated they belonged together essentially. The judgement necessarily gives rise to the syllogism, which itself, through the development of its 'figures', shows how it embodies truth.

The criterion for truth, insisted Hegel, could not be external to systematic knowledge. It was not a matter of showing that the assertions of science were 'correct', by holding them up against some image of a reality external to them, or testing them by applying a rule for correctness. Truth had to be found in the very categories of thought, developed within the system itself.

Hitherto, the Notion of logic has rested on the separation . . . of the content of cognition and its form, or of truth and certainty.... [l]t is assumed that the material of knowing is present on its own account as a ready-made world apart from thought, that thinking on its own is empty and comes as an external form to the said material, fills itself with it and only thus acquires a content and so becomes real knowing.

To do the job Hegel set it, science had to be organically unified, a living system, which contained its own presuppositions and its own method of development within itself It did not try to answer questions which were posed from outside, but only those questions which were generated by its own workings. It had to include itself in its conception of the world. And it had to be dynamic, self-developing through continual self-criticism, grasping the contradictions, not just between itself and something outside it, but within its own body. When it encounters such contradictions,

[t]hinking will not give up, but remains faithful to itself even in this loss of its being at home with itself, 'so that it may overcome', and may accomplish in thinking itself the resolution of its own contradictions.

So Hegel's dialectic cannot be a set of formulae or rules to be detached and 'applied' elsewhere. Dialectic means grasping that the contradictions which confront us at every turn are contradictions of the finite, which science is driven to transcend.

That is what everything finite is: its own sublation [ Aufhebung]. Hence, the dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science, just as all genuine, non-external elevation above the finite is to be found in this principle.

At his most optimistic, in 1816, Hegel told his Heidelberg students:

The courage of truth, faith in the power of the spirit, is the first condition of philosophising. Because man is spirit he should and must deem himself worthy of the highest; he cannot think highly enough of the greatness and power of his spirit. For a man of this faith nothing is so inflexible and refractory as not to disclose itself to him. The original hidden and reserved essence of the universe has no force which could withstand the courage of knowing [ Erkennens]; it must expose itself to that courage, bring its wealth and depths to light for our enjoyment.

Was Hegel an idealist? Does this question refer to a belief that the world was a product of an individual mind, like Berkeley; or that the way we got to know it had to begin with the certainty of the individual 'I', like Descartes; or that we constructed our picture of it by means of individually-possessed categories (Kant)? Then the answer is a decided no! That kind of idealism, said Hegel, was 'a pure assertion which does not comprehend its own self, nor can it make itself comprehensible to others'.

Hegel claims, however, that his kind of idealism is shared by any real philosophy. It is basically the idea that truth cannot be found in isolated bits and pieces, but belongs only to the whole picture.

The proposition that the finite is ideal [ideel] constitutes idealism. The idealism of philosophy consists in nothing else than in recognising that the finite has no veritable being. Every philosophy is essentially an idealism, or at least has idealism for its principle.... Consequently, the opposition of idealism and realistic philosophy has no significance.

This ideality of the finite is the most important proposition of philosophy, and for that reason every genuine philosophy is Idealism.

However 'mystical' it is made to appear in many standard accounts, the shape of Hegel's system is the direct and precise expression of the tack he set philosophy to perform. He is convinced that systematic thinking is the only way that the unity and development of the world can be grasped. The demand that his science be absolute, that is, independent of anything external to it, determines Hegel's conception of Nature, and its relation to Spirit.

Estranged from the Idea, Nature is only the corpse of the Understanding.

Nature exhibits no freedom in its existence, but only necessity and contingency.

Nature, even at the highest point of its elevation over finitude, always falls back into it again and in this way exhibits a perpetual cycle.

Most striking is Hegel's inability to conceive of anything like historical development in Nature, including the evolution of organisms.

Now let us briefly illustrate Hegel's approach to social problems with a couple of examples of the way that his dialectic copes with them.

The problem of crime and punishment is one to which he gave considerable attention. He defines crime as 'the initial use of coercion, as force employed by a free agent in such a way as to infringe the existence of freedom in its concrete sense - ie to infringe right as right'. In his attitude to the punishment of a criminal act, Hegel is quite liberal. For example, he is for only limited use of the death penalty. While he believes strongly in capital punishment for murder, he is critical of its imposition in England at that time for theft. The idea of punishment as revenge, as a preventative, as a deterrent or corrective, all leave him cold.

Crime is an infringement of 'right as right', and punishment is the 'cancellation' of this infringement. What matters to Hegel is neither the injury to the victim nor the distortion of the criminal, but the contradiction between the crime and the logical whole. Crime has the logical status of the 'negative infinite judgement', like saying 'a lion is not a table' - correct but pointless. It affirms the total incommensurability of subject and predicate.

Someone who commits a crime - for argument's sake a theft - does not merely deny the particular right of someone else to this particular thing (as in a suit about civil rights); instead, he denies the rights of that person completely; therefore he is not merely obliged to return the thing he stole, but is punished as well, because he has violated right as such, ie right in general.

Hegel is quite aware that the prevalence of crime is to be attributed to the conditions of life to which millions of people are condemned He even had an inkling that there might be a connection between this phenomenon and the rise of 'civil society'. For him, all of this is quite Irrelevant. He is concerned only with the relation of crime to the logical structure of society. He can have no conception that the collision between the criminal and his victim's property rights reflects only one aspect of the inhuman character of private property itself.

Hegel is certain that poverty as a modern phenomenon is the necessary consequence of civil society and is inseparable from the heaping up of wealth at the other pole. He also admits that he knows no solution to this 'problem' which has deplorable results.

[C]ivil society affords a spectacle of extravagance and misery as well as of the ethical corruption common to both.

When a large mass of people sinks below the level of a certain standard of living - which automatically regulates itself at the level necessary for a member of the society in question, that feeling of right, integrity and honour which comes from supporting oneself by one's own activity and work is lost. This leads to the creation of a rabble [ Pöbel], which in turn makes it much easier for wealth to be concentrated in a few hands....

. . . Poverty in itself does not reduce people to a rabble- a rabble is created only by the disposition associated with poverty, by inward rebellion against the rich, against society, the government, etc.... This in turn gives rise to the evil that the rabble do not have sufficient honour to gain their livelihood through their own work, yet claim they have a right to receive their livelihood.... The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies.

There is no doubt that Professor Hegel was genuinely sorry for poor people. But he could not allow this to determine his philosophical consideration of the problem. As he says, it is not poverty 'in itself that causes trouble, but the effect it has on the feelings about society of both poor and rich. Hegel refuses to ignore the problem of 'the rabble', or to avoid the awkward way this uncivil entity threatens the equilibrium of civil society. But his attention has to be focussed sternly on the ability of dialectic to accommodate poverty within the overall conception of the movement of History towards freedom. The state sublated the difficulties of civil society, and this was a logical result.

Hegel's project is quite magnificent, and, if you want to make sense of the world of civil society, it is indeed absolutely necessary. It also happens to be utterly impossible to achieve. For to complete it would mean to show how the forms of bourgeois society are compatible with freedom- and they are not. By 1831, when Hegel died, these social forms could already be seen to be forms of oppression. However, what had begun to bring this home to many people in Europe was not some new philosophical argument, but the revolt of the new 'slaves' themselves.

In 1839, when Karl Marx was beginning work on his doctoral dissertation, he recognised Hegel as 'our great teacher'. Thirty-four years later he could still 'avow' himself 'a pupil of that mighty thinker'. But as a postgraduate student, he could already see that the Hegelian School was breaking up.

It was not a matter of some errors in the argument. What was wrong was that

philosophy has sealed itself off to form a consummate, total world. .. . The world confronting a philosophy total in itself is ... a world tom apart. This philosophy's activity therefore also appears tom apart and contradictory.

In his dissertation itself, in 1841, Marx analysed the positions of the two wings of this school - and accepted neither. The problem for Marx, then and always, was how the knowledge gained in philosophical work could 'tum outwards to the world'.

In 1843, spurred on by the work of Feuerbach, but already going far beyond it, Marx began his first assault on the edifice of the Hegelian system, his Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law. He had no quarrel with Hegel's description of the modern state, which was in any case not a justification of Prussian authoritarianism, as the legend has it, but an account of what a rationally reformed Prussia might look like: 'Hegel is not to be blamed for depicting the nature of the modem state as it is, but for presenting that which is as the nature of the state.' Marx objects to Hegel's logical approach, the false relation he assumes between his scientific exposition and the world it is supposed to be illuminating.

The concrete content, the actual definition, appears as something formal; the wholly abstract formal definition appears as the concrete content. The essence of the definitions of the state is not that they are definitions of the state, but that in their most abstract form they can be regarded as logical metaphysical definitions. Not the philosophy of law but logic is the real centre of interest. Philosophical work does not consist in embodying thinking in political definitions, but in evaporating the existing political definitions into abstract thoughts. Not the logic of the matter, but the matter of logic is the philosophical element. The logic does not serve to prove the state, but the state to prove the logic.

Hegel has turned upside-down the relation between philosophy and the world, says Marx. Hegel's method reflects the upside-down, inhuman, irrational way that people live, and in so doing attempts to make it appear as the embodiment of reason.

Marx's theoretical and practical work over the next four decades unfolded the implications of this 'inversion' of the relationship of science to the world. By the start of 1844, in the Introduction to the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law- the only part he ever completed - Marx had begun to see that he was looking for the way to 'actualise philosophy', and that this demanded a social power of a special kind.

As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in philosophy. And once the lightning of thought has struck this ingenuous soil of the people, the emancipation of the Germans into human beings will take place.

Both his study of political economy and his conception of communist revolution, which engaged Marx's attention for the rest of his life, began from there. He saw the three great achievements of bourgeois thought as being political economy, Hegel's dialectic and utopian socialism. These three took the attempt of individual thinkers to grasp the atomised modern world as a totality as far as it could go. In his scientific critique of them, Marx showed that all three of them unconsciously expressed the inhumanity of the world they studied.

Where Hegel's science strove to reconcile the conflicting forces of the modern world, Marx's science set out from the necessity to actualise those very conflicts and bring them to fruition. For instance, if science showed that the state expressed the contradictions of 'civil society' founded on private property, this told us that both private property and the state were unfit for human life, and had to be abolished.

Hegel's dialectic had locked up all the disintegrating forces of modern life into a system of concepts, while Marx's science struggled to unlock them. Obviously, then, the latter could never be a closed system. It was in principle incomplete, open. Marx's science could only do its job when it went beyond the bounds of science as such. Its problems could neither be posed nor solved on the level of knowledge.

The key category of Marx's theoretical work was the one which 'Marxism' sought to evade: the idea of 'humanness'. Without it, notions like 'capital', 'proletariat' and 'surplus value' have no meaning. His standpoint, that of ' human society or socialised humanity' ( Theses on Feuerbach, Thesis 10), enabled Marx to understand that certain forms of human life were beneath the dignity of homo sapiens, not 'worthy and appropriate for their human nature'.

But hidden inside these very forms was a human content, which science had to discover. Within the framework of individualism, inside which men and women had to fight each other to live, they retained, perhaps only in odd corners of their beings, their potential for self-determination, self-creation, self-consciousness and social solidarity. Indeed, it was only because there was a mismatch between this humanity and its inhuman forms, and because people had to struggle to 'fight out' this discrepancy, that it was possible to know which way up the world should go.

Any account of any part of Marx's work which does not centre on this conception - and that includes 90 per cent of the huge volume of writings on the subject - must be utterly false. It seems to me that the supreme task today, and not an easy one, is to disinter Marx's fundamental insight, and to find ways to articulate it in as accessible a form that we can, free of all academic mystification. Only then can it become the foundation for practical action. It was his conception of 'humanness' which gave Marx his criterion for truth. For example:

The mediating process between men engaged in exchange is not a social or human process, not human relationship; it is the abstract relationship of private property to private property.... Since men engaged in exchange do not relate to each other as men, things lose the significance of human personal property.

To identify Hegel's dialectic with the method of Marx is to deny such a view. For Hegel's conception of science left no room for such a critical judgement - indeed, it was designed especially to preclude it. Humanity, identified as Spirit, just was, and there was nothing more to be said about it. Hegel believed that science had to comprehend the forms taken by human life and consciousness, not to ask 'should they be', but only to show the necessary place of each as a part of the whole picture. This is what Marx meant when he referred to

the kind of consciousness - and philosophical consciousness is precisely of this kind - which regards the comprehending consciousness [ begrefende Denken] as the real man, and the comprehended world as such as the real world.

That is why Hegel could consider neither the state nor political economy as subjects for critique. He could only pay tribute to the scientific work of Smith, Say and Ricardo. Marx was also an admirer of these great thinkers. But he saw that when they viewed human society as a collection of individuals inspired by self-interest, they were accurately reflecting the real relations of bourgeois society, and making them appear as if this were the 'natural' way to live.

The understanding of what is and what is not human permeates Marx's conception of science. Consider two well-known remarks from Volume 3 of Capital: '[A]ll science would be superfluous if the form of appearance [ Erscheinungsform] of things and their essence [ Wesen] directly coincided.' And earlier, discussing 'prices of production':

In competition, therefore, everything appears upside-down. The finished configuration [ Gestalt] of economic relations, as these are visible on the surface, in their actual existence [realen Existenz], and therefore also in the notions [ Vorstellungen] with which the bearers and agents of these relations seek to gain an understanding of them, is very different from the configuration of their inner core, which is essential [ wesentlichen] but concealed [ verhullten], and the concept [ Begriff] corresponding to it. It is in fact the very reverse and antithesis of this.

Here, the parallels between Marx's method and Hegel's are plain to see. But only in Marx's case is a further question immediately raised (although rarely by 'Marxists'): why are appearance and essence opposed? Why can't we live in such a way that they do coincide? His struggle to answer such questions is the heart and soul of Marx's critique of political economy, of his conception of history and of his notions of the communist revolution and communist society.

When 'Marxism' thought that Marx had produced a set of 'economic doctrines', a 'Marxist political economy', and when it identified 'Marx's dialectic' with Hegel's dialectic, it was denying Marx's central insight. In presenting the most developed form of his work on the critique of political economy, in the 1873 edition of Capital, Marx explained quite clearly that 'my dialectic is not only different from that of Hegel, but its direct opposite'. Unfortunately, nobody was listening. Right at the start of his study of political economy, Marx wrote:

The community of men, or the manifestation of the nature of men, their mutual complementing the result of which is species-life, truly human life - this community is conceived by political economy in the form of exchange and trade.... It is seen that political economy defines the estranged form of social intercourse as the essential and original form corresponding to man's nature.

In opposition to this, Marx knew that

since human nature is the true community of men, by manifesting their nature men create, produce, the human community the social entity, which is no abstract universal power opposed to the single individual, but is the essential nature of each individual, his own activity, his own life, his own spirit, his own wealth.

As he put it nearly thirty years later:

The categories of bourgeois political economy ... are forms of thought which are socially valid, and therefore objective, for the relations of production belonging to this historically determined mode of social production....

These formulas, which bear the unmistakable stamp of belonging to a social formation in which the process of production has mastery over man, instead of the opposite, appear to the political economists' consciousness to be as much a self-evident and nature-imposed necessity as productive labour itself.

Marx's critique of political economy cannot be separated from his critique of the Hegelian dialectic. He showed how Hegel's logic expressed most profoundly the logic of money and capital, and was bound up with the distortion, inversion and inhumanity of the forms of consciousness through which money operated. For Hegel, as for Ricardo, money simply functioned as a 'universal means of exchange', promoting justice and equality.

Marx, by analysis of the categories of the political economists themselves, showed how this relation's impersonal power arose necessarily out of the nature of the commodity and enslaved the whole of society, both rich and poor. The substance, 'value', transformed itself into the active subject, 'capital', and this was what Hegel unconsciously depicted as 'Spirit'. Where Hegel sees Spirit as the product of human social activity which controls our lives, Marx sees capital.

When Marx unfolds the forms of value, their necessary development into the money-form and the development of money into capital, he deliberately refers to Hegel's exposition of the Judgement and the Syllogism. Hegel's account shows no way out of the inexorable forward march of the Idea. Marx points to the inhumanity and craziness ( Verucktheit) of these forms, whose apparent 'inevitability' and 'naturalness' he shows to arise from within this inhuman social formation itself.

So these parallel logical processes actually move in opposite directions. Hegel purports to demonstrate that thought can find a place for all kinds of phenomena of the modern world. Anything, indeed, that is to be discovered existing there has to be shown to be there of necessity. However miserable people may be in such situations, they will be consoled when they hear how it is all for the best 'in the end'. The dialectic moves on past their misery, majestically carrying 'us' - 'we who look on' - to the heights of the Absolute.

In Marx, on the contrary, the forms demonstrate in their movement the way the dialectical trick works. They show us, step by step, how the inhuman relations inside which we live our lives disguise themselves as 'natural'. This is the direct opposite of his 'great master'. Hegel locks the gates of our inhuman prison, fixing to them the sign 'Freedom'. Marx wants to show us, not just that we are imprisoned, certainly not a utopian picture of what lies beyond the walls, but how we locked ourselves in and thus how to get out, that is, to live as humans.

Was Karl Marx a materialist? If this word is used to mean something about 'matter being given to us through our senses', or thinking being a 'reflection of matter', certainly not. Such materialism, said Marx, took the standpoint of 'the isolated individual in civil society' ( Theses on Feuerbach, Thesis 10). When he called himself a materialist, he wanted to stress how scientific thinking reflected 'the real movement': 'Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct production process of his life.' But bourgeois society turned technology and natural science into instruments for the inhuman exploitation of both Nature and labour-power. This is the root cause of the weaknesses of the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism which excludes the historical process'.

By liberating society from fetishised forms, the communist revolution would make it possible for humanity to see its true relationship with Nature. Productive activity was revealed as 'a process between man and nature', in which the human being 'confronts the materials of nature as a force of nature'. When a human being 'acts upon nature and changes it ... he simultaneously changes his own nature' and 'develops the potentialities slumbering within nature'. That is why Marx's science - in direct opposition to Hegel's - could see the potentially human role of the natural sciences:

History itself is a real part of natural history - of nature developing into man. Natural science will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science .. . The social reality of nature, and human natural science, or the natural science of man, are identical terms.

Marx could not have done his job without Hegel. By exhibiting the workings of his dialectic in such detail and so comprehensively, Marx's 'great teacher' had given us a faithful map of our jail. All that Marx needed to do was to turn the map upside-down and reverse the arrows on the signposts. That is why critique, in the special meaning Marx gave that term, was so important for Marx's work. Through gaps and internal contradictions in Hegel's system, Marx could glimpse possible routes for our escape tunnel.

Of course, just as Hegel's task could never be completed, Marx's was also one that could never have an end. In any case, he only had time to begin the study of one particular item on his agenda. If we refuse to be bound by the false notion of 'Marxism', the idea that it possessed the patent on a 'complete, integral world-outlook', then we stand a chance of following Marx's lead and continuing his work into the uncharted terrain of the twenty-first century.

Contents | Uchida on Grundrisse | Ilyenkov on Feuerbach
Pilling on Concepts of Capital | German Ideology | Theses on Feuerbach

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Science and Humanity- Hegel, Marx and Dialectic

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Marx at the Millennium by Cyril Smith this chapter reprinted from Common Sense, April 1994 Karl Marx and the Origins of 'Marxism' It was in the 1890s, when Karl Marx had been safely dead for a decade, that Kautsky and Plekhanov invented 'Marxism'.

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Vygotsky and marx resetting the relationship.pdf

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Vygotsky and marx resetting the relationship.pdf

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Seminário Vygotsky and Marx com Peter Jones - Sessão 2

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DEIXE SUAS QUESTÕES AQUI!

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Soviet Psychology_ Consciousness as a problem of behavior 1925

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Seminário Internacional Vygotsky e Marx com Peter Jones

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Lev Vygotsky (1930): A Transformação Socialista do Homem

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Lev Vygotsky (1930): A Transformação Socialista do Homem

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Lev Vygotsky

1930

Escrito: 1930
Primeira Edição: 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, USSR .
Fonte da presente Tradução: Marxists Internet Archive, english version.
Tradução de: anônimo para o Marxists Internet Archive, Julho de 2004.
HTML por José Braz para o Marxists Internet Archive, Outubro de 2004

A Psicologia científica estabeleceu como sua tese básica o fato que o tipo psicológico do homem moderno é um produto de duas linhas evolutivas. Por um lado, este tipo moderno de ser humano se desenvolveu em um processo prolongado de evolução biológica da qual a espécie homo sapiens surgiu com todas as suas características inerentes do ponto de vista da estrutura corporal, das funções de órgãos diversos e de certos tipos de reflexos e atividades instintivas que foram fixados hereditariamente e que são transmitidos de geração a geração.

Mas, juntamente com o início da vida social e histórica humana e das mudanças fundamentais nas condições às quais ela teve que se adaptar, mudou também, muito radicalmente, o próprio caráter do curso subseqüente da evolução humana. Até onde se pode julgar, com base no material efetivo disponível que foi obtido principalmente comparando os tipos biológicos de povos primitivos às fases mais primitivas de seu desenvolvimento cultural com representantes das raças mais culturalmente avançadas, até onde esta questão pode ser resolvida através de teoria psicológica contemporânea, há razões fortes para supor que o tipo biológico humano mudou notavelmente pouco durante o curso do desenvolvimento histórico do homem. Isto não quer dizer, é claro, que a evolução biológica paralisou-se e que a espécie humana é uma quantidade estável, inalterável, constante, mas sim que as leis fundamentais e os fatores essenciais que dirigem o processo de evolução biológica retrocederam ao plano de fundo e, ou decaíram completamente, ou tornaram-se uma parte reduzida ou sub-dominante das novas e mais complexas leis que governam o desenvolvimento social humano

Realmente, a luta pela sobrevivência e a seleção natural, as duas forças motrizes da evolução biológica no mundo animal, perdem a sua importância decisiva assim que passamos a considerar o desenvolvimento histórico do homem. As novas leis que regulam o curso da história humana e que regem o processo de desenvolvimento material e mental da sociedade humana, agora tomam os seus lugares.

Como um indivíduo só existe como um ser social, como um membro de algum grupo social em cujo contexto ele segue a estrada do desenvolvimento histórico, a composição de sua personalidade e a estrutura de seu comportamento reveste-se de um caráter dependente da evolução social cujos aspectos principais são determinados pelo grupo. Já nas sociedades primitiva, que só há pouco estão dando os seus primeiros passos ao longo da estrada do desenvolvimento histórico, a completa constituição psicológica dos indivíduos pode ser vista como diretamente dependente do desenvolvimento de tecnologia, do grau de desenvolvimento das forças de produção e da estrutura daquele grupo social ao qual o indivíduo pertence. Pesquisas no campo da psicologia étnica forneceram provas incontroversas de que estes fatores, cuja interdependência intrínseca foi estabelecida pela teoria do materialismo histórico, são os componentes decisivos da psicologia integral do homem primitivo.

Em nenhum outro lugar, de acordo com Plekhanov, esta dependência da consciência relativa ao modo de vida manifesta-se de maneira mais óbvia e direta que na vida do homem primitivo. Isto ocorre por serem os fatores que realizam a mediação entre o progresso tecnológico e o psicológico ainda muito deficientes e primitivos, esta é a razão pela qual esta dependência pode ser observada quase que em seu estado bruto. Mas uma relação muito mais complicada entre estes dois fatores pode ser observada em uma sociedade altamente desenvolvida que adquiriu uma estrutura de classes complexa. Aqui a influência da base sobre a superestrutura psicológica do homem não se dá forma direta, mas mediada por um grande número de fatores materiais e espirituais muito complexos. Mas, até mesmo aqui, a lei fundamental do desenvolvimento histórico humano, que proclama serem os seres humanos criados pela sociedade na qual vivem e que ela representa o fator determinante na formação de suas personalidades, permanece em vigor.

Do mesmo modo que a vida de uma sociedade não representa um único e uniforme todo, e a sociedade ela mesma é subdividida em diferentes classes, assim também, não pode ser dito que a composição das personalidades humanas representa algo homogêneo e uniforme em um dado período histórico, e a psicologia tem que levar em conta o fato básico que a tese geral que foi formulada agora mesmo, só pode ter uma conclusão direta, confirmar o caráter de classe, natureza de classe e distinções de classe que são responsáveis pela formação dos tipos humanos. As várias contradições internas que são encontradas nos diferentes sistemas sociais encontram sua expressão tanto no tipo de personalidade quanto na estrutura da psicologia humana naquele período histórico.

Nas descrições clássicas do período inicial do capitalismo, Marx enfatiza freqüentemente o tema da corrupção da personalidade humana que é provocada pelo crescimento da sociedade capitalista industrial. Em um dos extremos da sociedade, a divisão entre o trabalho intelectual e o físico, a separação entre a cidade e o campo, a exploração cruel do trabalho da criança e da mulher, pobreza e a impossibilidade de um desenvolvimento livre e completo do pleno potencial humano, e no outro extremo, ócio e luxo; disso tudo resulta não só que o tipo humano originalmente único torna-se diferenciado e fragmentado em vários tipos nas diversas classes sociais que, por sua vez, permanecem em agudo contraste umas às outras, mas também na corrupção e distorção da personalidade humana e sua sujeição a um desenvolvimento inadequado, unilateral em todas estas diferentes variantes do tipo humano.

'Juntamente com a divisão de trabalho', diz Engels, 'o próprio homem foi subdividido' de acordo com Ryazanov, 'toda forma de produção material especifica alguma divisão social do trabalho, e que é responsável por sua divisão espiritual. A começar pela corrupção da sociedade primitiva, já podemos observar a seleção de várias funções espirituais e organizacionais em espécies e subespécies determinadas correspondentes ao esquema da divisão social de trabalho'. Mais adiante Engels diz:

"Já a primeira grande divisão do trabalho, a divisão entre a cidade e o campo, condenou a população rural a milênios de entorpecimento mental, e os moradores de cidade à escravização, cada um segundo seu trabalho particular. Destruiu a base para desenvolvimento espiritual do primeiro, e a do físico para o último. Se um camponês é o mestre de sua terra e o artesão de sua arte, então, em grau nada menor, a terra governa o camponês e a arte o artesão. A divisão do trabalho causou ao homem sua própria subdivisão. Todas as demais faculdades físicas e espirituais são sacrificadas a partir do momento que se desenvolve somente um tipo de atividade"

"Esta degeneração do homem avança à medida que a divisão do trabalho alcança seu nível mais alto na manufatura. A manufatura 'quebra' o ofício do artesão em operações fracionadas, atribui, na qualidade de vocação, cada uma delas a um trabalhador distinto e os acorrenta a uma operação fracionária específica, a uma ferramenta específica de trabalho para o resto da vida..."

"E não só os trabalhadores, mas também as classes que os exploram diretamente ou indiretamente, que são escravizadas pelos instrumentos de suas atividades, como resultado da divisão de trabalho: os burgueses mesquinhos, por seu capital e desejo por lucro; o advogado pelas idéias jurídicas ossificadas que o governam como uma força independente; 'as classes educadas' em geral, por suas limitações locais particulares e unilaterais, suas deficiências físicas e miopia espiritual. Estão todos mutilados pela educação que os treina para uma certa especialidade, pela escravização vitalícia a esta especialidade, até mesmo se esta especialidade é fazer absolutamente nada."

Isto é o que Engels escreveu em ' O Anti-Dühring '. Nós temos que proceder da suposição básica que produção intelectual é determinada pela forma de produção material.

"Assim, por exemplo, no capitalismo é encontrada uma forma diferente de produção espiritual daquela prevalecente durante a Idade Média. Cada forma historicamente definida de produção material tem sua forma correspondente de produção espiritual, e isto, por sua vez, significa que a psicologia humana, que é o instrumento direto desta produção intelectual, assume uma forma específica a cada fase determinada do desenvolvimento".

Esta incapacitação dos seres humanos, este desenvolvimento unilateral e distorcido das suas várias capacidades, que Engels descreve, e que surge com a divisão entre cidade e campo, está crescendo a uma enorme velocidade devido à influência da divisão tecnológica de trabalho. Engels escreve:

"Todo conhecimento, perspicácia e vontade que o camponês e o artesão independentes desenvolvem, embora em uma escala pequena, como o selvagem que age como se toda a arte da guerra consistisse no exercício de sua astúcia pessoal, estas faculdades agora são requeridas apenas da fábrica como um todo. As potências intelectuais de produção as fazem desenvolver em um só sentido, porque as fazem extinguir em muitos outros. O que foi perdido pelos trabalhadores especializados ['teilarbeiter'] está concentrado no capital que os emprega. Como resultado da divisão de trabalho no seio da manufatura, o trabalhador é levado a encarar as potências intelectuais do processo material de produção como propriedade alheia, e como um poder que o domina. Este processo de separação começa em co-operação simples na qual o capitalista representa para o trabalhador particular a unidade e a vontade do trabalho social ['Arbeitskörpers'].Isto que começa na manufatura, que mutila o trabalhador transformando-o em um trabalhador especializado, é terminado pela indústria de larga escala que separa a ciência, como um potencial produtivo, do trabalho e a coloca a serviço do capital."

Como resultado do avanço do capitalismo, o desenvolvimento da produção material trouxe simultaneamente consigo a divisão progressiva do trabalho e o crescente desenvolvimento distorcido do potencial humano. Se 'na manufatura e no trabalho artesanal o trabalhador faz uso de suas ferramentas, então na fábrica ele se torna o criado da máquina'. Marx diz que no primeiro caso ele inicia o movimento da ferramenta, mas no segundo ele é forçado a seguir seu movimento. Os trabalhadores se transformam em 'extensões vivas das máquinas', o que resulta na 'tenebrosa monotonia do infinito tormento do trabalho' que Marx [1890/1962, pág. 445] diz ser o elemento característico daquele período no desenvolvimento do capitalismo que ele está descrevendo. O trabalhador é preso a uma função específica, e de acordo com Marx [ibid, pág. 381], isto o transforma 'de um trabalhador em uma anormalidade que artificialmente ['treibhausmäsig'] é nutrida por apenas uma habilidade especial, suprimindo toda a riqueza restante de seus talentos e inclinações produtivas'.

Nos dias atuais, o trabalho da criança representa um exemplo particularmente horrorizante da deformação do desenvolvimento psicológico humano. Na busca por trabalho barato e devido à simplificação extrema das funções que os trabalhadores têm que levar a cabo, o recrutamento em larga escala de crianças tornou-se possível, o que resulta em um desenvolvimento retardado, ou um completamente unilateral e distorcido que acontece na idade mais impressionante, quando a personalidade da pessoa está sendo formada. A pesquisa clássica de Marx está cheia de exemplos de 'esterilidade intelectual', 'degradação física e intelectual', transformação 'de seres humanos imaturos em máquinas para a produção de mais-valia' [ibid., pp. 421-2], e ele apresenta um quadro vívido de todo o processo que resulta em uma situação na qual 'o trabalhador existe em função do processo de produção, e não o processo de produção em função do trabalhador'[ibid., pág. 514].

Porém, todos estes fatores negativos não dão um quadro completo de como o processo de desenvolvimento humano é influenciado pelo crescimento acelerado da indústria. Todas estas influências adversas não são inerentes à indústria de larga escala como tal, mas à sua organização capitalista que está baseada na exploração de enormes massas da população e que resultou em uma situação na qual em vez de todo passo novo para a conquista da natureza pelos seres humanos, todo novo patamar de desenvolvimento da força produtiva da sociedade, não só não elevou a humanidade como um todo, e cada personalidade humana individual, para um nível mais alto, mas conduziu a uma degradação mais profunda da personalidade humana e de seu potencial de crescimento.

Enquanto observadores dos efeitos incapacitantes do processo de progresso da civilização sobre os seres humanos, filósofos como Rousseau e Tolstói não puderam ver nenhuma outra solução que um retorno à integralidade e pureza da natureza humana. De acordo com Tolstói, nosso ideal não está à nossa frente, mas atrás de nós. Neste sentido, do ponto de vista deste romantismo reacionário, os períodos primitivos de desenvolvimento da sociedade humana apresentam-se como aquele ideal que a humanidade deveria estar perseguindo. Realmente, uma análise mais profunda das tendências econômicas e históricas que regulam o desenvolvimento do capitalismo mostra que este processo de mutilação da natureza humana, acima discutida, é inerente não só ao crescimento da indústria de grande escala, mas à específica forma de organização da sociedade capitalista.

A mais fundamental e importante contradição em toda esta estrutura social consiste no fato que dentro dela, sob pressão inexorável, estão evoluindo forças para sua destruição, e estão sendo criadas as precondições para sua substituição por uma nova ordem baseada na ausência da exploração do homem pelo homem. Mais de uma vez, Marx demonstra como o trabalho, ou a indústria de larga escala, em si mesmos, não levam necessariamente à mutilação da natureza humana, como um seguidor de Rousseau ou Tolstói assumiria, mas, pelo contrário, contêm dentro de si mesmos possibilidades infinitas para o desenvolvimento da personalidade humana.

Ele diz, 'como pode ser averiguado a partir dos exemplos dados por Robert Owen, tem crescido a semente de um sistema educacional futuro que combinará o trabalho produtivo com a educação formal e física para todas as crianças acima de uma certa idade, não só como um método de aumento da produção, mas como o único método de produzir seres humanos bem equilibradamente educados' [ibid., pp. 507-8]. Assim a participação das crianças nas fábricas, que sob o sistema capitalista, particularmente durante o período descrito de crescimento do capitalismo, é a fonte da degradação física e intelectual, contém em si mesma as sementes para um sistema educacional futuro e pode vir a constituir-se na forma mais elevada de criação de um tipo novo de ser humano. O crescimento da indústria de grande escala faz necessário, por si só, que se construa um novo tipo de trabalho humano e um novo tipo de ser humano que seja capaz de levar a cabo estas novas formas de trabalho. 'A natureza da indústria de larga escala estipula um trabalho mutável; uma mudança ininterrupta de funções e uma completa mobilidade para o trabalhador', diz Marx: 'o indivíduo que foi se transformado em uma fração, o portador simples de uma função social fracionária, será substituído por um indivíduo completamente desenvolvido para quem as funções sociais diversas representam formas alternativas de suas atividades ' [ibid., pp. 511-12].

Assim não só se demonstra que a combinação do trabalho industrial com a educação provou ser uns meios de criar pessoas plenamente desenvolvidas, mas também que o tipo de pessoa que será exigida para trabalhar neste processo industrial altamente desenvolvido, diferirá substancialmente do tipo de pessoa era o produto do trabalho voltado para a produção durante o período inicial do desenvolvimento capitalista. Neste aspecto o fim do período capitalista apresenta uma antítese notável relativa a seu começo. Se no princípio o indivíduo foi transformado em uma fração, no executor de uma função fracionária, em uma extensão viva da máquina, então ao término, as próprias exigências da indústria requererão uma pessoa plenamente desenvolvida, flexível e que seja capaz de alterar as formas de trabalho, de organizar o processo de produção e de controlá-lo.

Não importa qual característica particular e definidora do tipo psicológico humano que tomemos, seja nos períodos iniciais ou recentes do desenvolvimento do capitalismo, em todos os casos nós encontraremos sempre um significado e um caráter duplos em cada característica crucial. A fonte da degradação da personalidade na forma capitalista de produção, também contém em si mesma o potencial para um crescimento infinito da personalidade.

Para dar um exemplo, concluiremos examinando situações de trabalho onde pessoas de ambos os sexos e de todas as idades têm que trabalhar juntas. 'A composição do quadro geral de empregados por pessoas de ambos sexos e todas as idades...', diz Marx, 'deve, pelo contrário, sob circunstâncias apropriadas, se transformar em uma fonte de desenvolvimento humano' [ibid., pág. 514].

Disto pode se tirar que o crescimento da indústria de grande escala contém dentro de si mesmo o potencial escondido para o desenvolvimento da personalidade humana e que somente a forma capitalista de organização do processo industrial é a responsável pelo fato de todas estas forças exercerem uma influência unilateral e incapacitante que retarda o desenvolvimento pessoal.

Em um de seus primeiros trabalhos, Marx escreve que se a psicologia desejar se tornar uma ciência realmente relevante, terá que aprender ler o livro da história da indústria material que encarna 'os poderes essenciais de homem', e que é uma encarnação concreta da psicologia humana. Da maneira como se dá, toda a tragédia interior do capitalismo consiste no fato que na ocasião em que o estudo objetivo da psicologia do homem, que continha dentro de si potencial infinito de domínio sobre a natureza e sobre o desenvolvimento de sua própria natureza, crescia a passo acelerado, sua vida espiritual real estava degradando e passando pelo processo que Engels descreveu tão vividamente como a mutilação do homem.

Mas a essência de toda esta discussão consiste no fato que esta dupla influência de fatores inerentes à indústria de grande escala sobre o desenvolvimento pessoal do homem, esta contradição interna do sistema capitalista, não pode ser solucionada sem a destruição do sistema capitalista de organização industrial. Neste sentido, a contradição parcial que nós já mencionamos, entre o poder crescente do homem e sua degradação que paralelamente aprofunda-se, entre seu crescente domínio sobre a natureza, e sua liberdade por um lado, e a sua escravidão e dependência crescentes das coisas produzidas por ele mesmo, no outro-nós desejamos reiterar que esta contradição representa só uma parte de uma contradição muito mais geral e totalizadora que subjaz ao sistema capitalista tomado como um todo. Esta contradição geral. entre o desenvolvimento das forças de produção e a ordem social que correspondente a este nível de desenvolvimento das forças de produção, é resolvida pela revolução socialista e uma transição para uma nova ordem social e uma nova forma de organização das relações sociais.

Paralelamente a esse processo, uma mudança na personalidade humana e uma alteração do próprio homem deve inevitavelmente acontecer. Esta alteração tem três raízes básicas. A primeira delas consiste no fato mesmo da destruição das formas capitalistas de organização e produção e das formas de vida social e espiritual que a partir daí irão surgir. Junto com o desfacelamento da ordem capitalista, todas as forças que oprimem o homem e que o mantêm escravizado pelas máquinas e que interferem com o seu livre desenvolvimento também desaparecerão e serão destruídas. Junto com a liberação dos muitos milhões de seres humanos da opressão, virá a libertação da personalidade humana das correntes que restringem seu desenvolvimento. Esta é a primeira fonte-a liberação de homem.

A segunda fonte de qual emerge a alteração de homem reside no fato de que ao mesmo tempo em que as velhas correntes desaparecem, o enorme potencial positivo presente na indústria de grande escala, o já crescente poder dos homens sobre a natureza, será liberado e tornado operativo. Todas as características discutidas acima, das quais o exemplo mais notório é a forma completamente nova de criar um futuro baseado na combinação de trabalho físico e intelectual, perderão seu caráter dual e mudarão o curso de sua influência de um modo fundamental. Considerando que anteriormente suas ações foram dirigidas contra as pessoas, agora elas começam a trabalhar por causa delas. De seu papel de obstáculos desempenhado outrora, elas se transformam em forças poderosas de promoção do desenvolvimento da personalidade humana.

Finalmente, a terceira fonte que inicia a alteração de homem é mudança nas próprias relações sociais entre as pessoas. Se as relações entre pessoas sofrem uma mudança, então junto com elas as idéias, padrões de comportamento, exigências e gostos também mudarão. Como foi averiguado por pesquisa psicológica a personalidade humana é formada basicamente pela influência das relações sociais, i.e., o sistema do qual o indivíduo é apenas uma parte desde a infância mais tenra. 'Minha relação para com meu ambiente', diz Marx, 'é minha consciência'. Uma mudança fundamental do sistema global destas relações, das quais o homem é uma parte, também conduzirá inevitavelmente a uma mudança de consciência, uma mudança completa no comportamento do homem.

A educação deve desempenhar o papel central na transformação do homem, nesta estrada de formação social consciente de gerações novas, a educação deve ser a base para alteração do tipo humano histórico. As novas gerações e suas novas formas de educação representam a rota principal que a história seguirá para criar o novo tipo de homem. Neste sentido, o papel da educação social e politécnica é extraordinariamente importante. As idéias básicas que justificam a educação politécnica consistem em uma tentativa de superar a divisão entre trabalho físico e intelectual e reunir pensamento e trabalho que foram separados durante o processo de desenvolvimento capitalista.

De acordo com Marx, a educação politécnica proporciona a familiaridade com os princípios científicos gerais a todos os processos de produção e, ao mesmo tempo, ensina as crianças e adolescentes que habilidades práticas tornam possível para eles operarem as ferramentas básicas utilizadas em todas as indústrias. Krupskaja formula esta idéia da seguinte maneira:

"Uma escola politécnica pode ser distinguida de uma escola de comércio pelo fato de centrar-se na interpretação de processos de trabalho, no desenvolvimento da habilidade para unificar teoria e prática e na habilidade para entender a interdependência de certos fenômenos, enquanto em uma escola de comércio o centro de gravidade está em proporcionar para os alunos habilidades para o trabalho".

Coletivismo, a unificação do trabalho físico e intelectual, uma mudança nas relações entre os sexos, a abolição da separação entre desenvolvimento físico e intelectual, estes são os aspectos fundamentais daquela alteração do homem que é o assunto de nossa discussão. E o resultado a ser alcançado, a glória e coroamento de todo esse processo de transformação da natureza humana, deveria ser o aparecimento da forma mais alta de liberdade humana que Marx descreve da seguinte maneira: 'Somente em comunidade,[com os outros, cada] indivíduo [possui] os meios de cultivar seus talentos em todas as direções: só em comunidade, então, é possível a liberdade pessoal'. Assim como a sociedade humana, a personalidade individual precisa dar este salto que a leva do reino da necessidade à esfera de liberdade, como foi descrito por Engels.

Sempre que a alteração do homem e a criação de um novo nível mais elevado de personalidade e conduta humanas são postas em discussão, é inevitável que sejam mencionadas idéias sobre um tipo novo de ser humano relacionado à teoria de Nietzsche sobre o super-homem. Partindo das perfeitamente verdadeiras suposições que a evolução não parou no homem e que o tipo moderno de ser humano representa nada além de uma ponte, uma forma transitória, que conduz a um tipo mais elevado, que a evolução não esgotou suas possibilidades quando criou o homem e que o tipo moderno de personalidade não é a realização mais alta e a última palavra no processo de desenvolvimento, Nietzsche concluiu que uma criatura nova pode surgir durante o processo de evolução, um super-homem que guardará a mesma relação com homem contemporâneo que o homem contemporâneo guarda com o macaco.

Porém, Nietzsche imaginou que o desenvolvimento deste tipo mais elevado de homem estava sujeito à mesma lei de evolução biológica, a luta pela vida e a seleção baseada na sobrevivência do mais apto, que prevalece no mundo animal. É por isto que o ideal de poder, a auto-afirmação da personalidade humana em toda sua abundância de poder e ambição instintivos, o individualismo áspero de homens e mulheres fora de série, de acordo com Nietzsche, formariam, a estrada para a criação de um super-homem.

Esta teoria é errônea, porque ignora o fato que as leis de evolução histórica do homem diferem fundamentalmente das leis da evolução biológica e que a diferença básica entre estes dois processos consiste no fato que um ser humano evolui e se desenvolve como um ser histórico, social. Só uma elevação de toda a humanidade a um nível mais alto de vida social, a liberação de toda a humanidade, pode conduzir à formação de um novo tipo de homem.

Porém, esta mudança do comportamento humano, esta mudança da personalidade humana, tem que conduzir, inevitavelmente, à evolução do homem para um tipo superior, para a alteração do tipo biológico humano. Tendo dominado os processos que determinam sua própria natureza, o homem que hoje está lutando contra velhice e doenças, ascenderá, indubitavelmente, a um nível mais elevado e transformará sua própria organização biológica. Mas esta é a fonte do maior paradoxo histórico do desenvolvimento contido nesta transformação biológica do tipo humano, que ela é alcançada principalmente por meio da ciência, da educação social e da racionalização dos modos de vida. A alteração biológica do homem não representa uma condição prévia para estes fatores, mas, ao invés disso, é um resultado da liberação social do homem.

Neste sentido Engels, que tinha examinado o processo de evolução do macaco ao homem, disse que trabalho que criou o homem. Partindo daí, poder-se-ia dizer que novas formas de trabalho criarão o novo homem e que este homem novo se assemelhará ao tipo antigo de homem, 'o antigo Adão', apenas no nome, da mesma maneira como, de acordo com a grande declaração de Spinoza, um cão, o animal que late, se assemelha a Cão constelação celeste.
Início da página Notas:
(1) Nota da tradução para língua portuguesa: cabem algumas observações acerca desta tradução:
a) Esta tradução é feita a partir da versão em língua inglesa do texto, portanto está mais sujeita a incorreções que o próprio texto que lhe serviu de base, dado que este já era por si só uma tradução.
b) O tradutor é brasileiro, e nessa qualidade efetuou toda a tradução tendo em vista as normas da língua portuguesa vigentes no Brasil, ainda assim, por não ser profissional do ramo das Letras, o tradutor pede desculpas por qualquer eventual erro.
c) Relativamente ao trabalho que serviu de modelo a esta tradução foi suprimida uma das notas, a nota número 5, por isso, a partir desta número as notas desta tradução não correspondem àquelas da numeração do texto original. O motivo da omissão foi não haver no corpo do texto indicação da nota, apenas constando a mesma do "rodapé".
d) Ao contrário do tradutor para língua inglesa do texto original, o tradutor deste texto não buscou as traduções para a língua portuguesa dos textos originais citados. Nas notas que seguem (que também são traduções do texto base da tradução) são feitas referências às obras em língua inglesa, alemã ou russa dependendo do caso. É importante lembrar que as traduções dos textos originais aqui citados também são traduções livres do tradutor do presente texto. ( retornar ao texto)

(2) Provavelmente se refere a Plekhanov, G. V. 1922: Ocherki po istorii materializma. Moscou. ( retornar ao texto)

(3) Refere-se à pág. 272 de Engels, F. 1894/1978: Herrn Eugen Duhring's Umwalzung der Wissenschaft [Anti-Duhring]. Dietz Verlag. ( retornar ao texto)

(4) É obscuro a que livro que Vygotsky está se referindo. ( retornar ao texto)

(7) 'Entendemos que a história da indústria e a atual existência objetiva da indústria são o livro aberto dos poderes essenciais do homem, percebemos a psicologia humana existente... uma psicologia para qual este livro, a parte de história que existe na forma mais perceptível e acessível, permanece um livro fechado, não pode se tornar uma ciência genuína, geral e real'. Ver pp. 302-03 of Marx- Engels Collected Works. Vol, 3: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. New York: International Publishers (1975). ( retornar ao texto)

(9) A esposa de Lênin, N. K. Krupskaja, devotou muita atenção à questões educacionais. Em seu livro, Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe [Educação da Mocidade no Espírito de Lenin] ela discutiu experiências internacionais suas contemporâneas com escolas de trabalho (Arbeitsschule) à luz do ideal de Marx da educação politécnica. Ver Krupskaja, N. K. 1925/1989: Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe. Moscow: Pedagogika. Nós não pudemos estabelecer a fonte exata da presente citação. ( retornar ao texto)

(11) Conferir pp. 444-55 de Engels, F. 1925/1978: Dialektik der Natur [A Dialética da Natureza]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag. ( retornar ao texto)

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Lev Vygotsky: A Tranformação Socialista do Homem

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Escrito: 1930 Primeira Edição: 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, USSR . Fonte da presente Tradução: Marxists Internet Archive, english version. Tradução de: anônimo para o Marxists Internet Archive, Julho de 2004. HTML por José Braz para o Marxists Internet Archive, Outubro de 2004 A Psicologia científica estabeleceu como sua tese básica o fato que o tipo psicológico do homem moderno é um produto de duas linhas evolutivas.

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L S Vygotsky (1930) The socialist alteration of man

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L S Vygotsky (1930) The socialist alteration of man

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Lev Vygotsky 1930

Source: Vygotsky Reader, edited by René van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner, Blackwell, 1994;
First Published: as Vygotsky, L. 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

Scientific psychology has established as its basic thesis the fact that the modern psychological human type is a product of two evolutionary lines. On the one hand, this modern type of human being developed in a lengthy process of biological evolution from which the biological species homo sapiens has arisen, with all its inherent characteristics from the point of view of body structure, the functions of various organs and certain types of reflexes and instinctive activity, which have become hereditarily fixed and which are passed on from generation to generation.

But together with the beginning of social and historical human life and the fundamental changes in the conditions to which he had to adapt himself, the very character of the subsequent course of human evolution also changed very radically. As far as one is able to judge on the basis of the available factual material, which has been obtained mainly by comparing biological types of primitive peoples at the most primitive stages of their cultural development with representatives of the most culturally advanced races, as far as this question can be resolved by contemporary psychological theory, there are strong reasons to suppose that the biological human type has changed remarkably little during the course of the historical development of man. It is not, of course, that biological evolution has come to a stop and that the species 'man' is a stable, unchangeable, constant quantity, but rather that the basic laws and the essential factors which direct the process of biological evolution have receded to the background and have either completely fallen away or have become a reduced or sub-dominant part of new and more complex laws governing human social development.

Indeed, the struggle for existence and natural selection, the two driving forces of biological evolution within the animal world, lose their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical development of man. New laws, which regulate the course of human history and which cover the entire process of the material and mental development of human society, now take their place.

As an individual only exists as a social being, as a member of some social group within whose context he follows the road of his historical development, the composition of his personality and the structure of his behaviour turn out to be a quantity which is dependent on social evolution and whose main aspects are determined by the latter. Already in primitive societies, which are only just taking their first steps along the road of their historical development, the entire psychological makeup of individuals can be seen to depend directly on the development of technology, the degree of development of the production forces and on the structure of that social group to which the individual belongs. Research in the field of ethnic psychology has provided incontrovertible proof that both of these factors, whose intrinsic interdependence has been established by the theory of historical materialism, are the decisive factors of the whole psychology of primitive man.

Nowhere else, according to Plekhanov, does that dependence of consciousness on the way of life manifest itself in a more obvious and direct manner as it does in the life of primitive man. This is due to the fact that the factors which mediate between technological and psychological progress are very meagre and primitive and this is the reason why this dependence can be observed almost in the raw. But a much more complicated relationship between these two factors can be observed in a highly developed society which has acquired a complex class structure. Here the influence of the basis on the psychological superstructure of man turns out to be not direct, but mediated by a large number of very complex material and spiritual factors. But even here, the basic law of historical human development, which proclaims that human beings are created by the society in which they live and that it represents the determining factor in the formation of their personalities, remains in force.

In the same way as the life of a society does not represent a single and uniform whole, and society is subdivided into different classes, so, during any given historical period, the composition of human personalities cannot be said to represent something homogeneous and uniform, and psychology must take into account the basic fact that the general thesis which has been formulated just now, can have only one direct conclusion, to confirm the class character, class nature and class distinctions which are responsible for the formation of human types. The various internal contradictions which are to be found in different social systems find their expression both in the type of personality and in the structure of human psychology in that historical period.

In his classic descriptions of the early period of capitalism, Marx frequently dwells on the subject of the corruption of the human personality which is brought about by the growth of capitalist industrial society. On one extreme end of society, the division between intellectual and physical labour, the separation between town and country, the ruthless exploitation of child and female labour, poverty and the impossibility of a free and full development of full human potential, and on the other extreme, idleness and luxury; not only does all this result in the single human type becoming differentiated and fragmented into several separate social class types which stand in sharp contrast to one another, but also in the corruption and distortion of the human personality and its subjection to unsuitable, one-sided development within all these different variants of the human type.

'Along with the division of labour', says Engels, 'man himself became subdivided.' According to Ryazanov, 'every form of material production specifies some social division of labour, and this is responsible for the spiritual division of labour. Beginning already with the corruption of primitive society, we can observe selection of a number of spiritual and organizational functions into special species and subspecies within the scheme of the social division of labour'. Engels further says:

"Already the very first major division of labour, the division of town from country, sentenced the rural population to millennia of mental torpor, and the city dwellers to enslavement, each by his particular work. It destroyed the basis for spiritual development for the former, or physical development for the latter. If a peasant is master of his land and the craftsman of his craft, then in no lesser degree the land rules over the peasant and the craft over the craftsman. The division of labour has caused man himself to become subdivided. All remaining physical and spiritual faculties are sacrificed for the sake of developing just one type of activity.

"This degeneration of man increases at the same rate as the division of labour, which reaches its highest level in manufacture. Manufacture breaks up craftsmanship into fractional operations and assigns each of them to a separate worker as his life vocation and chains him down to a specific fractional operation, to a specific tool of labour for the rest of his life ...

"And it is not only workers, but also the classes who exploit them directly or indirectly, who become enslaved by the instruments of their activities, as a result of the division of labour: the petty bourgeois, by his capital and desire for profit; the lawyer by his ossified juridical ideas which rule over him like an independent force; 'the educated classes' in general, by their particular local limitations and one-sidedness, their physical shortcomings and spiritual myopia. They are crippled by their education which trains them for a certain speciality, by their lifelong enslavery to this speciality, even if this speciality is doing nothing at all."

This is what Engels wrote in 'Anti-Dühring'. We have to proceed from the basic assumption that intellectual production is determined by the form of material production.

"So, for example, a different form of spiritual production than the type which was prevalent during the Middle Ages fits in with capitalism. Each historically defined form of material production has its corresponding form of spiritual production, and this, in its turn, signifies that human psychology, which is the direct instrument of this intellectual production, assumes its specific form at a certain stage of development."

This crippling of human beings, this one-sided and distorted development of his various capabilities which Engels describes, and which appeared together with the division of town and country, is growing at an enormous rate due to the influence of the technological division of labour. Engels writes:

"All the knowledge, the insight and the will which both the independent peasant and craftsman develop albeit on a small scale, like the savage who makes the whole art of war consist of the exercise of his personal cunning - these faculties are now required only for the workshop as a whole. The intellectual potencies of production make them expand in one direction, because they vanish in many others. What is lost by the detail labourers [' teilarbeiter'] is concentrated in the capital that employs them. It is as a result of the division of labour in manufacture that the labourer is brought face to face with the intellectual potencies of the material process of production, as the property of another, and as a ruling power. This process of separation begins in simple co-operation, where the capitalist represents to the single workman the oneness and the will of the social labour [' Arbeitskörpers ']. It is developed in manufacture which cripples the labourer into a detail labourer. It is completed in large scale industry, which separates science as a productive potential from labour and presses it into the service of capital."

As a result of the advance of capitalism, the development of material production simultaneously brought with it the progressive division of labour and the constantly growing distorted development of the human potential. If 'in manufacture and manual labour the worker makes use of his tools, then in a factory he becomes the servant of the machine'. Marx says that in the former case he initiates the movement of his tool, but here he is forced to follow its movement. The workers turn into 'living extensions of machines', and what results is a 'dismal monotony of the endless torment of labour', which Marx [1890/1962, p. 445] says is the characteristic feature of that period in the development of capitalism which he is describing. He is tethered to a specific function, and according to Marx [ ibid, p. 381], this turns him 'from a worker into an abnormality and artificially [' treibhausmäsig '] fosters him in just one special skill whilst suppressing all the remaining wealth of his productive inclinations and talents'.

In our times, child labour represents a particularly horrifying example of the disfigurement of human psychological development. In the pursuit of cheap labour and due to the extreme simplification of the separate functions which the workers have to carry out, large scale recruitment of children becomes possible and this results in a retarded, or a wholly one-sided and distorted development occurring at the most impressionable age when the personality of the person is being formed. Marx's classic research is full of examples of 'intellectual barrenness', 'physical and intellectual degradation', 'transformation of immature human beings into machines for the production of surplus value' [ ibid., pp. 421-2], and he presents [ ibid., p. 514] a vivid picture of the whole process which results in a situation where 'the worker exists for the sake of the production process, and not the production process for the sake of the worker'.

However, all these negative factors do not give a full picture of how the process of human development is influenced by the speedy growth of industry. All these adverse influences are not inherent in large scale industry as such, but in its capitalist organization, which is based on the exploitation of enormous masses of the population and which has resulted in a situation where, instead of every new step toward the conquest of nature by human beings, every new level in the development of the production forces of the society, has not just failed to raise humanity as a whole and each individual human personality to a higher level, but has led to an ever deeper degradation of the human personality and its growth potential.

Whilst observing the crippling effects of the process of progressing civilization upon human beings, philosophers like Rousseau and Tolstoy could not see any other solution than a return to the integral and pure human nature. According to Tolstoy, our ideal is not ahead of us but behind us. In this sense, from the point of view of this reactionary romanticism, the primitive periods of the development of human society appear as that ideal toward which humanity should be striving. And really, a deeper analysis of the economic and historical tendencies which regulate the development of capitalism, shows that this crippling process of human nature which was discussed above, is inherent not only in the very fact of the growth of large scale industry, but in the society's specific capitalist form of organization.

The most fundamental and important contradiction in this whole social structure consists of the fact that within it, under relentless pressure, forces are evolving and preconditions are being created for its destruction and replacement with a new order, which is based on the absence of man's exploitation of man. More than once, Marx demonstrates how labour by itself or large scale industry by itself does not necessarily have to cripple human nature, as a follower of Rousseau or Tolstoy would assume, but, on the contrary, it contains within itself endless possibilities for the development of the human personality.

He says, 'As can be ascertained from the particulars given by Robert Owen, a seed of a future educational system has grown, which will combine productive labour with schooling and physical education for all children above a certain age, not only as a method of increasing social production, but as the only method of producing well rounded educated human beings' [ ibid., pp. 507-8]. So the participation of children in manufacturing, which under the capitalist system, particularly during the period of growth of capitalism described, is the source of physical and intellectual degradation, contains seeds for a future educational system in itself and may well turn out to be a higher form of creation of a new type of human being. The growth of large scale industry in itself makes it necessary to work out a new type of human labour and a new type of human being who would be capable of carrying out these new forms of work. 'The nature of large scale industry stipulates a changing work; a continual changing of functions and an all-round mobility for the worker', says Marx. 'The individual who has been turned into a fraction, the simple bearer of a fractional social function, would be replaced by a fully developed individual for whom the various social functions represent alternating forms of his activities' [ ibid., pp. 511-12].

So it appears that not only will the combination of manufacturing labour with education prove to be a means of creating all-round developed people, but that it will also mean that the type of person who will be required to work in this highly developed manufacturing process, will differ substantially from the type of person used to be the product of production work during the early period of capitalist development. In this respect the end of the capitalist period presents a striking antithesis to its beginning. If in the beginning the individual was transformed into a fraction, into the executor of a fractional function, into a live extension of the machine, then at the end of it, the very requirements of manufacturing require an all-round developed, flexible person, who would be capable of changing the forms of work, and of organizing the production process and controlling it.

No matter which one of the individual features which characterize the human psychological type during either the early or the late periods of the development of capitalism we select, everywhere we will encounter a double meaning and a double character of each critical feature. The source of the degradation of the personality in the capitalist form of manufacturing, also contains within itself the potential for an infinite growth of personality.

To provide an example, let us conclude by examining labour situations where both sexes and all ages have to work together. 'The composition of the whole staff of employees from persons of both sexes and all ages ...', says Marx, 'must, on the contrary, under appropriate circumstances, turn into a source of humane development' [ ibid., p. 514].

From this it can be seen that the growth of large scale industry contains within itself hidden potential for the development of the human personality and that it is only the capitalist form of organization of the industrial process which is responsible for the fact that all these forces exert a one-sided and crippling influence, which retards personal development.

In one of his early works, Marx says that if psychology wishes to become a really meaningful science, it will have to learn to read the history book of material industry which embodies 'the essential powers of man', and which itself is a concrete embodiment of human psychology. As it happens, the whole internal tragedy of capitalism consists in the fact that at the time when this objective, i.e. thing-orientated, psychology of man, which contained within itself infinite potential for mastery over nature and development of his own nature, was growing at a fast pace, his actual spiritual life was degrading and went through the process which Engels so graphically depicts as the crippling of man.

But the essence of this whole matter consists of the fact that this double influence of factors inherent in large scale industry on human personal development, this internal contradiction of the capitalist system, cannot be resolved without the destruction of the capitalist system of organization of industry. In this sense, the partial contradiction which we have already mentioned, between the growing power of man and his degradation which is growing in parallel, between his increasing mastery over nature and freedom on the one hand, and his slavery and the growing dependence on things produced by him, on the other - we wish to reiterate that this contradiction represents only one part of a much more general and all-encompassing contradiction which lies at the base of the whole capitalist system. This general contradiction between the development of the production forces and the social order which was in correspondence with the level of development of these production forces, is being resolved by the socialist revolution and a transition to a new social order and a new form of organization of social relationships.

Alongside this process, a change in the human personality and an alteration of man himself must inevitably take place. This alteration has three basic roots. The first of these consists of the very fact of the destruction of the capitalist forms of organization and production and the forms of human social and spiritual life which will rise on their foundation. Along with the withering away of the capitalist order, all the forces which oppress man and which cause him to become enslaved by machines and which interfere with his free development will also fall away, disappear and be destroyed. Along with the liberation of the many millions of human beings from suppression, will come the liberation of the human personality from its fetters which curb its development. This is the first source - the liberation of man.

The second source from which springs the alteration of man resides in fact that at the same time as the old fetters disappear, an enormous positive potential present in large scale industry, the ever growing power of humans over nature, will be liberated and become operative. All the features discussed above, the most shining example being the entirely new form of creating a future based on the combination of physical and intellectual work, will lose their dual character and will change the course of their influence in a fundamental way. Whereas earlier, their actions were directed against people, now they begin to work for their sake. From their previous role as obstacles, they now turn into powerful moving forces of the development of human personality.

Finally, the third source which initiates the alteration of man is change in the very social relationships between persons. If the relationships between people undergo a change, then along with them the ideas, standards of behaviour, requirements and tastes are also bound to change. As has been ascertained by psychological research, the human personality is formed basically under the influence of social relations, i.e. the system which it is a part of, from the earliest childhood onward. 'My relationship to my environment', says Marx, 'is my consciousness.' A fundamental change of the whole system of these relationships which man is a part of, will also inevitably lead to a change in consciousness, a change in man's whole behaviour.

It is education which should play the central role in the transformation of man this road of conscious social formation of new generations, the basic form to alter the historical human type. New generations and new forms of their education represent the main route which history will follow whilst creating the new type of man. In this sense, the role of social and polytechnical education is extraordinarily important. As it happens, the basic ideas which underpin polytechnical education, consist of an attempt to overcome the division between physical and intellectual work and to reunite thinking and work which have been torn asunder during the process of capitalist development.

According to Marx, polytechnical education provides familiarity with the general scientific principles of all the production processes and, at the same time, it teaches children and adolescents practical skills which makes it possible for them to operate basic tools used in all industries. Krupskaja formulates this idea in the following way:

A polytechnical school can be distinguished from a trade school by the fact that it focuses on the interpretation of work processes, on the development of the ability to unify theory and practice and in the ability to understand the interdependence of certain phenomena, whereas the centre of gravity in a trade school is directed toward providing the pupils with labour skills.

Collectivism, the unification of intellectual and physical labour, a change in the relationships between the sexes, the abolition of the gap between physical and intellectual development, these are the key aspects of that alteration of man which is the subject of our discussion. And the result of achieving this, the crowning glory of this whole process of transforming human nature, should be the appearance of this higher form of human freedom which Marx describes in the following way: 'Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions: only in community therefore, is personal freedom possible.' Just like all human society, the individual personality must make this leap forward from the realm of necessity to the sphere of freedom, as described by Engels.

Whenever the alteration of man and the creation of a new, higher level of human personality and conduct is under discussion, it is inevitable that ideas about a new type of human being connected with Nietzsche's theory of the superman are mentioned. Proceeding from the perfectly true assumption that evolution did not stop with man and that the modern type of human being represents nothing more than a bridge, a transitional form leading to a higher type, that evolution did not exhaust its possibilities when it created man and that the modern type of personality is not the highest achievement and the last word in the process of development, Nietzsche concluded that a new creature can arise during the process of evolution, a superman, who will have the same relation to contemporary man, as contemporary man has to the ape.

However, Nietzsche imagined that the development of this higher type of man was subject to the same law of biological evolution, the struggle for life and selection based on the survival of the fittest, which prevails in the animal world. It is for this reason that the ideal of power, the self assertion of the human personality in all the fullness of its instinctive power and ambition, rugged individualism and outstanding men and women, formed, according to Nietzsche, the road to the creation of a superman.

This theory is erroneous, because it ignores the fact that the laws of historical evolution of man differ fundamentally from the laws of biological evolution and that the basic difference between these two processes consists of the fact that a human being evolves and develops as a historical, social being. Only a raising of all of humanity to a higher level in social life, the liberation of all of humanity, can lead to the formation of a new type of man.

However, this change in human behaviour, this change of the human personality, must inevitably lead to further evolution of man and to the alteration of the biological type of man. Having mastered the processes which determine his own nature, man who is struggling with old age and diseases, undoubtedly will rise to a higher level and transform the very biological organization of human beings. But this is the source of the greatest historical paradox of human development, that this biological transformation of the human type which is mainly achieved through science, social education and the rationalization of the entire way of life, does not represent a prerequisite but instead is a result of the social liberation of man.

In this sense Engels, who had examined the process of evolution from the ape to man, said that it is labour which created man. Proceeding from this, one could say that new forms of labour will create the new man and that this new man will resemble the old kind of man, 'the old Adam', in name only, in the same way as, according to Spinoza's great statement, a dog, the barking animal, resembles the heavenly constellation Dog.

Notes

1 Probably refers to Plekhanov, G. V. 1922: Ocherki po istorii materializma. Moscow.

2 Refers to p. 272 of Engels, F. 1894/1978: Herrn Eugen Duhring's Umwalzung der Wissenschaft [ Anti-Duhring]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

3 It is unclear to which book Vygotsky is referring.

4 Refers to pp. 271-2 of Engels 189411978. See also pp. 381 and 445 of Marx, K. 1890/1962: Das Kapital [ Capital) 4th edn). Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

5 Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter IV §16.

6 A curious mistake. The text attributed to Engels can be found on p. 382 of Marx, K. 1890/1962: Das Kapital [ Capital] (4th edn). Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

7 'We see how the history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of man's essential powers, the perceptibly existing human psychology ... a psychology for which this book, the part of history existing in the most perceptible and accessible form, remains a closed book, cannot become a genuine, comprehensive and real science.' See pp. 302-03 of Marx-Engels Collected Works. Vol, 3: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. New York: International Publishers (1975).

8 Refers to p. 30 of Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1846/1978: Die deutsche Ideologie [ The German Ideology], Berlin: Dietz Verlag. See The German Ideology.

9 Lenin's wife, N. K. Krupskaja, devoted much attention to educational matters. In her book Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe [ Education of the Youth in the Spirit of Lenin] she discussed contemporary international experiments with labour schools (Arbeitsschule) in the light of Marx's ideal of the polytechnic education. See Krupskaja, N. K. 1925/1989: Vospitanie molodezhi v Leninskom dukhe. Moscow: Pedagogika. We haven't been able to establish the exact source of the present citation.

10 See p. 74 of Marx and Engels (1846/1978).

11 See pp. 444-55 of Engels, F. 1925/1978: Dialektik der Natur [ Dialectics of Nature]. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

12 One of Vygotsky's favourite quotations from Spinoza's The Ethics. See p. 61 of Spinoza, B. de 1677/1955: On the improvement of the understanding. The ethics. Correspondence. New York: Dover. 'The old Adam' may be an implicit reference to Marx's (1890/1962, p. 118) use of this expression.

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Lev Vygotsky 1930 Source: Vygotsky Reader, edited by René van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner, Blackwell, 1994; First Published: as Vygotsky, L. 1930: Socialisticheskaja peredelka cheloveka. VARNITSO, the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

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LS Vygotsky, Collected Works, Volume 4, The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions

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LS Vygotsky, Collected Works, Volume 4, The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions

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Volume 1
Problems of General Psychology

Including the Volume Thinking and Speech

Prologue to the English Edition, Jerome Bruner

1

The Development of Vygotsky's Thought: An Introduction, Norris Minick

17

Chapter 1. The Problem and the Method of Investigation

43

Chapter 2. The Problem of Speech and Thinking in Piaget's Theory

53

Chapter 3. Stern's Theory of Speech Development

93

Chapter 4. The Genetic Roots of Thinking and Speech

101

Chapter 5. An experimental Study of Concept Development

121

Chapter 6. The Development of Scientific Concepts in Childhood

167

Chapter 7. Thought and Word

243

LECTURES ON PSYCHOLOGY

Lecture 1. Perception and Its Development in Childhood

289

Lecture 2. Memory and Its Development in Childhood

301

Lecture 3. Thinking and Its Development in Childhood

311

Lecture 4. Emotions and Their Development in Childhood

325

Lecture 5. Imagination and Its Development in Childhood

339

Lecture 6. The Problem of Will and Its Development in Childhood

351

Afterword to the Russian Edition, A. R. Luria

359

Volume 2
The Fundamentals of Defectology
(Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities)

Vygotsky and Soviet Russian Defectology: An Introduction, Jane Knox and Carol B. Stevens

1

Part I: General Problems of Defectology

Introduction: Fundamental Problems of Defectology

29

Chapter 1: Defect and Compensation

52

Chapter 2: Principles of Education for Physically Handicapped Children

65

Chapter 3: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Children's Handicaps

76

Part II: Special Problems of Defectology

Principles of Social Education for the Deaf-Mute Child

110

Compensatory Processes in the Development of the Retarded Child

122

The Difficult Child

139

The Dynamic of Child Character

153

Defectology and the Study of the Development and Education of Abnormal Children

164

Part III: Questions at the Forefront of Defectology

The Study of the Development of the Difficult Child

173

Bases for Working with Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped Children

178

Fundamental Principles in a Plan of Pedological Research in the Field of "Difficult Children"

184

The Collective as a Factor in the Development of the Abnormal Child

191

Introduction to Ia. K. Tsveifel's book, Essay on the Behavioral Characteristics and Education of the Deaf-Mute

209

Introduction to E. K. Gracheva's book, The Education and Instruction of Severely Retarded Children

212

The Problem of Mental Retardation

220

The Diagnostics of Development and the Pedological Clinic for Difficult Children

241

From Addresses, Reports, etc.

292

Volume 3
Problems of the Theory and History of Psychology

Some Major Themes in Vygotsky's Theoretical Work. An Introduction, René van der Veer

1

Part 1: Problems of the Theory and Methods of Psychology

Chapter 2: Preface to Lazursky

51

Chapter 4: Apropos Koffka's Article on Self-Observation (Instead of a Preface)

81

Chapter 7: Mind, Consciousness, the Unconscious

109

Chapter 8: Preface to Leont'ev

123

Chapter 9: The Problem of Consciousness

129

Chapter 10: Psychology and the Thery of Loclaization of Mental Functions

139

Part 2: Developmental Paths of Psychological Knowledge

Chapter 11: Preface to Thorndike

147

Chapter 12: Preface to Bühler

163

Chapter 13: Preface to Köhler

175

Chapter 14: Preface to Koffka

195

Epilogue, M. G. Yaroshevsky and G. S. Gurgenidze

371

Volume 4
The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions

Chapter 1: The problem of the Development of Higher Mental Functions

1

Chapter 7: Prehistory of the Development of Written Language

131

Chapter 8: Development of Arithmetic Operations

149

Chapter 9: Mastering Attention

153

Chapter 10: The Development of Mnemonic and Mnemotechnical Functions

179

Chapter 11: Development of Speech and Thinking

191

Chapter 12: Self-Control

207

Chapter 13: Cultivation of Higher Forms of Behavior

221

Chapter 14: The problem of Cultural Age

231

The Question of Multilingual Children

253

Part 1: Pedology of the Adolescent

Chapter 1: Development of Interests at the Transitional Age

3

Chapter 2: Development of Thinking and Formation of Concepts in the Adolescent

29

Chapter 3: Development of Higher Mental Functions during the Transitional Age

83

Chapter 4: Imagination and Creativity in the Adolescent

151

Chapter 5: Dynamics and Structure of the Adolescent's Personality

167

Part 2: Problems of Child (Developmental) Psychology

Chapter 8: The Crisis of the First Year

243

Chapter 9: Early Childhood

261

Chapter 10: The Crisis at Age Three

283

Chapter 11: The Crisis at Age Seven

289

Chapter 1: The Problem of Practical Intellect in the Psychology of Animals and Psychology of the Child

3

Chapter 2: The Function of Signs in the Development of Higher Mental Processes

27

Chapter 3: Sign Operations and Organization of Mental Processes

39

Chapter 4: Analysis of Sign Operations of the Child

45

Chapter 5: Methods of studying Higher Mental Functions

57

The Teaching about Emotions. Historical-Psychological Studies

On the Problem of the Psychology of the Actor's Creative Work

237

Texts not included in the Collected Works

Part I. The foundations of Pedology

Lecture 1: The object of pedology

Lecture 2: The characteristics of the method of the pedology

Lecture 3: The study of the heredity and the environment

Lecture 5:The general laws of the psychological development of the child

Lecture 6: The general laws of the physical development of the child

Lecture 7: The laws of the development of nervous system

Part II. The Problem of Age

The concept of pedological age

The problem of the periodization of children's development dependent on age

The structure and dynamics of the age

The problem of age and the diagnostics of development

The crisis of age 3-7

The negative phase of the transitional age

The school age

Thinking of the schoolchild

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Soviet Psychology: The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky

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Volume 1Problems of General Psychology Including the Volume Thinking and Speech Prologue to the English Edition, Jerome Bruner 1 The Development of Vygotsky's Thought: An Introduction, Norris Minick 17 Chapter 1. The Problem and the Method of Investigation 43 Chapter 2. The Problem of Speech and Thinking in Piaget's Theory 53 Chapter 3.

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Chapter 5: Genesis of Higher Mental Functions

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Chapter 5: Genesis of Higher Mental Functions

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Lev Vygotsky 1931

Genesis of Higher Mental Functions

The third level of our research is closest to the historical method of considering higher forms of behavior that we have adopted. The analysis and structure of higher mental processes lead us directly to disclosing the basic problem of the whole history of the cultural development of the child, to elucidating the genesis of higher forms of behavior, that is, the origin and development of the mental forms that are the subject of our study.

Using the expression of S. Hall, psychology places genetic explanation above logical explanation. It is interested in the problem of from where and to where, that is, from what did this phenomenon come and into what is it trying to change.

The historical form of explanation seems to the psychologist-geneticist to be higher than any other possible forms. For him, to answer the question as to what a given form of behavior represents means to disclose its origin and the history of its development thus far. In this sense, as we have already said, in the words of P. P. Blonskii, behavior may be understood only as a history of behavior.

But before we move on to the genesis of higher forms of behavior, we must elucidate the concept of development itself just as we did in the chapters on analysis and structure of higher mental processes. The fact of the matter is that in psychology, because of its profound crisis, all concepts acquired multiple meanings and became confused; they changed depending on the basic point of view of the subject that the researcher chooses. In different systems of psychology oriented toward different methodological principles, all basic categories of research, including the category of genesis, acquire various meanings.

Another consideration that compels us to dwell on the problem of genesis is that the uniqueness of this process of development of higher forms of behavior that comprises the subject of our research is still inadequately recognized by contemporary psychology. The cultural development of the child, as we have attempted to establish above, represents a completely new level of child development which not only is still inadequately studied, but usually has not even been singled out in child psychology.

If we turn to the concept of development as it is represented in contemporary psychology, then we see that there are many things in it that contemporary research must overcome. The first thing, the sad survivor of pre-scientific thinking in psychology, is the cryptic residual pre-formism in the theory of child development. The old representations and erroneous theories, disappearing from science, leave traces of themselves, residues in the form of habits of thought. Regardless of the fact that the view according to which the child differs from the adult only in proportions of the body, only in scale, only in dimensions has long been discarded in the general formulation in the teaching on the child, this representation continues to exist in a cryptic form in child psychology. Not one work on child psychology can now openly repeat the disproved truths as if the child were an adult in miniature, but this view continues to be held even now in a cryptic form and is found in almost every psychological study.

It is enough to say that the most important chapters of child psychology (the teaching on memory, attention, thinking) are beginning only now to escape from this blind alley and to recognize the process of mental development in all its true complexity. But in most cases, scientific studies continue to hold in a cryptic form the view that explains development of the child as a purely quantitative phenomenon.

This view was held at one time in embryology. Theory based on this view is termed pre-formism or the theory of pre-formation. In essence, it is the teaching that in the embryo, there is an already completely finished and formed organism, but only smaller in size. The seed of the oak, according to this theory, for example, contains the whole future oak with its roots, trunk, and branches, but only in miniature. In the seed of man is already contained the formed human organism, but in extremely reduced size.

From this point of view, the whole process of development can be represented extremely simply: it consists in a purely quantitative increase in size of what was present from the very beginning in the embryo; the embryo gradually increases in size, grows, and in this way turns into a mature organism. This point of view has long been discarded in embryology and is of historical interest only. But in psychology, this point of view continues to exist in practice, although in theory it has also long been discarded.

Theoretically, psychology has long since rejected the idea that development of the child is a purely quantitative process. All agree that here we have a process that is much more complex, a process not exhausted by quantitative changes alone. But in practice, psychology is confronted with having to disclose this complex process of development in all its real completeness and to detect all those qualitative changes and transformations that refashion child behavior.

E. Claparède in his introduction to the studies of J. Piaget justifiably says that the problem of thinking of the child was usually posed in psychology as a purely quantitative problem and only new papers treat it as a problem of quality. Usually, says Claparède, what was seen in the development of intellect in the child was the result of a certain amount of addition and subtraction, an increment of new experience and liberation from certain errors. Contemporary studies disclose for us that the intellect of the child gradually changes its very character.

Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation.

All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child.

Now the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the process of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming difficulties and adapting.

Another thing that must be overcome to clear the road for contemporary genetic research is cryptic evolutionism, which thus far dominates child psychology. Evolution or development by gradual and slow accumulation of separate changes continues to be regarded as the only form of child development which exhausts all the processes we know that make up this general concept. In essence, in discussions of child development, an analogy to processes of plant growth shows through.

Child psychology wants to know nothing about the critical, spasmodic, and revolutionary changes with which the history of child development is replete and which are found so often in the history of cultural development. To the naive consciousness, revolution and evolution seem incompatible. For the naive, historical development continues only as long as it proceeds along a straight line. Where a turn, a break of the historical tissue, a jump occurs, the naive consciousness sees only catastrophe, a failure, a break. For the naive, history stops at this point for the whole period until it again enters on a direct and smooth road.

Scientific consciousness, on the other band, considers revolution and evolution as two mutually connected and closely interrelated forms of development. Scientific consciousness considers the leap itself that is made in the development of the child during such changes as a certain point in the entire line of development as a whole.

This position has an especially important significance for the history of cultural development because, as we shall see, the history of cultural development consists to a great extent of these kinds of crucial and spasmodic changes that occur in the development of the child. The very essence of cultural development consists in a confrontation of developed cultural forms of behavior which confront the child and primitive forms that characterize his own behavior.

The most obvious consequence of what has been said is the change in the generally accepted point of view of the processes of mental development of the child and the representation of the nature of the structure and flow of these processes. Usually all processes of child development are presented as stereotypically occurring processes. The image of development, seemingly its model with which all other forms are compared, is considered as embryonal development. This type of development depends least on the environment, and the word "development" can be applied to it quite justifiably in the literal sense, that is, as an unfolding, of possibilities that are contained in the embryo in a convoluted form. Also, embryonal development cannot be considered as a model of any process of development in the strict sense of the word. Rather, it can be represented as its result, its outcome. It is a process that has already stopped, that is concluded and proceeds more or less stereotypically.

We need only to compare the process of embryonal development with the process of the evolution of animal species, the true origin of species as disclosed by Darwin, in order to see the radical difference between the one type of development and the other. Species arose and died out, species changed and developed in the struggle for survival, in the process of adaptation to the environment. If we should want to draw an analogy between the process of child development and any other kind of process of development, we would have to select the evolution of animal species rather than embryonal development.

Least of all does child development resemble a stereotypic process protected from external influence; the development of the child occurs in an active adaptation to the environment Ever newer forms arise in this process and not simply stereotypically produced links of a chain assembled earlier. Every new stage in the development of the embryo already present in a potential form in a preceding stage occurs due to the unfolding of internal potentials; it is not so much a process of development as a process of growth and maturation. This form, this type is also represented in the mental development of the child; but in the history of cultural development another form, another type has a much greater place; this consists in the new stage arising not out of unfolding potentials contained in the preceding stage, but out of an actual confrontation between the organism and the environment and an active adaptation to the environment.

In contemporary child psychology we have two basic points of view of the process of child development. One goes back to J.-B. Lamarck, the other, to Darwin. Bühler correctly said that it is necessary to look at the book of K. Koffka on the psychological development of the child in an attempt to give Lamarck's idea a contemporary psychological expression.

The essence of Koffka's point of view is that the principle that is usually used to explain higher forms of behavior, is used to explain lower forms of behavior while thus far, conversely, the principle that the psychologist used to explain primitive behavior was carried over to the higher form. But, according to Koffka, this method has nothing in common with anthropomorphism. One of the important methodological achievements of contemporary psychology is establishing the most important difference between naive and critical anthropomorphism.

While the naive theory is derived from recognizing the identity of functions at various stages of development, critical anthropomorphism is derived from higher forms that we know in man and traces the same psychological structure and its development dropping down the ladder of mental development. The works of Kohler and Koffka are close to this last theory. But, regardless of the important correction, we have before us theories that carry over the principle of elucidation found in studies of higher forms of behavior to the study of lower forms.

In contrast to this, Bühler regards his attempt to construct child psychology as an attempt to continue Darwin's idea. If Darwin knew only one area of development, then Bühler indicates two new areas in which, in his opinion, the principle of selection advanced by Darwin finds its confirmation and justification. True, Bühler tries to unite the points of view of Darwin and Lamarck using the words of E. Hering, who said that a single, general picture of the history of the development of everything living could be generated from the two theories, Lamarck's and Darwin's, presented with a brilliant one-sidedness. What happened to him is what happens to a person looking through a stereoscope: at first he has two impressions crossing and fighting with each other until suddenly they unite into one clear picture established in a third dimension.

Continuing this comparison, Bühler says that neo-Darwinism without Lamarck is somewhat blind and stationary, but Lamarck without Darwin is not mature enough for the diverse richness of the forms of life. The theory of development will make a real step forward when in child psychology the relation of these two researchers with each other is elucidated more patently than it has been thus far.

Thus we see that the very concept of child development is not the same for the various researchers.

In Bühler's teachings, his ideas on the various areas of development seem to us to be exceptionally fruitful. In his words, Darwin knew essentially only one area while Bühler himself indicates three distinct areas. According to Bühler, development of behavior passes through three basic stages and the process of development of behavior consists in that the site of the act of selection changes. Darwinian adaptation is accomplished by means of eliminating less favorably organized individuals; here we are speaking of life and death. Adaptation through training is accomplished within the individual; it sorts out the old and creates new methods of behavior. The site of its action is the area of bodily activity, and the price, not lives, but movements of the body produced in excess, lavished in the same manner as they are in nature.

K. Bühler indicates the further possibility of development. If movements of the body still cost too much or are for some reason insufficient, then the site of the act of selection must be transferred to the area of representation and thought.

Bühler says that it is necessary to reduce to a common denominator both the higher forms of human invention and discovery and the most primitive with which we became acquainted in the child and in the chimpanzee, and to understand theoretically what is identical in them. In this way, the concept of internal testing or trials in thought, which are the equivalent of trials with the object itself, allow Bühler to extend the formula of Darwinian selection to the whole area of human psychology. The origin of expediency in three different spheres (instinct, training, intellect), in three sites of action, of the principle of selection can be explained on the basis of a single principle. This idea, in the author's opinion, is a sequential continuation of the contemporary theory of development of the Darwinian thesis.

We would like to consider in somewhat greater detail the theory of the three stages in the development of behavior. The theory actually encompasses all the main forms of behavior, extending them over three stages of the evolutionary ladder. Instinct, or the innate, inherited resources of methods of behavior, forms the first stage. Above this rises the second stage, which might be called the stage of training, as Bühler calls it, or, in other words, the stage of habits or conditioned reflexes, that is, those learned and acquired through the personal experience of conditioned reactions. And, finally, the third stage rises still higher, the stage of the intellect or intellectual reactions that fulfill the function of adaptation to new conditions and represent, in the words of Thorndike, an organized hierarchy of habits directed toward solving new problems.

In outline, the third stage still remains debatable, least studied, and most complex. Many authors attempt to limit the outline of development to only two stages, believing that intellectual reactions should not be placed in a special class but should be considered as especially complex forms of habits. We think that contemporary experimental research provides a firm basis for considering this debate resolved in favor of accepting the third stage. Intellectual reaction, which differs in many essential characteristics of origin and function, cannot be placed in the same order as mechanical formation of habits that arise by trial and error even in the area of animal behavior, as Kohler's studies demonstrated.

True, we must not forget that the stage of intellectual reactions is very closely connected with the second stage in the development of behavior and is based on it. But this is a phenomenon of a common order equally applicable to the second stage in the development of behavior.

From the theoretical point of view, we believe one of the most fruitful ideas in genetic psychology is the idea that the structure of the development of behavior resembles the geological structure of the earth's crust in some respects. Research established the presence of genetically different strata in human behavior. In this sense, the " geology" of human behavior is undoubtedly a reflection of the "geological" origin and development of the brain.

If we turn to the history of the development of the brain, we will see what Kretschmer calls the law of stratification in the history of this development. With the development of higher centers, the lower centers, older in the history of development, do not simply move aside, but continue to work in a common union as levels subordinate to the direction of the higher centers in such a way that they cannot be defined separately in an undamaged nervous system.

The second pattern in the development of the brain consists in what might be called a transition of functions upward. Subordinate centers do not fully retain their initial type of functioning in the history of development, but surrender a substantial part of former functions upward, to the new centers that are formed above them. As Kretschmer assumes, only in cases of damage to the higher centers or their functional weakening does the subordinate level become independent and exhibit for us elements of the ancient type of functioning which remained in it.

Thus we see that with the development of the higher centers, the lower centers are preserved as subordinate levels and that the development of the brain proceeds according to laws of stratification and superstructure of new stories over the old. The old stage does not die when the new appears, but is displaced by the new, is dialectically negated by it, making a transition into it and existing in it. Precisely in this way, instinct is not abolished but is displaced into a conditioned reflex as a function of the ancient brain among the functions of the new. Precisely in this way, the conditioned reflex is displaced in an intellectual act simultaneously existing and not existing in it. Two completely equally tenable problems confront science: disclosing the lower in the higher and disclosing the development of the higher from the lower.

Recently, Werner expressed the idea that the behavior of a contemporary adult cultured person can be understood only "geologically" since in behavior different genetic strata have also been preserved that reflect all the stages through which man passed in his mental development. Werner maintains that the psychological structure is characterized by not one but many genetic strata superimposed on one another. For this reason even a separate individual considered genetically displays in his behavior certain phases of developmental processes that are already genetically concluded. Only the psychology of elements represents human behavior as a single closed sphere. In contrast to this, the new psychology establishes that man displays genetically different stages in his behavior. Werner sees the main problem of contemporary research to be disclosing the genetic multilayered quality of behavior.

Blonskii's entire book, Psychological Essays, is built around the genetic analysis of human behavior. 'Me new idea it contains is that man's everyday behavior may be understood only if the four basic genetic stages through which the development of behavior always passed can be disclosed in it. Blonskii distinguishes sleeping life as a primitive state of life, primitive waking, a life of incomplete awakening, and a fully awakened life. This singular genetic pattern encompasses both everyday behavior of man and the many thousands of years of the history of his development or, more precisely, it considers everyday behavior of man from the point of view of his history of many thousands of years and presents a beautiful picture of how the historic point of view can be applied to general psychology and to the analysis of contemporary man.

The history of the development of signs, however, leads us to the general law that controls behavior. P. Janet calls it the fundamental law of psychology. 'me essence of this law is that in the process of development, the child begins to apply the same forms of behavior to himself that others initially applied to him. The child himself assimilates the social forms of behavior and transfers them to himself. Applying this to the area of interest to us, we might say that nowhere is the correctness of this law more clear than in the use of the sign.

Initially, the sign is always a means of social connection, a means of affecting others, and only later does it become a means of affecting oneself Many actual connections and dependences that are formed in this way have been explained in psychology. For example, we might point to the circumstance noted by J. Baldwin that has at present been developed in Piaget's studies. Research has demonstrated that there undoubtedly is a genetic connection between the child's arguments and his reflections. The very logic of the child confirms the basis of this. Conclusions appear initially in arguments among children and only later are they internalized by the child himself, linked to how his personality is manifested.

Only with increasing socialization of the child's speech and all of the child's experience does development of the child's logic occur. It is interesting to note that in the development Of the child's behavior, the genetic role of the group changes, higher functions of thinking are manifested in the beginning in the group life of children in the form of arguments and only later lead to the development of reflection in the behavior of the child himself.

Piaget established that it is specifically the break that occurs in the transition from preschool age to school age that results in a change in the form of group activity. On the basis of this, the child's thinking itself changes. Piaget said that reflection may be considered as internal argument. For the applicability of this law to the history of the cultural development of the child to be absolutely clear, we need only recall that speech is initially a means of socializing with those around the child and only later, in the form of internal speech, does it become a means of thinking.

But we would have said very little about the significance of the law that controls behavior if we were not able to demonstrate concrete forms in which it is manifested in the area of cultural development. Here we can connect the effect of this law with the four stages in the development of behavior that we noted above. If we take this law into account, it becomes absolutely clear why everything that is internal in higher mental functions was formerly external. If it is true that the sign is initially a means of socializing and only later becomes a means of behavior of the individual, then it is absolutely clear that cultural development is based on the use of signs and that including them in the whole system of behavior occurred initially in a social, external form.

In general, we could say that the relations between higher mental functions were at one time real relations between people. I relate to myself in the same way that people relate to me. As verbal thinking represents an internalization of speech, as reflection is an internalization of argument, precisely so the mental function of the word, according to Janet, cannot be explained in any other way unless we bring into the explanation a system broader than man himself. The original psychology of the function of the word is a social function, and if we want to trace how the word functions in the behavior of the individual, we must consider how it functioned formerly in the social behavior of people.

At this time, we will not solve beforehand the problem of how true in essence the theory of speech proposed by Janet is. We want only to say that the method of research that he proposes is completely self-evident from the point of view of the history of cultural development of the child. According to Janet, the word was initially a command for others, then it became a complex story consisting of imitation, changes in function, etc., and only gradually was separated from action. According to Janet, the word is always a command because it is a basic means of controlling behavior. For this reason, if we want to explain genetically from what the volitional function of the word is derived, why the word subordinates motor reaction, what the origin of the power of the word over behavior is in both ontogenesis and phylogenesis, we unavoidably arrive at the real function of command. Janet says that the power of the word over mental functions is based on the real power of the superior over the subordinate; the relation of mental functions must be genetically attributed to real relations between people. Regulating another's behavior by means of the word leads gradually to the development of verbalized behavior of the individual himself.

But of course speech is a central function of social connection and cultural behavior of the individual, For this reason, the history of the individual is especially instructive in the transition from external to internal, from social to individual function and occurs here with particular clarity. Not in vain did Watson see a substantial difference between internal and external speech in the 'fact that the first serves individual, not social forms of adaptation.

If we turn to the means of social connection, we see that even relations between people have a dual nature. Direct and mediated relations between people are possible. The direct are based on instinctive forms of expressive movement and action. When Kohler describes a monkey that wants another monkey to go with it, how it looks into the other monkey's eyes, nudges it and begins the action that she wants to persuade the other monkey to do, we have before us a classical example of a direct connection with a social character. In descriptions of social behavior of the chimpanzee, many examples are given in which one animal affects another either by actions or by instinctive, automatic expressive movements. Contact is established through touching, through a cry, through a glance. The whole history of early forms of social contact of the child is full of examples of a similar kind, and here also we see contact established by crying, grasping a sleeve, glancing.

At a higher level of development, however, mediated relations between people appear; an essential characteristic of such relations is the sign by means of which social contact is established. It is understood that the higher form of socializing mediated by a sign grows out of natural forms of direct socializing; nevertheless the latter differs substantially from the higher form.

Thus, imitation and separation of functions among people is the basic mechanism of modification and transformation of the function of the individual himself. If we consider the initial forms of work activity, then we see that the function of fulfilling and the function of directing are separated there. An important step in the evolution of work is the following: what the supervisor does and what the underling does is united in one person. This, as we shall see below, is the basic mechanism of voluntary attention and work.

All cultural development of the child passes through three basic stages that can be described in the following way, using Hegel's analysis.

As an example, we will consider the history of the development of the pointing gesture; as we shall see, it plays an exceptionally important role in the development of speech in the child and is, to a significant degree, the ancient basis for all higher forms of behavior. Initially, the pointing gesture represents a simply unsuccessful grasping movement directed toward an object and denoting a future action. The child attempts to grasp an object that is somewhat too far away, his hands stretched toward the object are left hanging in the air, the fingers make pointing movements. This situation is the point of departure for further development. Here the pointing movement, which we may arbitrarily term a pointing gesture, appears for the first time. This is movement of the child objectively indicating an object and only an object.

When the mother comes to help the child and recognizes his movement as pointing, the situation changes substantially. The pointing gesture becomes a. gesture for others. In response to the unsuccessful grasping movement of the Child, there arises a reaction not on the part of the object, but on the part of another person. In this way, others carry out the initial idea of the unsuccessful grasping movement. And only subsequently, on the basis of the fact that the unsuccessful grasping movement is connected by the child with the whole objective situation, does he himself begin to regard this movement as a direction.

Here, the function of the movement itself changes: from a movement directed toward an object, it becomes a movement directed toward another person by means of a connection; grasping is converted into a direction. Because of this, movement itself is reduced, is contracted, and that form of the pointing gesture is developed which we may rightly call a gesture for oneself, But movement becomes a gesture for oneself in no other way than being, at first, direction for oneself, that is, objectively having all the necessary functions for direction and gesture for others, that is, being thought of and understood by the people nearby as a direction.

In this way, the child is the last one to recognize his gesture. Its significance and function are initially made up of an objective situation and then by the people around the child. The pointing gesture most likely begins to indicate by movement what is understood by others and only later becomes a direction for the child himself.

Thus we might say that through others we become ourselves, and this rule refers not only to the individual as a whole, but also to the history of each separate function. This also comprises the essence of the process of cultural development expressed in a purely logical form. The individual becomes for himself what fie is in himself through what he manifests for others. This is also the process of forming the individual. In psychology, the problem of the relation of external and internal mental functions is posed here for the first time in all its significance. Here, as has been said, it becomes clear why everything internal in higher forms was of necessity external, that is, was for others what it is now for oneself. Every higher mental function necessarily passes through an external stage of development because function is primarily social. This is the center of the whole problem of internal and external behavior. Many authors have long since pointed to the problem of interiorization, internalizing behavior. Kretschmer sees in this a law of nervous activity. Bühler reduces the whole evolution of behavior to the fact that the field of selection of positive actions is transferred inward from outside.

But we have something else in mind when we speak of the external stage in the history of the cultural development of the child. For us to call a process "external" means to call it "social." Every higher mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal, strictly mental function; it was formerly a social relation of two people. The means of acting on oneself is initially a means of acting on others or a means of action of others on the individual.

The shift in the three basic forms of development in the functions of speech can be traced step by step in the child. More than anything, the word must have meaning, that is, it must relate to a thing, there must be an objective connection between the word and what it signifies. If there is not, further development of the word is impossible. Further, the objective connection between the word and the thing must be functionally used by adults as a means of socializing with the child. Only then will the word have meaning for the child also. Thus, the meaning of the word exists objectively first for others and only later begins to exist for the child himself. All basic forms of social intercourse between the adult and the child later become mental functions,

We can formulate the general genetic law of cultural development as follows: every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first between people as an intermental category, then within the child as a intramental category. This pertains equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, to the formation of concepts, and to the development of will. We are justified in considering the thesis presented as a law, but it is understood that the transition from outside inward transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Genetically, social relations, real relations of people, stand behind all the higher functions and their relations. From this, one of the basic principles of our will is the principle of division of functions among people, the division into two of what is now merged into one, the experimental unfolding of a higher mental process into the drama that occurs among people.

For this reason, we might term the basic result to which the history of the cultural development of the child leads us as sociogenesis of higher forms of behavior.

The word, "social," as applied to our subject, has a broad meaning. First of all, in the broadest sense, it means that everything cultural is social. Culture is both a product of social life and of the social activity of man and for this reason, the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already leads us directly to the social plane of development. Further, we could indicate the fact that the sign found outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the individual and serves essentially as a social organ or social means.

Going further, we might say that all higher functions were formed not in biology, not in the history of pure phylogenesis, but that the mechanism itself that is the basis of higher mental functions is a copy from the social. All higher mental functions are the essence of internalized relations of a social order, a basis for the social structure of the individual. Their composition, genetic structure, method of action - in a word, their entire nature - is social; even in being transformed into mental processes, they remain quasisocial. Man as an individual maintains the functions of socializing.

Changing the well-known thesis of Marx, we could say that the mental nature of man represents the totality of social relations internalized and made into functions of the individual and forms of his structure. We do not want to say that this is specifically the meaning of the thesis of Marx, but we see in this thesis the most complete expression of everything to which our history of cultural development leads.

In connection with the ideas expressed here, which in a summarized form present the basic patterns we have observed in the history of cultural development and which are directly connected with the problem of children's groups, we have seen that higher mental functions, for example, the function of the word, were formerly separated and distributed among people and then became functions of the individual himself. In behavior, understood as individual behavior, it would have been impossible to expect anything similar. Formerly, psychologists attempted to derive social behavior from individual behavior. They studied individual reactions observed in a laboratory, and then, in a group, they studied how the reaction of the individual changes in a group situation.

Formulating the problem in this way is, of course, completely legitimate, but it involves a genetically secondary stratum in the development of behavior. The first task of analysis is to show how individual reaction develops from forms of group life. In contrast to Piaget, we believe that development proceeds not toward socialization, but toward converting social relations into mental functions. For this reason, all of the psychology of the group in child development is presented in a completely new light. The usual question is how does one child or another behave in a group. We ask how does the group create higher mental functions in one child or another.

Formerly, it was assumed that the function exists in the individual in a ready, semi-ready, or rudimentary form and in the group it unfolds, becomes complex, advances, is enriched, or, conversely, is inhibited, suppressed, etc. At present, we have a basis for assuming that in relation to higher mental functions, the matter must be presented as being quite the opposite. Functions initially are formed in the group in the form of relations of the children, then they become mental functions of the individual. Specifically, formerly it was thought that every child was capable of reflection reaching conclusions, proving, finding bases for whatever position. From the collision of such reflections, argument was generated. But the matter is actually something else. Studies show that reflection is generated from argument. The study of all other mental functions brings us to the same conclusion.

In considering the formulation of our problem and the development of the research method, we have already had the opportunity to elucidate the great significance of the comparative method of studying the normal and abnormal child for all of the history of cultural development. We have seen that this is a basic device of research which contemporary genetic psychology has available and which makes it possible to compare the convergence of the natural and cultural lines in the development of the normal child with the divergence of these same two lines in the development of the abnormal child. We will consider in somewhat greater detail the significance of the basic positions we have found relative to the analysis, structure, and genesis of cultural forms of behavior for the psychology of the abnormal child.

We will begin from the basic position that we have established in analyzing higher mental functions which consists of recognizing the natural basis for cultural forms of behavior. Culture creates nothing, it only modifies natural data to conform to the goals of man. For this reason, it is completely natural that the history of cultural development of the abnormal child would be permeated with influences of the child's basic defect or inadequacy. His natural resources, those possible elementary processes from which higher cultural devices of behavior must be constructed, are insignificant and poor, and for this reason the possibility itself of the rise and adequately complete development of higher forms of behavior frequently seems closed for this child specifically because of the poverty of the material which is the basis of other cultural forms of behavior.

The indicated feature is noted in children with general retardation in development, that is, in retarded children. As we recall, at the base of cultural forms of behavior, there is a certain detour that consists of simpler, elementary connections. This purely associative understory of higher forms of behavior, a foundation on which they arise, a background from which they are nourished, is weakened in a retarded child from the very beginning.

Another point that we found in analysis now introduces a substantial addition to what we have said, specifically: in the process of cultural development, there is a replacement of some functions in the child by others, a construction of detours, and this opens before us completely new possibilities in the development of the abnormal child. If such a child cannot attain something directly, then the development of detours becomes the basis for compensation. The child begins to attain in roundabout ways what he could not attain directly. Replacement of functions is actually the basis of all cultural development of the abnormal child, and therapeutic pedagogics is full of examples of such detours and such compensating instances of cultural development.

A third position that we mentioned above states: the basis of the structure of cultural forms of behavior is made up of mediated activity, the use of external signs as a means for further development of behavior. Thus, isolating a function and using a sign have especially important significance in all of cultural development. Observations of the abnormal child show that where these functions are preserved in an undamaged form, we actually have more or less favorable compensatory development of the child; where they are inhibited or damaged, the cultural development of the child suffers also. On the basis of his experiments, W. Eliasberg developed the general idea that the use of auxiliary means may serve as a reliable criterion for differential diagnosis that makes it possible to differentiate between insanity and any forms of weakening, underdevelopment, disruption, and retardation of intellectual activity. The ability to use signs as auxiliary means of behavior is lost, evidently, only with the onset of insanity.

Finally, the fourth and final position we found discloses a new perspective in the history of cultural development of the abnormal child. We have in mind what we termed higher mastery of one's own behavior. As applied to the abnormal child, we can say that it is necessary to distinguish degrees of development of one function or another and the degree of development of mastery of this function. Everyone knows what a great disproportion there is in the development of higher and lower functions in the retarded child. For mild retardation, such a general, regular decrease of all functions is not as characteristic as underdevelopment of specifically higher functions with a relatively favorable development of the elementary functions. For this reason, we must study not only what memory the retarded child has, but also how and to what extent he is able to use his memory. Underdevelopment of the retarded child also consists primarily in underdevelopment of higher forms of behavior, in an inability to master his own processes of behavior, and in an inability to use them.

To a certain degree, we are returning from another direction to the idea advanced by E. Seguin for whom the essence of idiocy appeared to be underdevelopment of the will. If we understand will in the sense of mastery of oneself, we would be inclined to share his opinion and maintain that specifically in the defect of mastery of one's own behavior lies the main source of all underdevelopment of the retarded child. J. Lindworsky expressed the same idea in a somewhat paradoxical form when he attempted to reduce the basis of intellectual activity to perception of relations and maintained that in this sense intellect as a function of perception of relations is as inherent in the idiot as it is in Goethe and that the enormous difference between the one and the other consists not in the act indicated, but in other, higher mental processes.

From this, we can form a basic conclusion, with which we will conclude our remarks on the uniqueness of cultural development of the abnormal child. We can say that a secondary complication of retardation is always, first, primitivism as general cultural underdevelopment that is based on organic underdevelopment of the brain, and, second, certain volitional underdevelopment, an arrest at an infantile stage of self-mastery and of processes of one's own behavior. Finally, only in the third and last place we must list the basic complication of retardation, the general underdevelopment of the child's personality.

Now we shall consider certain concrete problems of development of higher mental functions, the consideration of which will enable us to approach more closely the basic data of child and pedagogical psychology.

Is the concept of development applicable in general to those changes of which we are speaking? As development, we of course have in mind a very complex process formed by a series of characteristics.

The first characteristic consists of the fact that with any change, the substrate underlying a developing phenomenon remains the same. The second immediate characteristic consists of the fact that any change here is of an internal character to a certain degree; we do not term as development any change that is not at all connected with any internal process occurring in the organism or in the form of activity that we are studying. Unity and constancy of the whole process of development, internal connection between the stage of development passed and the subsequent change - this is the second basic characteristic that enters into the concept of development.

It must be said that from this point of view, the cultural experience of the child as an act of development has been disregarded for a very long time in child psychology. It was usually said that what could be called development is what comes from within; what comes from outside is training and education because in nature, no child exists who would naturally mature in his arithmetical functions, but as soon as the child reaches, let us say, school age or somewhat earlier, he grasps externally from the people around him a whole series of arithmetical concepts and subsequent operations. Thus, we can scarcely say that acquiring addition and subtraction at eight years, and multiplication and division at nine years is the natural result of the child's development; these are only external changes that come from the environment and are by no means a process of internal development.

However, a deeper study of how a child's cultural experience accumulates showed that in this case we have at hand a series of most important prerequisite characteristics if the concept of development is to be applied to certain changes.

The first characteristic consists in that every new form of cultural experience is not simply external, regardless of the state of the organism at a given moment of development, but the organism, assimilating external influences, assimilates a whole series of forms of behavior, and assimilates them depending on the degree of his mental development. Something occurs that resembles what is called nourishment with respect to body growth, that is, assimilation of certain external substances, external material, that is processed and assimilated into the organism itself.

Let us imagine that the child not knowing the cultural forms of arithmetic finds himself in school and begins to study the four functions. The question is, is it possible to demonstrate that acquiring the four functions occurs as a process of development, that is, that it is determined by the presence of knowledge of arithmetic with which the child entered school? It proves to be that the matter is exactly so, and this forms a basis for teaching arithmetic to children of a certain age and not at certain stages of education. This can be explained by the fact that at age seven or eight, it becomes possible for the first time to assimilate this kind of operation because a development of knowledge about arithmetic has occurred in the child. Considering children of grades one to three, we find that in the course of two to three years, the children basically still exhibit traces of preschool, natural arithmetic with which they entered school.

In the same way, it would seem that when a child acquires other operations in school through purely external ways, the acquisition of any new operation is the result of the process of development. We will try to show this at the end of the chapter when we will analyze concepts of assimilation, invention, and imitation, that is, all methods that are used for acquiring new forms of behavior. We will try to show that even where the form Of behavior is acquired through pure imitation, the possibility is not excluded that it appeared as a result of development and not just by imitation.

In order to be convinced of this, it is enough to show experimentally that every new form of behavior, even one assimilated from outside, has different specific qualities. Naturally, it is built on what has gone before; it cannot be otherwise than on the basis of what has gone before. If someone could demonstrate experimentally the possibility of mastering some cultural operation immediately in its most developed form, then we would have proof that here we are speaking not of development but of external acquisition, that is, of some change due to purely external influences. But experiment teaches us the opposite, that every external action is the result of an internal genetic pattern. On the basis of experiments, we can say that a cultured child, even a wunderkind, cannot master at once the last stage in the development of an operation before he goes through the first and second stages. In other words, the very introduction of a new cultural operation is divided into a series of links, into a series of stages, internally connected with each other and succeeding each other.

Since experiment demonstrates this for us, we have every basis for applying the concept of development to the process of accumulation of internal experience, and this is the essence of the second characteristic of which we spoke.

But it is self-evident that the development we have been considering is of a type completely different from the development that is studied in the development of elementary functions of the child. This is a most substantial difference and it is very important to note it because in this case it is also one of the basic characteristics.

We know that in the basic forms of human adaptation, the struggle of man with nature, the zoological type of development differs substantially from the historical. In the first there are anatomical changes in the organism and biological development occurs on the basis of organic changes in structure, while in human history, intensive development of forms of adaptation of man to nature occurs without such substantial organic changes.

Finally, we must point out that the connection between natural development, the behavior of the child based on maturing of his organic apparatus, and the kinds of development we are considering is a connection that is not evolutionary, but revolutionary: development does not occur by gradual, slow changes and accumulation of small changes that, as a totality, finally cause a substantial change. Here, in the very beginning, we observe development of a revolutionary type, in other words, sharp and basic changes in the type of development itself, the driving forces of the process themselves; it is well known that it is this kind of characteristic that would exclude the possibility of applying the concept of development to this process.

Now we will proceed directly to consideration of such instances of change in the type of development.

We know very well that in contemporary child psychology, two theories of genesis are more or less generally accepted: one differentiates two basic stages in the development of behavior; the other differentiates three. The first is inclined to indicate that all behavior in development goes through two basic stages: the stage of instinct or the stage that has been called the unconditioned reflex stage, a hereditary or r innate function of behavior, and the stage of acquisition of reactions based on personal experience, or conditioned reflexes, the stage of dressage as applied to animals.

The other theory is inclined to divide the stage of reactions acquired by personal experience still further and differentiate between the stage of conditioned reflexes or habits and the stage of intellectual reactions.

How does the third stage differ from the second?

Very briefly we might say that the essential difference is, on the one hand, in the method by which the reactions arise, and on the other hand, in the character of the function, that is, the biological function of the reaction, in contrast to habit, that arises as a result of trial and error or as a result of stimuli acting in one direction. In intellectual reactions, a response arises as an expression of a certain image obtained, obviously, as a result of a kind of short circuit, that is, of a complex internal process formed on the basis of excitation of a series of cooperating centers, which creates a new path. Consequently, we are speaking of a reaction of an explosive type, exceptionally complex in the nature of its arising, the mechanisms of which are thus far unknown since our knowledge of brain processes is still at the beginning stage of development.

If the function of the instinctive reaction differs from the function of habit, then the latter differs from the intellectual function. Of course, if the biological function of habit is adaptation to individual conditions of existence that are more or less clear and simple, then the function of intellectual behavior is adaptation to changing conditions of the environment and to changing circumstances under new conditions. An argument has developed among psychologists specifically on this ground: authors who reject the consideration of intellect as a special level in nature say that it is only a special subclass within the same class as acquisition of habit. It seems to me that it is the responsibility of scientific caution that we speak here actually of only two classes of development in child behavior: inherited and acquired through experience, and within the latter - that acquired through experience - we will be able to establish not just two stages, but perhaps even more as our knowledge increases.

Consequently, it would be proper, it seems to us at the contemporary state of knowledge, to adopt the point of view of Thorndike, the American psychologist, who differentiates two stages: inherited and individual, or internal and acquired, and in behavior, he differentiates two stages or two groups of reaction: on the one hand, habits inherited for adaptation to more or less long-term conditions of individual existence, and on the other hand, a whole hierarchy of habits directed toward solving new problems that confront the organism, in other words, that order of reactions of which we have spoken.

In order to understand the connection between the levels of development that are of interest to us in child psychology, we must briefly take into account the kind of relation that exists among them. The relations are of a dialectical character.

Every subsequent stage in the development of behavior, on the one hand, negates the preceding stage, negates it in the sense that properties present in the first stage of behavior are removed, eliminated, and sometimes converted into an opposite, higher stage. For example, we will trace what occurs when a reflex is converted from an unconditioned reflex to a conditioned reflex. We see that a series 'Of Properties connected with its hereditary characteristics (stereotypical quality, etc.) Is negated in the conditioned reflex because the conditioned reflex is a temporary, flexible formation exceptionally subject to extraneous stimuli and, in addition, inherent only in the given individual not by nature and not by heredity, but acquired due to conditions of the experiment. Thus, every subsequent stage affects the Change or negation of properties of the preceding stage.

On the other hand, the preceding stage exists within the subsequent, which manifests, let us say, the stage of the conditioned reflex Its properties are the same those in the unconditioned reflex; it is the same instinct, but manifested and consisting only in a different form and different expression.

Contemporary dynamic psychology strives to study the energy basis for various forms of behavior. For example, in a series of changes in forms of instinct, psychologists see the effect of development of child speech and its effect on behavior, which is, of course, of great interest to us with respect to the problem of will. We will return to this later. For us, the basic problem which psychologists pose is clear and understandable. For example, modem man goes to eat at a restaurant while an animal with the same innate instinct goes to hunt food needed for existence. The behavior of the animal is based wholly on an instinctive reaction, while in man, experiencing the same hunger, the method of behavior is based on completely different conditioned reactions. In the first case, we have a natural reflex where one reaction follows another, in the second case, a series of conditioned changes. However, if we look into the cultural behavior of the man, we see that the ultimate drive of this behavior, the energy basis, the stimulus, is the same instinct or the same material need of the organism that drives the animal, while instinct is not always needed in conditioned reflexes. In man, instinct exists in a cryptic form and behavior is of necessity connected with a changed series of properties of the instinct.

We have such a precisely dialectical relation of negation of a preceding stage while maintaining it in a cryptic form in the relation of the conditioned reflex and the intellectual reaction. In Thorndike's well-known example with arithmetic problems, it is essential that the child solving the problem uses no other reactions except those he acquired by habit or in a combination of habits directed toward solving a problem new to him. Thus, even here the intellectual reaction negates habits that are, as if, a cryptic reaction aimed at solving problems confronting the organism, and some properties of habits, are eliminated. However, at the same time, the intellectual reaction, it seems, is essentially reduced not to anything other than a system of habits, and this system or organization of systems is itself the proper matter for the intellect.

If we take into account this kind of sequence of stages in the natural development of behavior, then we must say something similar also with respect to the fourth stage of development of behavior in which we are presently interested. Perhaps we shall have to admit that the higher processes of behavior which we are about to discuss also belong to natural behavior in which every stage within this natural behavior has certain relations to the preceding stage: to a certain degree, it negates the stage of primitive behavior and contains natural behavior in a cryptic form as well.

As an example, we will use an operation such as remembering with the help of signs. We see that, on the one hand, remembering occurs here as it does not occur with ordinary remembering in the establishing of habits; remembering involving intellectual reaction has certain properties that are not present in the first case. But if we separate the process of remembering that depends on signs into component parts, we can easily see that in the final analysis this process contains in itself the same reactions that are also characteristic for natural remembering, but just in a new combination. The new combination is what comprises the basic subject of our studies in child psychology.

Of what do the basic changes consist? They consist in that at the higher stage of development, man begins to control his own behavior, subjects his own reactions to his own control. Just as he controls the actions of outside forces of nature, he also controls his own processes of behavior on the basis of the natural laws of behavior. Since the basis of natural laws of behavior are laws of stimuli-responses, a reaction cannot be controlled as long as the stimulus is not controlled. Consequently, a child controls his own behavior. but the key to this lies in controlling the system of stimuli. The child controls arithmetic operations, having mastered the system of arithmetic stimuli.

Precisely in this way, the child masters all other forms of behavior, having mastered the stimuli, but the system of stimuli is a social force presented to the child from outside.

In order to make what has been said entirely clear, we will follow the stages that the child goes through in developing the operation of controlling his own behavior, We cite the experimental example which we used before in speaking of the selection reaction. It is appropriate to speak briefly here of how this reaction changes in the process of remembering and why we define the properties of development by these changes.

What does the development of the selection reaction consist of in the child? Let us say that five to eight stimuli are used in the study and the child is asked to respond to each stimulus with a different response, for example, to the color blue, he will respond with one finger, to red with another, to yellow, with a third. From data of the old experimental psychology, we know that the selection reaction in the child is established at the age of six. It has also been established that in an adult, the complex selection reaction is formed with significantly more difficulty, and special effort is required to select the responses corresponding to each stimulus from a large number of responses.

For example, if we ask the subject to react to red with his left hand and to blue with his right hand, the selection is established quickly and the reaction will be easier than if we present a selection of three or four or five or six colors. Analysis of old experiments, as we have noted before, leads psychologists to conclude that in the selection reaction, we do not actually select; a process of a different character occurs here which can be taken for selection only from external appearances. In reality, something else is occurring. A series of studies forms a basis for proposing that at the base of the selection reaction there is a very complex form of behavior that we must differentiate between stimuli that appear without order and organized stimuli, that in these reactions there is a closure of conditioned connections, or, in the language of the old psychology, there is a fixing of the instruction. If we use mnemotechniques to remember the instruction, which is generally characteristic for memory, then we can facilitate establishing the correct selection of a reaction.

We proceed as follows: we give a six-year-old child, then a seven-year-old and An eight-year-old a number of stimuli, say, a number of pictures, and ask each child to react to each picture with a different movement, or to press a corresponding key or move a finger. We give the subject the chance to use external means to solve this internal operation and try to observe how the child behaves in such cases.

It is interesting that the child always does the proposed task and does not refuse to do it. He knows so little of his mental powers that the task does not seem impossible to him, in contrast to the adult who, as the experiment has demonstrated, Always refuses and says, "No, I won't remember and I can't do this." And, actually, if the adult is given such instruction, he questions repeatedly, returns to a preceding Color, seeks more precise information as to which color he should react and with Which finger. A child, on the other hand, approaches the task, listens to the instruction, and tries at once to do it.

The experiment begins. Most often, children meet with difficulty almost immediately and 90% make mistakes. But even older children, having mastered one Or two reactions with respect to the other stimuli, naively ask which finger they must use to press the key for which color. In the child, we take this early stage as initial or primitive stage of development of the reaction.

It is clear to us why this is primitive, natural. It is common to all children, and in most cases, children behave exactly in this way in several reactions; it is primitive because the behavior of the child in this case is determined by his potential for direct imprinting, the natural state of his brain apparatus. And actually, if the child tries to master the selection reaction with ten stimuli, this can be explained by the fact that he does not yet know his limitations and operates with what is complex as he operates with what is simple. In other words, he tries to react to a complex structure with primitive means.

Subsequently, the experiment is set up as follows. Seeing that the child cannot cope with the task with primitive means, we modify the experiment to a certain degree, we introduce a second series of stimuli. This is a basic method that is usually used in studying cultural behavior of the child.

Besides the stimuli which were to elicit one selection reaction or another, we give the child a number of additional stimuli, for example, pictures pasted on the different keys, and suggest that the subject connect a given picture with a given key. For example, when the picture of a horse is presented, the key with the sleigh must be pressed. Having been instructed, the child sees that he must press the key with the "sleigh" when the "horse" picture is presented and the key with a drawing of a knife in response to "bread." Here the reaction goes well, it has already gone beyond the primitive stage because the child's reaction does not depend on just primitive conditions; suddenly the rule for solving the problem dawns on him and he makes a selection with the help of a generalized reaction. In selecting from ten stimuli, the properties of the reaction change correspondingly. Here the rule of increasing duration of study depending on the number of stimuli no longer holds; it is all the same whether four or eight, five or ten stimuli are presented, the quality of the reaction to the stimuli does not change.

But it would be a mistake to think that the child completely mastered the given form of behavior. One has only to take the same pictures and rearrange them and it is as if there were no such connection. If instead of the key marked "sleigh," there was a key marked "knife," and if the child were told to press the "knife" key in response to the "horse" picture, the child would at first not notice that the auxiliary pictures had been switched. If we ask if he can remember, the child without any doubt answers that he can.

He listens to the instruction, but when we actually change the position of the pictures, the child cannot produce the correct selection reaction. This stage occurs differently in different children, but basically, the behavior of all children consists of their dealing with the pictures without understanding how the picture works although they remember that somehow the "horse" helped find the "sleigh." Frequently, the child considers the internal complex connection purely externally; associatively he feels that it is evident that the picture must help him make a selection, although he cannot explain the internal connection that is the basis for this.

A simple example of this stage in the development of the child's operation is an experiment conducted with a small girl. 'Me mother gives the child instruction similar to the instruction in a Binet test - to go to the next room and carry out three small operations. In giving the instruction, the mother repeats it several times or she says it only once. The girl notices that when the mother repeats it several times, the instruction is successful; the girl remembers and finally begins to understand that the mother must repeat the instruction several times. When the mother gives a new instruction, the girl says, "Say it once more," and not listening, runs off. The girl noted the connection between repetition and success in fulfilling the task, but she did not understand that the repetition alone did not help her, that the repetition must be heard, clearly assimilated, and only then will it be easier to carry out the instruction.

Consequently, for this kind of operation, an external connection between the stimulus and the means, but not a psychological internal connection, is characteristic. It is interesting that similar phenomena observed in primitive man arc: frequently termed magical thinking. This arises on the basis of insufficient knowledge of the strict laws of nature and on the basis of the fact that primitive man assumes the connection between thoughts to be a connection between things.

The following is a typical sample of magic. In order to do serious harm to a person, primitive people practice witchcraft, try to get the person's hair or portrait and burn it, assuming that in this way the person will also be punished. Here the mechanistic connection between thoughts replaces the connection between objects. How do primitive people make it rain? They try to do this by magical ceremony. At first they begin to blow through their fingers in imitation of wind, then they arrange to have water fall on sand and if the sand gets wet, it signifies that such a ceremony will bring rain. The connection in thinking is converted into a material connection.

In a child in the stage of which we are speaking, an opposite phenomenon occurs - the connection between things is assumed to be a connection between thoughts, a connection between two pictures is assumed to be a mental connection. In other words, what occurs is not an authentic use of the given law, but its external, associative use. This stage can be termed the stage of naive psychology. The term "naive psychology" is used in analogy to the term "naive physics" introduced by O. Lipmann and H. Bogen, and by Kohler also. This term indicates that while same animals make a naive effort at practical use of tools, man makes an analogous naive effort relative to his mental operations. In both cases, the experience is naive because it is acquired through a direct, naive path. But since naive experience has limits, the naive physics of the monkey leads to a series of interesting phenomena. The monkey has somewhat little knowledge of the physical properties of his body, constructs this naive physics on the basis of his optical experience and gets something like the well-known fact described by Kohler: if the monkey learned to get it using a stick and if he has no stick available, he grabs a straw and attempts roll the fruit with the straw. How is such an error possible? Because optically, the straw resembles a stick and the monkey does not know the physical properties ,'Of a stick. The monkey deals with a shoe, with the brim of a straw hat, with a towel, with any object in precisely the same way.

Even more interesting are the inadequacies of naive physics that the monkey exhibits when he wants to get fruit that is high up: he tries to place a box on a corner or edgewise toward a wall and becomes furious when the box fans. Another monkey places the box on the wall at his own height and presses it in the hope that the box will stay there. The actions of the monkeys can be explained very simply from natural life in the forest where the animals acquire naive physical experience. The monkey can support itself on branches that extend from the trunk of the tree in exactly the same direction that he wants to attach the box to the wall. The erroneous attempts are the result of the monkey's inadequate knowledge of the physical properties of its own body and of other bodies.

This experiment transferred to children demonstrates that the young child's use of tools can also be explained by his naive physics, that is, by the fact that to the extent that the child acquires any experience, he is capable of using certain properties of things with which he has to deal and to work out a certain relation them. Analogously, as a result of practical use of signs, experience with using them develops that is still naive psychological experience.

In order to understand that it is easier to remember after repetition, one must have certain experience in remembering. It has been observed in experiments how this remembering occurs, and it is understandable that it grows stronger with repetition. The child who understands the connections between repetition and remembering does not have enough psychological experience with respect to real conditions of how the real reaction occurs and uses this experience naively.

Can naive psychological experience be acquired? Undoubtedly it is acquired as naive physical experience is acquired owing to the fact that the child deals with objects, makes movements, masters some properties or others of objects, and learns how to deal with them. Precisely in this way, in the process of adaptation, the child remembers and carries out various instructions. Carrying them out, the child accumulates and acquires certain naive psychological experience and he begins to understand how one must remember, what remembering involves, and when he understands that, he begins to use one sign or another correctly.

In this way at the stage of magical use of signs, he uses them according to purely external similarity. But this stage lasts only a short time in the child. He is convinced that with the help of a certain distribution of the pictures, he will remember the selection reaction, but with a different distribution, he will not remember it. Thus, the child comes to the discovery of the unique character of his remembering and soon begins to say, "No, put that picture here." When he is told that for the "horse" picture, he must press the "bread" key, he says, "No, I'll press this key with the picture of the sleigh." So vaguely, but gradually, the child nevertheless begins to accumulate experience with respect to his own remembering.

Having naively mastered what the operation of remembering consists of, the child moves to the next stage. If we give him pictures in random order, he places them in the required order and establishes a certain connection; he no longer deals with signs externally, but knows that the presence of these signs will help him carry out a specific operation, that is, remembering by using the signs.

Very soon, the child, using the already prepared connection and having established the connection in previous experience (horse-sleigh or bread-knife), will begin to create a connection himself. Now the child no longer has difficulty in making and remembering similar connections. In other words, the next stage is characterized by the fact that the child, using a connection which we have given him, makes a transition to creating a new connection. This stage may be termed the stage of using external signs. It is characterized by the fact that in using signs in an internal operation, new connections begin to be formed in the child independently. And this is the most important thing that we wanted to say. The child organizes stimuli in order to carry out his reaction.

At this stage, we see clearly the manifestation of basic genetic laws according to which the child's behavior is organized. It consists of a reaction that the child wants to direct along a certain path. Here he organizes the stimuli that are external and uses them for carrying out the task given him. This stage lasts a short time before the child passes to the next form of organizing his activity.

After the subject goes through the same experiment several times, the researcher begins to observe a decrease in reaction time: if the reaction took 0.5 second or more before, it now takes only 0.2 second; this means that the reaction has accelerated by a factor of 2.5. The most important change is that in the internal operation of remembering, the child uses external means; wanting to master his reaction, he masters the stimuli; but then the child gradually eliminates the external stimuli that he has before him and no longer pays attention to them. Carrying out the selection reaction, the child operates as he operated earlier, but without the series of stimuli. The difference is that the external reaction turns into an internal reaction; the reaction that was earlier impossible when a large number of stimuli were present now becomes possible.

Let us imagine what has happened: every external operation has, as they say, its internal representation. What does this mean? We make a certain movement, present certain stimuli, one stimulus here, another there. A certain internal brain process corresponds to this; as a result of a number of such experiences with the transition from an external to an internal operation, all intermediate stimuli become needed less and less and the operation begins to be carried out without mediating stimuli. In other words, what happens is what we conditionally call a process of revolution. If the external operation became internal, then it grew inward or made a transition from external to internal.

On the basis of these experiments, we are able to note three basic types of such revolution, that is, transition of an operation from outside inward. We shall list these types and try to show to what extent our results are typical for the cultured child in general and specifically for the arithmetical development of the child and for his speech and memory development.

The first type of revolution, or passage of an external operation inward, is What we conditionally term revolution of the seam type. We know that there is a revolution of living tissue. We take two ends of torn tissue and at first stitch it together with thread. Because of this, the two ends of tissue unite and they become spliced. Then the thread, preliminarily introduced, can be withdrawn and instead of an artificial connection, there is a union without a seam.

When the child combines his stimuli with a reaction, at first he combines a given stimulus with a reaction by means of a seam. In order to remember that the "horse" picture corresponds to the "sleigh" key, the child brings forward an intermediate member between the key and the picture, specifically, the "sleigh" picture;

this is the seam that splices the given stimulus and the reaction. Gradually the seam disappears and a direct connection is formed between the stimulus and the reaction. If the seam is eliminated, then, of course, the reaction accelerates and an operation that required 0.5 second now requires only 0.15 second because the path from the stimulus to the reaction is shorter. The operation is converted from a mediated to a direct operation.

The second type of revolution is revolution of the whole. Let us imagine that the child reacts many times to one and the same picture with the help of pictures of identical things which he understands. If the child reacted 30 times in the same Way, then, of course, we could say that the child will remember that for a given picture ("horse") he must press the "sleigh" key, in other words, he transfers the Whole series of external stimuli inward as a whole. This is a transition inward of a whole series; here the transition of the operation inward consists in that the difference between external and internal stimuli is smoothed over.

Finally, the third and most important type of transition of an operation from external to internal is one in which the child assimilates the structure itself of the process, assimilates the rules for using external signs, and since he has more internal stimuli and can deal with them more easily than with external stimuli, then, as a result of assimilating the structure itself, the child soon makes the transition to using the structure as an internal operation. The child says: "I don't need the pictures anymore, I can do it myself," and in this way, he begins to use verbal stimuli.

Let us trace this stage using the example of the development of such an important area of knowledge of the child as the knowledge of arithmetic.

At the natural or primitive stage, the child solves a problem by direct means. After solving very simple problems, he moves on to the stage of using signs without realizing the method of their action. Then comes the stage of using external signs and , finally, the stage of internal signs.

All arithmetical development of the child must first of all have a natural or primitive stage as a departure point. Can a three-year-old child tell by looking if a group of three apples or a group of seven apples is larger? He can. But, if asked about a more complex differentiation, can a child correctly tell which group contains 16 and which contains 19 apples? No, he cannot. In other words, at first we will see a natural stage defined by purely natural laws when he compares the numbers simply by sight. We know, however, that the child soon and completely unnoticeably, passes from this stage to another, and when he needs to recognize where there are more objects, then, like most children in cultured circumstances, he begins to count. Sometimes children do this even before they understand what counting is. They count: one, two, three, a whole series, although they do not yet know real counting.

Testing to see if many children begin to count before they understand what counting is, researchers (for example, Stern) observed children who knew how to count, but did not understand what counting was. If such a child is asked, "How many fingers does your hand have?" he counts them in order and says, "Five." And if he is told, "How many do 1 have? Count them!" the child answers, "No, I don't know how." This means that the child knows how to apply the series of numbers only to his own fingers but cannot count them on someone else's hand.

Another of Stern's examples. The child counts fingers: "One, two, three, four, five." When he is asked, "How many all together?" he answers, "Six." "Why six?" "Because this is the fifth, and in all, there are six." The child has no clear notion of a total. In other words, the child purely externally, "magically" assimilates a certain operation, not yet knowing its internal relations.

Finally, the child makes the transition to real counting; he begins to understand what it means to count his fingers; but nevertheless, he still counts using external signs. At this stage, the child counts mainly on his fingers and if he is presented with a problem such as "Here are seven apples. Take away two. How many will be left?" To solve the problem, he moves from the apples to his fingers. In this case, the fingers play the role of signs. He puts out seven fingers, then subtracts two, leaving five. In other words, the child solves the problem with the help of external signs. If the child is forbidden to move his hands, he cannot carry out the required operation.

But we know quite well that the child very quickly moves from counting on his fingers to counting in his head; an older child, if he is asked to subtract two from seven, no longer counts on his fingers, but in his head. Here, the child exhibits two basic types of revolution of which we spoke. In one case, counting in his head is a revolution of the whole, and the child turns a whole external series inward (for example, counting for himself: "One, two, three," etc.). In the other case, he manifests revolution of the seam type. This occurs if the child practices and then gives the answer. Finally, he will not need an intermediate operation, but will give the answer directly. This is what happens with any counting when all the intermediate operations are eliminated and the stimulus elicits the required result directly.

Another example involves the development of speech in the child. At first the child is at the stage of natural, primitive, or actually the pre-speech stage: he cries, makes identical sounds in different situations; this is a purely external action. At this stage, when he needs something, he resorts to natural means, depending on direct or conditioned reflexes. Then follows the stage when the child discovers basic external rules or an external structure of speech; he notices that there is a word for every thing, that the given word is the conditional designation of the thing. For a long time, the child considers the word as one of the properties of the thing. Research with older children showed that the relation toward words as toward natural features of things lasts a long time.

There is an interesting philological anecdote that demonstrates the relation toward language in people with little culture. There is a story in a book by Fedorchenko about a soldier talking with a German and discussing which language is best and most correct. 'Me Russian argues that Russian is best: "Take, for example, nozh; in German it's Messer, in French, couteau, and in English, knife, but, you know, that it is actually a nozh; this means that our word is the most correct." In other words, it is assumed that the name of the thing is an expression of its true essence.

Another example presented by Stem involving a bilingual child reflects the same situation: when the child is asked which language is correct, he says that it will be correct in German because Wasser is specifically what one can drink, and not what the French call l'eau. Thus, we see that the child has made a connection between the name of a thing and the thing itself. Children consider a name as one of the properties of things together with its other properties. In other words, the external connection of stimuli or the connection of things is assumed to be the psychological connection.

We know that in primitive people, there is a magical attitude toward words. Thus, in peoples developing under the influence of religion, for example, the Jews, there are words that must not be said, and if one must speak of something, let us say, of a dead person, then one must add the words, "May this not spread to your house." One must not name the devil because if he is named, he will appear. The same thing applies to words defining "shameful" objects; the words acquire a nuance of these shameful objects, and it is shameful to say them. In other words, this is a remnant of transferring to conditional signs properties of the things that these signs signify.

The child passes very quickly from the stage of regarding words as qualitative properties of a thing to conditional signification of words, that is, he uses words signs, particularly at the stage of egocentric speech of which we have already ken. Here the child, in a discussion with himself, notes the most important options that he must carry out. Finally, from the stage of egocentric speech, the child passes to the last stage, to the stage of internal speech in the true sense of the word.

Thus, in the development of speech in the child, we see the same stages: the natural, or magical, stage at which he relates to a word as if it were a property of a thing, then the external stage, and finally, internal speech. The last stage is authentic thinking.

Each of these examples could be discussed separately. However, after all that I has been said, we may assume that the basic stages appear in forming memory, Will, arithmetical knowledge, and speech - the same stages of which we spoke and through which all higher mental functions of the child pass in their development.

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Soviet Psychology: Genesis of Higher Mental Functions by Lev Vygotsky 1931

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Lev Vygotsky 1931 The third level of our research is closest to the historical method of considering higher forms of behavior that we have adopted.

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Lev Vygotsky 1931

Genesis of Higher Mental Functions

The third level of our research is closest to the historical method of considering higher forms of behavior that we have adopted. The analysis and structure of higher mental processes lead us directly to disclosing the basic problem of the whole history of the cultural development of the child, to elucidating the genesis of higher forms of behavior, that is, the origin and development of the mental forms that are the subject of our study.

Using the expression of S. Hall, psychology places genetic explanation above logical explanation. It is interested in the problem of from where and to where, that is, from what did this phenomenon come and into what is it trying to change.

The historical form of explanation seems to the psychologist-geneticist to be higher than any other possible forms. For him, to answer the question as to what a given form of behavior represents means to disclose its origin and the history of its development thus far. In this sense, as we have already said, in the words of P. P. Blonskii, behavior may be understood only as a history of behavior.

But before we move on to the genesis of higher forms of behavior, we must elucidate the concept of development itself just as we did in the chapters on analysis and structure of higher mental processes. The fact of the matter is that in psychology, because of its profound crisis, all concepts acquired multiple meanings and became confused; they changed depending on the basic point of view of the subject that the researcher chooses. In different systems of psychology oriented toward different methodological principles, all basic categories of research, including the category of genesis, acquire various meanings.

Another consideration that compels us to dwell on the problem of genesis is that the uniqueness of this process of development of higher forms of behavior that comprises the subject of our research is still inadequately recognized by contemporary psychology. The cultural development of the child, as we have attempted to establish above, represents a completely new level of child development which not only is still inadequately studied, but usually has not even been singled out in child psychology.

If we turn to the concept of development as it is represented in contemporary psychology, then we see that there are many things in it that contemporary research must overcome. The first thing, the sad survivor of pre-scientific thinking in psychology, is the cryptic residual pre-formism in the theory of child development. The old representations and erroneous theories, disappearing from science, leave traces of themselves, residues in the form of habits of thought. Regardless of the fact that the view according to which the child differs from the adult only in proportions of the body, only in scale, only in dimensions has long been discarded in the general formulation in the teaching on the child, this representation continues to exist in a cryptic form in child psychology. Not one work on child psychology can now openly repeat the disproved truths as if the child were an adult in miniature, but this view continues to be held even now in a cryptic form and is found in almost every psychological study.

It is enough to say that the most important chapters of child psychology (the teaching on memory, attention, thinking) are beginning only now to escape from this blind alley and to recognize the process of mental development in all its true complexity. But in most cases, scientific studies continue to hold in a cryptic form the view that explains development of the child as a purely quantitative phenomenon.

This view was held at one time in embryology. Theory based on this view is termed pre-formism or the theory of pre-formation. In essence, it is the teaching that in the embryo, there is an already completely finished and formed organism, but only smaller in size. The seed of the oak, according to this theory, for example, contains the whole future oak with its roots, trunk, and branches, but only in miniature. In the seed of man is already contained the formed human organism, but in extremely reduced size.

From this point of view, the whole process of development can be represented extremely simply: it consists in a purely quantitative increase in size of what was present from the very beginning in the embryo; the embryo gradually increases in size, grows, and in this way turns into a mature organism. This point of view has long been discarded in embryology and is of historical interest only. But in psychology, this point of view continues to exist in practice, although in theory it has also long been discarded.

Theoretically, psychology has long since rejected the idea that development of the child is a purely quantitative process. All agree that here we have a process that is much more complex, a process not exhausted by quantitative changes alone. But in practice, psychology is confronted with having to disclose this complex process of development in all its real completeness and to detect all those qualitative changes and transformations that refashion child behavior.

E. Claparède in his introduction to the studies of J. Piaget justifiably says that the problem of thinking of the child was usually posed in psychology as a purely quantitative problem and only new papers treat it as a problem of quality. Usually, says Claparède, what was seen in the development of intellect in the child was the result of a certain amount of addition and subtraction, an increment of new experience and liberation from certain errors. Contemporary studies disclose for us that the intellect of the child gradually changes its very character.

Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation.

All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child.

Now the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the process of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming difficulties and adapting.

Another thing that must be overcome to clear the road for contemporary genetic research is cryptic evolutionism, which thus far dominates child psychology. Evolution or development by gradual and slow accumulation of separate changes continues to be regarded as the only form of child development which exhausts all the processes we know that make up this general concept. In essence, in discussions of child development, an analogy to processes of plant growth shows through.

Child psychology wants to know nothing about the critical, spasmodic, and revolutionary changes with which the history of child development is replete and which are found so often in the history of cultural development. To the naive consciousness, revolution and evolution seem incompatible. For the naive, historical development continues only as long as it proceeds along a straight line. Where a turn, a break of the historical tissue, a jump occurs, the naive consciousness sees only catastrophe, a failure, a break. For the naive, history stops at this point for the whole period until it again enters on a direct and smooth road.

Scientific consciousness, on the other band, considers revolution and evolution as two mutually connected and closely interrelated forms of development. Scientific consciousness considers the leap itself that is made in the development of the child during such changes as a certain point in the entire line of development as a whole.

This position has an especially important significance for the history of cultural development because, as we shall see, the history of cultural development consists to a great extent of these kinds of crucial and spasmodic changes that occur in the development of the child. The very essence of cultural development consists in a confrontation of developed cultural forms of behavior which confront the child and primitive forms that characterize his own behavior.

The most obvious consequence of what has been said is the change in the generally accepted point of view of the processes of mental development of the child and the representation of the nature of the structure and flow of these processes. Usually all processes of child development are presented as stereotypically occurring processes. The image of development, seemingly its model with which all other forms are compared, is considered as embryonal development. This type of development depends least on the environment, and the word "development" can be applied to it quite justifiably in the literal sense, that is, as an unfolding, of possibilities that are contained in the embryo in a convoluted form. Also, embryonal development cannot be considered as a model of any process of development in the strict sense of the word. Rather, it can be represented as its result, its outcome. It is a process that has already stopped, that is concluded and proceeds more or less stereotypically.

We need only to compare the process of embryonal development with the process of the evolution of animal species, the true origin of species as disclosed by Darwin, in order to see the radical difference between the one type of development and the other. Species arose and died out, species changed and developed in the struggle for survival, in the process of adaptation to the environment. If we should want to draw an analogy between the process of child development and any other kind of process of development, we would have to select the evolution of animal species rather than embryonal development.

Least of all does child development resemble a stereotypic process protected from external influence; the development of the child occurs in an active adaptation to the environment Ever newer forms arise in this process and not simply stereotypically produced links of a chain assembled earlier. Every new stage in the development of the embryo already present in a potential form in a preceding stage occurs due to the unfolding of internal potentials; it is not so much a process of development as a process of growth and maturation. This form, this type is also represented in the mental development of the child; but in the history of cultural development another form, another type has a much greater place; this consists in the new stage arising not out of unfolding potentials contained in the preceding stage, but out of an actual confrontation between the organism and the environment and an active adaptation to the environment.

In contemporary child psychology we have two basic points of view of the process of child development. One goes back to J.-B. Lamarck, the other, to Darwin. Bühler correctly said that it is necessary to look at the book of K. Koffka on the psychological development of the child in an attempt to give Lamarck's idea a contemporary psychological expression.

The essence of Koffka's point of view is that the principle that is usually used to explain higher forms of behavior, is used to explain lower forms of behavior while thus far, conversely, the principle that the psychologist used to explain primitive behavior was carried over to the higher form. But, according to Koffka, this method has nothing in common with anthropomorphism. One of the important methodological achievements of contemporary psychology is establishing the most important difference between naive and critical anthropomorphism.

While the naive theory is derived from recognizing the identity of functions at various stages of development, critical anthropomorphism is derived from higher forms that we know in man and traces the same psychological structure and its development dropping down the ladder of mental development. The works of Kohler and Koffka are close to this last theory. But, regardless of the important correction, we have before us theories that carry over the principle of elucidation found in studies of higher forms of behavior to the study of lower forms.

In contrast to this, Bühler regards his attempt to construct child psychology as an attempt to continue Darwin's idea. If Darwin knew only one area of development, then Bühler indicates two new areas in which, in his opinion, the principle of selection advanced by Darwin finds its confirmation and justification. True, Bühler tries to unite the points of view of Darwin and Lamarck using the words of E. Hering, who said that a single, general picture of the history of the development of everything living could be generated from the two theories, Lamarck's and Darwin's, presented with a brilliant one-sidedness. What happened to him is what happens to a person looking through a stereoscope: at first he has two impressions crossing and fighting with each other until suddenly they unite into one clear picture established in a third dimension.

Continuing this comparison, Bühler says that neo-Darwinism without Lamarck is somewhat blind and stationary, but Lamarck without Darwin is not mature enough for the diverse richness of the forms of life. The theory of development will make a real step forward when in child psychology the relation of these two researchers with each other is elucidated more patently than it has been thus far.

Thus we see that the very concept of child development is not the same for the various researchers.

In Bühler's teachings, his ideas on the various areas of development seem to us to be exceptionally fruitful. In his words, Darwin knew essentially only one area while Bühler himself indicates three distinct areas. According to Bühler, development of behavior passes through three basic stages and the process of development of behavior consists in that the site of the act of selection changes. Darwinian adaptation is accomplished by means of eliminating less favorably organized individuals; here we are speaking of life and death. Adaptation through training is accomplished within the individual; it sorts out the old and creates new methods of behavior. The site of its action is the area of bodily activity, and the price, not lives, but movements of the body produced in excess, lavished in the same manner as they are in nature.

K. Bühler indicates the further possibility of development. If movements of the body still cost too much or are for some reason insufficient, then the site of the act of selection must be transferred to the area of representation and thought.

Bühler says that it is necessary to reduce to a common denominator both the higher forms of human invention and discovery and the most primitive with which we became acquainted in the child and in the chimpanzee, and to understand theoretically what is identical in them. In this way, the concept of internal testing or trials in thought, which are the equivalent of trials with the object itself, allow Bühler to extend the formula of Darwinian selection to the whole area of human psychology. The origin of expediency in three different spheres (instinct, training, intellect), in three sites of action, of the principle of selection can be explained on the basis of a single principle. This idea, in the author's opinion, is a sequential continuation of the contemporary theory of development of the Darwinian thesis.

We would like to consider in somewhat greater detail the theory of the three stages in the development of behavior. The theory actually encompasses all the main forms of behavior, extending them over three stages of the evolutionary ladder. Instinct, or the innate, inherited resources of methods of behavior, forms the first stage. Above this rises the second stage, which might be called the stage of training, as Bühler calls it, or, in other words, the stage of habits or conditioned reflexes, that is, those learned and acquired through the personal experience of conditioned reactions. And, finally, the third stage rises still higher, the stage of the intellect or intellectual reactions that fulfill the function of adaptation to new conditions and represent, in the words of Thorndike, an organized hierarchy of habits directed toward solving new problems.

In outline, the third stage still remains debatable, least studied, and most complex. Many authors attempt to limit the outline of development to only two stages, believing that intellectual reactions should not be placed in a special class but should be considered as especially complex forms of habits. We think that contemporary experimental research provides a firm basis for considering this debate resolved in favor of accepting the third stage. Intellectual reaction, which differs in many essential characteristics of origin and function, cannot be placed in the same order as mechanical formation of habits that arise by trial and error even in the area of animal behavior, as Kohler's studies demonstrated.

True, we must not forget that the stage of intellectual reactions is very closely connected with the second stage in the development of behavior and is based on it. But this is a phenomenon of a common order equally applicable to the second stage in the development of behavior.

From the theoretical point of view, we believe one of the most fruitful ideas in genetic psychology is the idea that the structure of the development of behavior resembles the geological structure of the earth's crust in some respects. Research established the presence of genetically different strata in human behavior. In this sense, the " geology" of human behavior is undoubtedly a reflection of the "geological" origin and development of the brain.

If we turn to the history of the development of the brain, we will see what Kretschmer calls the law of stratification in the history of this development. With the development of higher centers, the lower centers, older in the history of development, do not simply move aside, but continue to work in a common union as levels subordinate to the direction of the higher centers in such a way that they cannot be defined separately in an undamaged nervous system.

The second pattern in the development of the brain consists in what might be called a transition of functions upward. Subordinate centers do not fully retain their initial type of functioning in the history of development, but surrender a substantial part of former functions upward, to the new centers that are formed above them. As Kretschmer assumes, only in cases of damage to the higher centers or their functional weakening does the subordinate level become independent and exhibit for us elements of the ancient type of functioning which remained in it.

Thus we see that with the development of the higher centers, the lower centers are preserved as subordinate levels and that the development of the brain proceeds according to laws of stratification and superstructure of new stories over the old. The old stage does not die when the new appears, but is displaced by the new, is dialectically negated by it, making a transition into it and existing in it. Precisely in this way, instinct is not abolished but is displaced into a conditioned reflex as a function of the ancient brain among the functions of the new. Precisely in this way, the conditioned reflex is displaced in an intellectual act simultaneously existing and not existing in it. Two completely equally tenable problems confront science: disclosing the lower in the higher and disclosing the development of the higher from the lower.

Recently, Werner expressed the idea that the behavior of a contemporary adult cultured person can be understood only "geologically" since in behavior different genetic strata have also been preserved that reflect all the stages through which man passed in his mental development. Werner maintains that the psychological structure is characterized by not one but many genetic strata superimposed on one another. For this reason even a separate individual considered genetically displays in his behavior certain phases of developmental processes that are already genetically concluded. Only the psychology of elements represents human behavior as a single closed sphere. In contrast to this, the new psychology establishes that man displays genetically different stages in his behavior. Werner sees the main problem of contemporary research to be disclosing the genetic multilayered quality of behavior.

Blonskii's entire book, Psychological Essays, is built around the genetic analysis of human behavior. 'Me new idea it contains is that man's everyday behavior may be understood only if the four basic genetic stages through which the development of behavior always passed can be disclosed in it. Blonskii distinguishes sleeping life as a primitive state of life, primitive waking, a life of incomplete awakening, and a fully awakened life. This singular genetic pattern encompasses both everyday behavior of man and the many thousands of years of the history of his development or, more precisely, it considers everyday behavior of man from the point of view of his history of many thousands of years and presents a beautiful picture of how the historic point of view can be applied to general psychology and to the analysis of contemporary man.

The history of the development of signs, however, leads us to the general law that controls behavior. P. Janet calls it the fundamental law of psychology. 'me essence of this law is that in the process of development, the child begins to apply the same forms of behavior to himself that others initially applied to him. The child himself assimilates the social forms of behavior and transfers them to himself. Applying this to the area of interest to us, we might say that nowhere is the correctness of this law more clear than in the use of the sign.

Initially, the sign is always a means of social connection, a means of affecting others, and only later does it become a means of affecting oneself Many actual connections and dependences that are formed in this way have been explained in psychology. For example, we might point to the circumstance noted by J. Baldwin that has at present been developed in Piaget's studies. Research has demonstrated that there undoubtedly is a genetic connection between the child's arguments and his reflections. The very logic of the child confirms the basis of this. Conclusions appear initially in arguments among children and only later are they internalized by the child himself, linked to how his personality is manifested.

Only with increasing socialization of the child's speech and all of the child's experience does development of the child's logic occur. It is interesting to note that in the development Of the child's behavior, the genetic role of the group changes, higher functions of thinking are manifested in the beginning in the group life of children in the form of arguments and only later lead to the development of reflection in the behavior of the child himself.

Piaget established that it is specifically the break that occurs in the transition from preschool age to school age that results in a change in the form of group activity. On the basis of this, the child's thinking itself changes. Piaget said that reflection may be considered as internal argument. For the applicability of this law to the history of the cultural development of the child to be absolutely clear, we need only recall that speech is initially a means of socializing with those around the child and only later, in the form of internal speech, does it become a means of thinking.

But we would have said very little about the significance of the law that controls behavior if we were not able to demonstrate concrete forms in which it is manifested in the area of cultural development. Here we can connect the effect of this law with the four stages in the development of behavior that we noted above. If we take this law into account, it becomes absolutely clear why everything that is internal in higher mental functions was formerly external. If it is true that the sign is initially a means of socializing and only later becomes a means of behavior of the individual, then it is absolutely clear that cultural development is based on the use of signs and that including them in the whole system of behavior occurred initially in a social, external form.

In general, we could say that the relations between higher mental functions were at one time real relations between people. I relate to myself in the same way that people relate to me. As verbal thinking represents an internalization of speech, as reflection is an internalization of argument, precisely so the mental function of the word, according to Janet, cannot be explained in any other way unless we bring into the explanation a system broader than man himself. The original psychology of the function of the word is a social function, and if we want to trace how the word functions in the behavior of the individual, we must consider how it functioned formerly in the social behavior of people.

At this time, we will not solve beforehand the problem of how true in essence the theory of speech proposed by Janet is. We want only to say that the method of research that he proposes is completely self-evident from the point of view of the history of cultural development of the child. According to Janet, the word was initially a command for others, then it became a complex story consisting of imitation, changes in function, etc., and only gradually was separated from action. According to Janet, the word is always a command because it is a basic means of controlling behavior. For this reason, if we want to explain genetically from what the volitional function of the word is derived, why the word subordinates motor reaction, what the origin of the power of the word over behavior is in both ontogenesis and phylogenesis, we unavoidably arrive at the real function of command. Janet says that the power of the word over mental functions is based on the real power of the superior over the subordinate; the relation of mental functions must be genetically attributed to real relations between people. Regulating another's behavior by means of the word leads gradually to the development of verbalized behavior of the individual himself.

But of course speech is a central function of social connection and cultural behavior of the individual, For this reason, the history of the individual is especially instructive in the transition from external to internal, from social to individual function and occurs here with particular clarity. Not in vain did Watson see a substantial difference between internal and external speech in the 'fact that the first serves individual, not social forms of adaptation.

If we turn to the means of social connection, we see that even relations between people have a dual nature. Direct and mediated relations between people are possible. The direct are based on instinctive forms of expressive movement and action. When Kohler describes a monkey that wants another monkey to go with it, how it looks into the other monkey's eyes, nudges it and begins the action that she wants to persuade the other monkey to do, we have before us a classical example of a direct connection with a social character. In descriptions of social behavior of the chimpanzee, many examples are given in which one animal affects another either by actions or by instinctive, automatic expressive movements. Contact is established through touching, through a cry, through a glance. The whole history of early forms of social contact of the child is full of examples of a similar kind, and here also we see contact established by crying, grasping a sleeve, glancing.

At a higher level of development, however, mediated relations between people appear; an essential characteristic of such relations is the sign by means of which social contact is established. It is understood that the higher form of socializing mediated by a sign grows out of natural forms of direct socializing; nevertheless the latter differs substantially from the higher form.

Thus, imitation and separation of functions among people is the basic mechanism of modification and transformation of the function of the individual himself. If we consider the initial forms of work activity, then we see that the function of fulfilling and the function of directing are separated there. An important step in the evolution of work is the following: what the supervisor does and what the underling does is united in one person. This, as we shall see below, is the basic mechanism of voluntary attention and work.

All cultural development of the child passes through three basic stages that can be described in the following way, using Hegel's analysis.

As an example, we will consider the history of the development of the pointing gesture; as we shall see, it plays an exceptionally important role in the development of speech in the child and is, to a significant degree, the ancient basis for all higher forms of behavior. Initially, the pointing gesture represents a simply unsuccessful grasping movement directed toward an object and denoting a future action. The child attempts to grasp an object that is somewhat too far away, his hands stretched toward the object are left hanging in the air, the fingers make pointing movements. This situation is the point of departure for further development. Here the pointing movement, which we may arbitrarily term a pointing gesture, appears for the first time. This is movement of the child objectively indicating an object and only an object.

When the mother comes to help the child and recognizes his movement as pointing, the situation changes substantially. The pointing gesture becomes a. gesture for others. In response to the unsuccessful grasping movement of the Child, there arises a reaction not on the part of the object, but on the part of another person. In this way, others carry out the initial idea of the unsuccessful grasping movement. And only subsequently, on the basis of the fact that the unsuccessful grasping movement is connected by the child with the whole objective situation, does he himself begin to regard this movement as a direction.

Here, the function of the movement itself changes: from a movement directed toward an object, it becomes a movement directed toward another person by means of a connection; grasping is converted into a direction. Because of this, movement itself is reduced, is contracted, and that form of the pointing gesture is developed which we may rightly call a gesture for oneself, But movement becomes a gesture for oneself in no other way than being, at first, direction for oneself, that is, objectively having all the necessary functions for direction and gesture for others, that is, being thought of and understood by the people nearby as a direction.

In this way, the child is the last one to recognize his gesture. Its significance and function are initially made up of an objective situation and then by the people around the child. The pointing gesture most likely begins to indicate by movement what is understood by others and only later becomes a direction for the child himself.

Thus we might say that through others we become ourselves, and this rule refers not only to the individual as a whole, but also to the history of each separate function. This also comprises the essence of the process of cultural development expressed in a purely logical form. The individual becomes for himself what fie is in himself through what he manifests for others. This is also the process of forming the individual. In psychology, the problem of the relation of external and internal mental functions is posed here for the first time in all its significance. Here, as has been said, it becomes clear why everything internal in higher forms was of necessity external, that is, was for others what it is now for oneself. Every higher mental function necessarily passes through an external stage of development because function is primarily social. This is the center of the whole problem of internal and external behavior. Many authors have long since pointed to the problem of interiorization, internalizing behavior. Kretschmer sees in this a law of nervous activity. Bühler reduces the whole evolution of behavior to the fact that the field of selection of positive actions is transferred inward from outside.

But we have something else in mind when we speak of the external stage in the history of the cultural development of the child. For us to call a process "external" means to call it "social." Every higher mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal, strictly mental function; it was formerly a social relation of two people. The means of acting on oneself is initially a means of acting on others or a means of action of others on the individual.

The shift in the three basic forms of development in the functions of speech can be traced step by step in the child. More than anything, the word must have meaning, that is, it must relate to a thing, there must be an objective connection between the word and what it signifies. If there is not, further development of the word is impossible. Further, the objective connection between the word and the thing must be functionally used by adults as a means of socializing with the child. Only then will the word have meaning for the child also. Thus, the meaning of the word exists objectively first for others and only later begins to exist for the child himself. All basic forms of social intercourse between the adult and the child later become mental functions,

We can formulate the general genetic law of cultural development as follows: every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first between people as an intermental category, then within the child as a intramental category. This pertains equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, to the formation of concepts, and to the development of will. We are justified in considering the thesis presented as a law, but it is understood that the transition from outside inward transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Genetically, social relations, real relations of people, stand behind all the higher functions and their relations. From this, one of the basic principles of our will is the principle of division of functions among people, the division into two of what is now merged into one, the experimental unfolding of a higher mental process into the drama that occurs among people.

For this reason, we might term the basic result to which the history of the cultural development of the child leads us as sociogenesis of higher forms of behavior.

The word, "social," as applied to our subject, has a broad meaning. First of all, in the broadest sense, it means that everything cultural is social. Culture is both a product of social life and of the social activity of man and for this reason, the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already leads us directly to the social plane of development. Further, we could indicate the fact that the sign found outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the individual and serves essentially as a social organ or social means.

Going further, we might say that all higher functions were formed not in biology, not in the history of pure phylogenesis, but that the mechanism itself that is the basis of higher mental functions is a copy from the social. All higher mental functions are the essence of internalized relations of a social order, a basis for the social structure of the individual. Their composition, genetic structure, method of action - in a word, their entire nature - is social; even in being transformed into mental processes, they remain quasisocial. Man as an individual maintains the functions of socializing.

Changing the well-known thesis of Marx, we could say that the mental nature of man represents the totality of social relations internalized and made into functions of the individual and forms of his structure. We do not want to say that this is specifically the meaning of the thesis of Marx, but we see in this thesis the most complete expression of everything to which our history of cultural development leads.

In connection with the ideas expressed here, which in a summarized form present the basic patterns we have observed in the history of cultural development and which are directly connected with the problem of children's groups, we have seen that higher mental functions, for example, the function of the word, were formerly separated and distributed among people and then became functions of the individual himself. In behavior, understood as individual behavior, it would have been impossible to expect anything similar. Formerly, psychologists attempted to derive social behavior from individual behavior. They studied individual reactions observed in a laboratory, and then, in a group, they studied how the reaction of the individual changes in a group situation.

Formulating the problem in this way is, of course, completely legitimate, but it involves a genetically secondary stratum in the development of behavior. The first task of analysis is to show how individual reaction develops from forms of group life. In contrast to Piaget, we believe that development proceeds not toward socialization, but toward converting social relations into mental functions. For this reason, all of the psychology of the group in child development is presented in a completely new light. The usual question is how does one child or another behave in a group. We ask how does the group create higher mental functions in one child or another.

Formerly, it was assumed that the function exists in the individual in a ready, semi-ready, or rudimentary form and in the group it unfolds, becomes complex, advances, is enriched, or, conversely, is inhibited, suppressed, etc. At present, we have a basis for assuming that in relation to higher mental functions, the matter must be presented as being quite the opposite. Functions initially are formed in the group in the form of relations of the children, then they become mental functions of the individual. Specifically, formerly it was thought that every child was capable of reflection reaching conclusions, proving, finding bases for whatever position. From the collision of such reflections, argument was generated. But the matter is actually something else. Studies show that reflection is generated from argument. The study of all other mental functions brings us to the same conclusion.

In considering the formulation of our problem and the development of the research method, we have already had the opportunity to elucidate the great significance of the comparative method of studying the normal and abnormal child for all of the history of cultural development. We have seen that this is a basic device of research which contemporary genetic psychology has available and which makes it possible to compare the convergence of the natural and cultural lines in the development of the normal child with the divergence of these same two lines in the development of the abnormal child. We will consider in somewhat greater detail the significance of the basic positions we have found relative to the analysis, structure, and genesis of cultural forms of behavior for the psychology of the abnormal child.

We will begin from the basic position that we have established in analyzing higher mental functions which consists of recognizing the natural basis for cultural forms of behavior. Culture creates nothing, it only modifies natural data to conform to the goals of man. For this reason, it is completely natural that the history of cultural development of the abnormal child would be permeated with influences of the child's basic defect or inadequacy. His natural resources, those possible elementary processes from which higher cultural devices of behavior must be constructed, are insignificant and poor, and for this reason the possibility itself of the rise and adequately complete development of higher forms of behavior frequently seems closed for this child specifically because of the poverty of the material which is the basis of other cultural forms of behavior.

The indicated feature is noted in children with general retardation in development, that is, in retarded children. As we recall, at the base of cultural forms of behavior, there is a certain detour that consists of simpler, elementary connections. This purely associative understory of higher forms of behavior, a foundation on which they arise, a background from which they are nourished, is weakened in a retarded child from the very beginning.

Another point that we found in analysis now introduces a substantial addition to what we have said, specifically: in the process of cultural development, there is a replacement of some functions in the child by others, a construction of detours, and this opens before us completely new possibilities in the development of the abnormal child. If such a child cannot attain something directly, then the development of detours becomes the basis for compensation. The child begins to attain in roundabout ways what he could not attain directly. Replacement of functions is actually the basis of all cultural development of the abnormal child, and therapeutic pedagogics is full of examples of such detours and such compensating instances of cultural development.

A third position that we mentioned above states: the basis of the structure of cultural forms of behavior is made up of mediated activity, the use of external signs as a means for further development of behavior. Thus, isolating a function and using a sign have especially important significance in all of cultural development. Observations of the abnormal child show that where these functions are preserved in an undamaged form, we actually have more or less favorable compensatory development of the child; where they are inhibited or damaged, the cultural development of the child suffers also. On the basis of his experiments, W. Eliasberg developed the general idea that the use of auxiliary means may serve as a reliable criterion for differential diagnosis that makes it possible to differentiate between insanity and any forms of weakening, underdevelopment, disruption, and retardation of intellectual activity. The ability to use signs as auxiliary means of behavior is lost, evidently, only with the onset of insanity.

Finally, the fourth and final position we found discloses a new perspective in the history of cultural development of the abnormal child. We have in mind what we termed higher mastery of one's own behavior. As applied to the abnormal child, we can say that it is necessary to distinguish degrees of development of one function or another and the degree of development of mastery of this function. Everyone knows what a great disproportion there is in the development of higher and lower functions in the retarded child. For mild retardation, such a general, regular decrease of all functions is not as characteristic as underdevelopment of specifically higher functions with a relatively favorable development of the elementary functions. For this reason, we must study not only what memory the retarded child has, but also how and to what extent he is able to use his memory. Underdevelopment of the retarded child also consists primarily in underdevelopment of higher forms of behavior, in an inability to master his own processes of behavior, and in an inability to use them.

To a certain degree, we are returning from another direction to the idea advanced by E. Seguin for whom the essence of idiocy appeared to be underdevelopment of the will. If we understand will in the sense of mastery of oneself, we would be inclined to share his opinion and maintain that specifically in the defect of mastery of one's own behavior lies the main source of all underdevelopment of the retarded child. J. Lindworsky expressed the same idea in a somewhat paradoxical form when he attempted to reduce the basis of intellectual activity to perception of relations and maintained that in this sense intellect as a function of perception of relations is as inherent in the idiot as it is in Goethe and that the enormous difference between the one and the other consists not in the act indicated, but in other, higher mental processes.

From this, we can form a basic conclusion, with which we will conclude our remarks on the uniqueness of cultural development of the abnormal child. We can say that a secondary complication of retardation is always, first, primitivism as general cultural underdevelopment that is based on organic underdevelopment of the brain, and, second, certain volitional underdevelopment, an arrest at an infantile stage of self-mastery and of processes of one's own behavior. Finally, only in the third and last place we must list the basic complication of retardation, the general underdevelopment of the child's personality.

Now we shall consider certain concrete problems of development of higher mental functions, the consideration of which will enable us to approach more closely the basic data of child and pedagogical psychology.

Is the concept of development applicable in general to those changes of which we are speaking? As development, we of course have in mind a very complex process formed by a series of characteristics.

The first characteristic consists of the fact that with any change, the substrate underlying a developing phenomenon remains the same. The second immediate characteristic consists of the fact that any change here is of an internal character to a certain degree; we do not term as development any change that is not at all connected with any internal process occurring in the organism or in the form of activity that we are studying. Unity and constancy of the whole process of development, internal connection between the stage of development passed and the subsequent change - this is the second basic characteristic that enters into the concept of development.

It must be said that from this point of view, the cultural experience of the child as an act of development has been disregarded for a very long time in child psychology. It was usually said that what could be called development is what comes from within; what comes from outside is training and education because in nature, no child exists who would naturally mature in his arithmetical functions, but as soon as the child reaches, let us say, school age or somewhat earlier, he grasps externally from the people around him a whole series of arithmetical concepts and subsequent operations. Thus, we can scarcely say that acquiring addition and subtraction at eight years, and multiplication and division at nine years is the natural result of the child's development; these are only external changes that come from the environment and are by no means a process of internal development.

However, a deeper study of how a child's cultural experience accumulates showed that in this case we have at hand a series of most important prerequisite characteristics if the concept of development is to be applied to certain changes.

The first characteristic consists in that every new form of cultural experience is not simply external, regardless of the state of the organism at a given moment of development, but the organism, assimilating external influences, assimilates a whole series of forms of behavior, and assimilates them depending on the degree of his mental development. Something occurs that resembles what is called nourishment with respect to body growth, that is, assimilation of certain external substances, external material, that is processed and assimilated into the organism itself.

Let us imagine that the child not knowing the cultural forms of arithmetic finds himself in school and begins to study the four functions. The question is, is it possible to demonstrate that acquiring the four functions occurs as a process of development, that is, that it is determined by the presence of knowledge of arithmetic with which the child entered school? It proves to be that the matter is exactly so, and this forms a basis for teaching arithmetic to children of a certain age and not at certain stages of education. This can be explained by the fact that at age seven or eight, it becomes possible for the first time to assimilate this kind of operation because a development of knowledge about arithmetic has occurred in the child. Considering children of grades one to three, we find that in the course of two to three years, the children basically still exhibit traces of preschool, natural arithmetic with which they entered school.

In the same way, it would seem that when a child acquires other operations in school through purely external ways, the acquisition of any new operation is the result of the process of development. We will try to show this at the end of the chapter when we will analyze concepts of assimilation, invention, and imitation, that is, all methods that are used for acquiring new forms of behavior. We will try to show that even where the form Of behavior is acquired through pure imitation, the possibility is not excluded that it appeared as a result of development and not just by imitation.

In order to be convinced of this, it is enough to show experimentally that every new form of behavior, even one assimilated from outside, has different specific qualities. Naturally, it is built on what has gone before; it cannot be otherwise than on the basis of what has gone before. If someone could demonstrate experimentally the possibility of mastering some cultural operation immediately in its most developed form, then we would have proof that here we are speaking not of development but of external acquisition, that is, of some change due to purely external influences. But experiment teaches us the opposite, that every external action is the result of an internal genetic pattern. On the basis of experiments, we can say that a cultured child, even a wunderkind, cannot master at once the last stage in the development of an operation before he goes through the first and second stages. In other words, the very introduction of a new cultural operation is divided into a series of links, into a series of stages, internally connected with each other and succeeding each other.

Since experiment demonstrates this for us, we have every basis for applying the concept of development to the process of accumulation of internal experience, and this is the essence of the second characteristic of which we spoke.

But it is self-evident that the development we have been considering is of a type completely different from the development that is studied in the development of elementary functions of the child. This is a most substantial difference and it is very important to note it because in this case it is also one of the basic characteristics.

We know that in the basic forms of human adaptation, the struggle of man with nature, the zoological type of development differs substantially from the historical. In the first there are anatomical changes in the organism and biological development occurs on the basis of organic changes in structure, while in human history, intensive development of forms of adaptation of man to nature occurs without such substantial organic changes.

Finally, we must point out that the connection between natural development, the behavior of the child based on maturing of his organic apparatus, and the kinds of development we are considering is a connection that is not evolutionary, but revolutionary: development does not occur by gradual, slow changes and accumulation of small changes that, as a totality, finally cause a substantial change. Here, in the very beginning, we observe development of a revolutionary type, in other words, sharp and basic changes in the type of development itself, the driving forces of the process themselves; it is well known that it is this kind of characteristic that would exclude the possibility of applying the concept of development to this process.

Now we will proceed directly to consideration of such instances of change in the type of development.

We know very well that in contemporary child psychology, two theories of genesis are more or less generally accepted: one differentiates two basic stages in the development of behavior; the other differentiates three. The first is inclined to indicate that all behavior in development goes through two basic stages: the stage of instinct or the stage that has been called the unconditioned reflex stage, a hereditary or r innate function of behavior, and the stage of acquisition of reactions based on personal experience, or conditioned reflexes, the stage of dressage as applied to animals.

The other theory is inclined to divide the stage of reactions acquired by personal experience still further and differentiate between the stage of conditioned reflexes or habits and the stage of intellectual reactions.

How does the third stage differ from the second?

Very briefly we might say that the essential difference is, on the one hand, in the method by which the reactions arise, and on the other hand, in the character of the function, that is, the biological function of the reaction, in contrast to habit, that arises as a result of trial and error or as a result of stimuli acting in one direction. In intellectual reactions, a response arises as an expression of a certain image obtained, obviously, as a result of a kind of short circuit, that is, of a complex internal process formed on the basis of excitation of a series of cooperating centers, which creates a new path. Consequently, we are speaking of a reaction of an explosive type, exceptionally complex in the nature of its arising, the mechanisms of which are thus far unknown since our knowledge of brain processes is still at the beginning stage of development.

If the function of the instinctive reaction differs from the function of habit, then the latter differs from the intellectual function. Of course, if the biological function of habit is adaptation to individual conditions of existence that are more or less clear and simple, then the function of intellectual behavior is adaptation to changing conditions of the environment and to changing circumstances under new conditions. An argument has developed among psychologists specifically on this ground: authors who reject the consideration of intellect as a special level in nature say that it is only a special subclass within the same class as acquisition of habit. It seems to me that it is the responsibility of scientific caution that we speak here actually of only two classes of development in child behavior: inherited and acquired through experience, and within the latter - that acquired through experience - we will be able to establish not just two stages, but perhaps even more as our knowledge increases.

Consequently, it would be proper, it seems to us at the contemporary state of knowledge, to adopt the point of view of Thorndike, the American psychologist, who differentiates two stages: inherited and individual, or internal and acquired, and in behavior, he differentiates two stages or two groups of reaction: on the one hand, habits inherited for adaptation to more or less long-term conditions of individual existence, and on the other hand, a whole hierarchy of habits directed toward solving new problems that confront the organism, in other words, that order of reactions of which we have spoken.

In order to understand the connection between the levels of development that are of interest to us in child psychology, we must briefly take into account the kind of relation that exists among them. The relations are of a dialectical character.

Every subsequent stage in the development of behavior, on the one hand, negates the preceding stage, negates it in the sense that properties present in the first stage of behavior are removed, eliminated, and sometimes converted into an opposite, higher stage. For example, we will trace what occurs when a reflex is converted from an unconditioned reflex to a conditioned reflex. We see that a series 'Of Properties connected with its hereditary characteristics (stereotypical quality, etc.) Is negated in the conditioned reflex because the conditioned reflex is a temporary, flexible formation exceptionally subject to extraneous stimuli and, in addition, inherent only in the given individual not by nature and not by heredity, but acquired due to conditions of the experiment. Thus, every subsequent stage affects the Change or negation of properties of the preceding stage.

On the other hand, the preceding stage exists within the subsequent, which manifests, let us say, the stage of the conditioned reflex Its properties are the same those in the unconditioned reflex; it is the same instinct, but manifested and consisting only in a different form and different expression.

Contemporary dynamic psychology strives to study the energy basis for various forms of behavior. For example, in a series of changes in forms of instinct, psychologists see the effect of development of child speech and its effect on behavior, which is, of course, of great interest to us with respect to the problem of will. We will return to this later. For us, the basic problem which psychologists pose is clear and understandable. For example, modem man goes to eat at a restaurant while an animal with the same innate instinct goes to hunt food needed for existence. The behavior of the animal is based wholly on an instinctive reaction, while in man, experiencing the same hunger, the method of behavior is based on completely different conditioned reactions. In the first case, we have a natural reflex where one reaction follows another, in the second case, a series of conditioned changes. However, if we look into the cultural behavior of the man, we see that the ultimate drive of this behavior, the energy basis, the stimulus, is the same instinct or the same material need of the organism that drives the animal, while instinct is not always needed in conditioned reflexes. In man, instinct exists in a cryptic form and behavior is of necessity connected with a changed series of properties of the instinct.

We have such a precisely dialectical relation of negation of a preceding stage while maintaining it in a cryptic form in the relation of the conditioned reflex and the intellectual reaction. In Thorndike's well-known example with arithmetic problems, it is essential that the child solving the problem uses no other reactions except those he acquired by habit or in a combination of habits directed toward solving a problem new to him. Thus, even here the intellectual reaction negates habits that are, as if, a cryptic reaction aimed at solving problems confronting the organism, and some properties of habits, are eliminated. However, at the same time, the intellectual reaction, it seems, is essentially reduced not to anything other than a system of habits, and this system or organization of systems is itself the proper matter for the intellect.

If we take into account this kind of sequence of stages in the natural development of behavior, then we must say something similar also with respect to the fourth stage of development of behavior in which we are presently interested. Perhaps we shall have to admit that the higher processes of behavior which we are about to discuss also belong to natural behavior in which every stage within this natural behavior has certain relations to the preceding stage: to a certain degree, it negates the stage of primitive behavior and contains natural behavior in a cryptic form as well.

As an example, we will use an operation such as remembering with the help of signs. We see that, on the one hand, remembering occurs here as it does not occur with ordinary remembering in the establishing of habits; remembering involving intellectual reaction has certain properties that are not present in the first case. But if we separate the process of remembering that depends on signs into component parts, we can easily see that in the final analysis this process contains in itself the same reactions that are also characteristic for natural remembering, but just in a new combination. The new combination is what comprises the basic subject of our studies in child psychology.

Of what do the basic changes consist? They consist in that at the higher stage of development, man begins to control his own behavior, subjects his own reactions to his own control. Just as he controls the actions of outside forces of nature, he also controls his own processes of behavior on the basis of the natural laws of behavior. Since the basis of natural laws of behavior are laws of stimuli-responses, a reaction cannot be controlled as long as the stimulus is not controlled. Consequently, a child controls his own behavior. but the key to this lies in controlling the system of stimuli. The child controls arithmetic operations, having mastered the system of arithmetic stimuli.

Precisely in this way, the child masters all other forms of behavior, having mastered the stimuli, but the system of stimuli is a social force presented to the child from outside.

In order to make what has been said entirely clear, we will follow the stages that the child goes through in developing the operation of controlling his own behavior, We cite the experimental example which we used before in speaking of the selection reaction. It is appropriate to speak briefly here of how this reaction changes in the process of remembering and why we define the properties of development by these changes.

What does the development of the selection reaction consist of in the child? Let us say that five to eight stimuli are used in the study and the child is asked to respond to each stimulus with a different response, for example, to the color blue, he will respond with one finger, to red with another, to yellow, with a third. From data of the old experimental psychology, we know that the selection reaction in the child is established at the age of six. It has also been established that in an adult, the complex selection reaction is formed with significantly more difficulty, and special effort is required to select the responses corresponding to each stimulus from a large number of responses.

For example, if we ask the subject to react to red with his left hand and to blue with his right hand, the selection is established quickly and the reaction will be easier than if we present a selection of three or four or five or six colors. Analysis of old experiments, as we have noted before, leads psychologists to conclude that in the selection reaction, we do not actually select; a process of a different character occurs here which can be taken for selection only from external appearances. In reality, something else is occurring. A series of studies forms a basis for proposing that at the base of the selection reaction there is a very complex form of behavior that we must differentiate between stimuli that appear without order and organized stimuli, that in these reactions there is a closure of conditioned connections, or, in the language of the old psychology, there is a fixing of the instruction. If we use mnemotechniques to remember the instruction, which is generally characteristic for memory, then we can facilitate establishing the correct selection of a reaction.

We proceed as follows: we give a six-year-old child, then a seven-year-old and An eight-year-old a number of stimuli, say, a number of pictures, and ask each child to react to each picture with a different movement, or to press a corresponding key or move a finger. We give the subject the chance to use external means to solve this internal operation and try to observe how the child behaves in such cases.

It is interesting that the child always does the proposed task and does not refuse to do it. He knows so little of his mental powers that the task does not seem impossible to him, in contrast to the adult who, as the experiment has demonstrated, Always refuses and says, "No, I won't remember and I can't do this." And, actually, if the adult is given such instruction, he questions repeatedly, returns to a preceding Color, seeks more precise information as to which color he should react and with Which finger. A child, on the other hand, approaches the task, listens to the instruction, and tries at once to do it.

The experiment begins. Most often, children meet with difficulty almost immediately and 90% make mistakes. But even older children, having mastered one Or two reactions with respect to the other stimuli, naively ask which finger they must use to press the key for which color. In the child, we take this early stage as initial or primitive stage of development of the reaction.

It is clear to us why this is primitive, natural. It is common to all children, and in most cases, children behave exactly in this way in several reactions; it is primitive because the behavior of the child in this case is determined by his potential for direct imprinting, the natural state of his brain apparatus. And actually, if the child tries to master the selection reaction with ten stimuli, this can be explained by the fact that he does not yet know his limitations and operates with what is complex as he operates with what is simple. In other words, he tries to react to a complex structure with primitive means.

Subsequently, the experiment is set up as follows. Seeing that the child cannot cope with the task with primitive means, we modify the experiment to a certain degree, we introduce a second series of stimuli. This is a basic method that is usually used in studying cultural behavior of the child.

Besides the stimuli which were to elicit one selection reaction or another, we give the child a number of additional stimuli, for example, pictures pasted on the different keys, and suggest that the subject connect a given picture with a given key. For example, when the picture of a horse is presented, the key with the sleigh must be pressed. Having been instructed, the child sees that he must press the key with the "sleigh" when the "horse" picture is presented and the key with a drawing of a knife in response to "bread." Here the reaction goes well, it has already gone beyond the primitive stage because the child's reaction does not depend on just primitive conditions; suddenly the rule for solving the problem dawns on him and he makes a selection with the help of a generalized reaction. In selecting from ten stimuli, the properties of the reaction change correspondingly. Here the rule of increasing duration of study depending on the number of stimuli no longer holds; it is all the same whether four or eight, five or ten stimuli are presented, the quality of the reaction to the stimuli does not change.

But it would be a mistake to think that the child completely mastered the given form of behavior. One has only to take the same pictures and rearrange them and it is as if there were no such connection. If instead of the key marked "sleigh," there was a key marked "knife," and if the child were told to press the "knife" key in response to the "horse" picture, the child would at first not notice that the auxiliary pictures had been switched. If we ask if he can remember, the child without any doubt answers that he can.

He listens to the instruction, but when we actually change the position of the pictures, the child cannot produce the correct selection reaction. This stage occurs differently in different children, but basically, the behavior of all children consists of their dealing with the pictures without understanding how the picture works although they remember that somehow the "horse" helped find the "sleigh." Frequently, the child considers the internal complex connection purely externally; associatively he feels that it is evident that the picture must help him make a selection, although he cannot explain the internal connection that is the basis for this.

A simple example of this stage in the development of the child's operation is an experiment conducted with a small girl. 'Me mother gives the child instruction similar to the instruction in a Binet test - to go to the next room and carry out three small operations. In giving the instruction, the mother repeats it several times or she says it only once. The girl notices that when the mother repeats it several times, the instruction is successful; the girl remembers and finally begins to understand that the mother must repeat the instruction several times. When the mother gives a new instruction, the girl says, "Say it once more," and not listening, runs off. The girl noted the connection between repetition and success in fulfilling the task, but she did not understand that the repetition alone did not help her, that the repetition must be heard, clearly assimilated, and only then will it be easier to carry out the instruction.

Consequently, for this kind of operation, an external connection between the stimulus and the means, but not a psychological internal connection, is characteristic. It is interesting that similar phenomena observed in primitive man arc: frequently termed magical thinking. This arises on the basis of insufficient knowledge of the strict laws of nature and on the basis of the fact that primitive man assumes the connection between thoughts to be a connection between things.

The following is a typical sample of magic. In order to do serious harm to a person, primitive people practice witchcraft, try to get the person's hair or portrait and burn it, assuming that in this way the person will also be punished. Here the mechanistic connection between thoughts replaces the connection between objects. How do primitive people make it rain? They try to do this by magical ceremony. At first they begin to blow through their fingers in imitation of wind, then they arrange to have water fall on sand and if the sand gets wet, it signifies that such a ceremony will bring rain. The connection in thinking is converted into a material connection.

In a child in the stage of which we are speaking, an opposite phenomenon occurs - the connection between things is assumed to be a connection between thoughts, a connection between two pictures is assumed to be a mental connection. In other words, what occurs is not an authentic use of the given law, but its external, associative use. This stage can be termed the stage of naive psychology. The term "naive psychology" is used in analogy to the term "naive physics" introduced by O. Lipmann and H. Bogen, and by Kohler also. This term indicates that while same animals make a naive effort at practical use of tools, man makes an analogous naive effort relative to his mental operations. In both cases, the experience is naive because it is acquired through a direct, naive path. But since naive experience has limits, the naive physics of the monkey leads to a series of interesting phenomena. The monkey has somewhat little knowledge of the physical properties of his body, constructs this naive physics on the basis of his optical experience and gets something like the well-known fact described by Kohler: if the monkey learned to get it using a stick and if he has no stick available, he grabs a straw and attempts roll the fruit with the straw. How is such an error possible? Because optically, the straw resembles a stick and the monkey does not know the physical properties ,'Of a stick. The monkey deals with a shoe, with the brim of a straw hat, with a towel, with any object in precisely the same way.

Even more interesting are the inadequacies of naive physics that the monkey exhibits when he wants to get fruit that is high up: he tries to place a box on a corner or edgewise toward a wall and becomes furious when the box fans. Another monkey places the box on the wall at his own height and presses it in the hope that the box will stay there. The actions of the monkeys can be explained very simply from natural life in the forest where the animals acquire naive physical experience. The monkey can support itself on branches that extend from the trunk of the tree in exactly the same direction that he wants to attach the box to the wall. The erroneous attempts are the result of the monkey's inadequate knowledge of the physical properties of its own body and of other bodies.

This experiment transferred to children demonstrates that the young child's use of tools can also be explained by his naive physics, that is, by the fact that to the extent that the child acquires any experience, he is capable of using certain properties of things with which he has to deal and to work out a certain relation them. Analogously, as a result of practical use of signs, experience with using them develops that is still naive psychological experience.

In order to understand that it is easier to remember after repetition, one must have certain experience in remembering. It has been observed in experiments how this remembering occurs, and it is understandable that it grows stronger with repetition. The child who understands the connections between repetition and remembering does not have enough psychological experience with respect to real conditions of how the real reaction occurs and uses this experience naively.

Can naive psychological experience be acquired? Undoubtedly it is acquired as naive physical experience is acquired owing to the fact that the child deals with objects, makes movements, masters some properties or others of objects, and learns how to deal with them. Precisely in this way, in the process of adaptation, the child remembers and carries out various instructions. Carrying them out, the child accumulates and acquires certain naive psychological experience and he begins to understand how one must remember, what remembering involves, and when he understands that, he begins to use one sign or another correctly.

In this way at the stage of magical use of signs, he uses them according to purely external similarity. But this stage lasts only a short time in the child. He is convinced that with the help of a certain distribution of the pictures, he will remember the selection reaction, but with a different distribution, he will not remember it. Thus, the child comes to the discovery of the unique character of his remembering and soon begins to say, "No, put that picture here." When he is told that for the "horse" picture, he must press the "bread" key, he says, "No, I'll press this key with the picture of the sleigh." So vaguely, but gradually, the child nevertheless begins to accumulate experience with respect to his own remembering.

Having naively mastered what the operation of remembering consists of, the child moves to the next stage. If we give him pictures in random order, he places them in the required order and establishes a certain connection; he no longer deals with signs externally, but knows that the presence of these signs will help him carry out a specific operation, that is, remembering by using the signs.

Very soon, the child, using the already prepared connection and having established the connection in previous experience (horse-sleigh or bread-knife), will begin to create a connection himself. Now the child no longer has difficulty in making and remembering similar connections. In other words, the next stage is characterized by the fact that the child, using a connection which we have given him, makes a transition to creating a new connection. This stage may be termed the stage of using external signs. It is characterized by the fact that in using signs in an internal operation, new connections begin to be formed in the child independently. And this is the most important thing that we wanted to say. The child organizes stimuli in order to carry out his reaction.

At this stage, we see clearly the manifestation of basic genetic laws according to which the child's behavior is organized. It consists of a reaction that the child wants to direct along a certain path. Here he organizes the stimuli that are external and uses them for carrying out the task given him. This stage lasts a short time before the child passes to the next form of organizing his activity.

After the subject goes through the same experiment several times, the researcher begins to observe a decrease in reaction time: if the reaction took 0.5 second or more before, it now takes only 0.2 second; this means that the reaction has accelerated by a factor of 2.5. The most important change is that in the internal operation of remembering, the child uses external means; wanting to master his reaction, he masters the stimuli; but then the child gradually eliminates the external stimuli that he has before him and no longer pays attention to them. Carrying out the selection reaction, the child operates as he operated earlier, but without the series of stimuli. The difference is that the external reaction turns into an internal reaction; the reaction that was earlier impossible when a large number of stimuli were present now becomes possible.

Let us imagine what has happened: every external operation has, as they say, its internal representation. What does this mean? We make a certain movement, present certain stimuli, one stimulus here, another there. A certain internal brain process corresponds to this; as a result of a number of such experiences with the transition from an external to an internal operation, all intermediate stimuli become needed less and less and the operation begins to be carried out without mediating stimuli. In other words, what happens is what we conditionally call a process of revolution. If the external operation became internal, then it grew inward or made a transition from external to internal.

On the basis of these experiments, we are able to note three basic types of such revolution, that is, transition of an operation from outside inward. We shall list these types and try to show to what extent our results are typical for the cultured child in general and specifically for the arithmetical development of the child and for his speech and memory development.

The first type of revolution, or passage of an external operation inward, is What we conditionally term revolution of the seam type. We know that there is a revolution of living tissue. We take two ends of torn tissue and at first stitch it together with thread. Because of this, the two ends of tissue unite and they become spliced. Then the thread, preliminarily introduced, can be withdrawn and instead of an artificial connection, there is a union without a seam.

When the child combines his stimuli with a reaction, at first he combines a given stimulus with a reaction by means of a seam. In order to remember that the "horse" picture corresponds to the "sleigh" key, the child brings forward an intermediate member between the key and the picture, specifically, the "sleigh" picture;

this is the seam that splices the given stimulus and the reaction. Gradually the seam disappears and a direct connection is formed between the stimulus and the reaction. If the seam is eliminated, then, of course, the reaction accelerates and an operation that required 0.5 second now requires only 0.15 second because the path from the stimulus to the reaction is shorter. The operation is converted from a mediated to a direct operation.

The second type of revolution is revolution of the whole. Let us imagine that the child reacts many times to one and the same picture with the help of pictures of identical things which he understands. If the child reacted 30 times in the same Way, then, of course, we could say that the child will remember that for a given picture ("horse") he must press the "sleigh" key, in other words, he transfers the Whole series of external stimuli inward as a whole. This is a transition inward of a whole series; here the transition of the operation inward consists in that the difference between external and internal stimuli is smoothed over.

Finally, the third and most important type of transition of an operation from external to internal is one in which the child assimilates the structure itself of the process, assimilates the rules for using external signs, and since he has more internal stimuli and can deal with them more easily than with external stimuli, then, as a result of assimilating the structure itself, the child soon makes the transition to using the structure as an internal operation. The child says: "I don't need the pictures anymore, I can do it myself," and in this way, he begins to use verbal stimuli.

Let us trace this stage using the example of the development of such an important area of knowledge of the child as the knowledge of arithmetic.

At the natural or primitive stage, the child solves a problem by direct means. After solving very simple problems, he moves on to the stage of using signs without realizing the method of their action. Then comes the stage of using external signs and , finally, the stage of internal signs.

All arithmetical development of the child must first of all have a natural or primitive stage as a departure point. Can a three-year-old child tell by looking if a group of three apples or a group of seven apples is larger? He can. But, if asked about a more complex differentiation, can a child correctly tell which group contains 16 and which contains 19 apples? No, he cannot. In other words, at first we will see a natural stage defined by purely natural laws when he compares the numbers simply by sight. We know, however, that the child soon and completely unnoticeably, passes from this stage to another, and when he needs to recognize where there are more objects, then, like most children in cultured circumstances, he begins to count. Sometimes children do this even before they understand what counting is. They count: one, two, three, a whole series, although they do not yet know real counting.

Testing to see if many children begin to count before they understand what counting is, researchers (for example, Stern) observed children who knew how to count, but did not understand what counting was. If such a child is asked, "How many fingers does your hand have?" he counts them in order and says, "Five." And if he is told, "How many do 1 have? Count them!" the child answers, "No, I don't know how." This means that the child knows how to apply the series of numbers only to his own fingers but cannot count them on someone else's hand.

Another of Stern's examples. The child counts fingers: "One, two, three, four, five." When he is asked, "How many all together?" he answers, "Six." "Why six?" "Because this is the fifth, and in all, there are six." The child has no clear notion of a total. In other words, the child purely externally, "magically" assimilates a certain operation, not yet knowing its internal relations.

Finally, the child makes the transition to real counting; he begins to understand what it means to count his fingers; but nevertheless, he still counts using external signs. At this stage, the child counts mainly on his fingers and if he is presented with a problem such as "Here are seven apples. Take away two. How many will be left?" To solve the problem, he moves from the apples to his fingers. In this case, the fingers play the role of signs. He puts out seven fingers, then subtracts two, leaving five. In other words, the child solves the problem with the help of external signs. If the child is forbidden to move his hands, he cannot carry out the required operation.

But we know quite well that the child very quickly moves from counting on his fingers to counting in his head; an older child, if he is asked to subtract two from seven, no longer counts on his fingers, but in his head. Here, the child exhibits two basic types of revolution of which we spoke. In one case, counting in his head is a revolution of the whole, and the child turns a whole external series inward (for example, counting for himself: "One, two, three," etc.). In the other case, he manifests revolution of the seam type. This occurs if the child practices and then gives the answer. Finally, he will not need an intermediate operation, but will give the answer directly. This is what happens with any counting when all the intermediate operations are eliminated and the stimulus elicits the required result directly.

Another example involves the development of speech in the child. At first the child is at the stage of natural, primitive, or actually the pre-speech stage: he cries, makes identical sounds in different situations; this is a purely external action. At this stage, when he needs something, he resorts to natural means, depending on direct or conditioned reflexes. Then follows the stage when the child discovers basic external rules or an external structure of speech; he notices that there is a word for every thing, that the given word is the conditional designation of the thing. For a long time, the child considers the word as one of the properties of the thing. Research with older children showed that the relation toward words as toward natural features of things lasts a long time.

There is an interesting philological anecdote that demonstrates the relation toward language in people with little culture. There is a story in a book by Fedorchenko about a soldier talking with a German and discussing which language is best and most correct. 'Me Russian argues that Russian is best: "Take, for example, nozh; in German it's Messer, in French, couteau, and in English, knife, but, you know, that it is actually a nozh; this means that our word is the most correct." In other words, it is assumed that the name of the thing is an expression of its true essence.

Another example presented by Stem involving a bilingual child reflects the same situation: when the child is asked which language is correct, he says that it will be correct in German because Wasser is specifically what one can drink, and not what the French call l'eau. Thus, we see that the child has made a connection between the name of a thing and the thing itself. Children consider a name as one of the properties of things together with its other properties. In other words, the external connection of stimuli or the connection of things is assumed to be the psychological connection.

We know that in primitive people, there is a magical attitude toward words. Thus, in peoples developing under the influence of religion, for example, the Jews, there are words that must not be said, and if one must speak of something, let us say, of a dead person, then one must add the words, "May this not spread to your house." One must not name the devil because if he is named, he will appear. The same thing applies to words defining "shameful" objects; the words acquire a nuance of these shameful objects, and it is shameful to say them. In other words, this is a remnant of transferring to conditional signs properties of the things that these signs signify.

The child passes very quickly from the stage of regarding words as qualitative properties of a thing to conditional signification of words, that is, he uses words signs, particularly at the stage of egocentric speech of which we have already ken. Here the child, in a discussion with himself, notes the most important options that he must carry out. Finally, from the stage of egocentric speech, the child passes to the last stage, to the stage of internal speech in the true sense of the word.

Thus, in the development of speech in the child, we see the same stages: the natural, or magical, stage at which he relates to a word as if it were a property of a thing, then the external stage, and finally, internal speech. The last stage is authentic thinking.

Each of these examples could be discussed separately. However, after all that I has been said, we may assume that the basic stages appear in forming memory, Will, arithmetical knowledge, and speech - the same stages of which we spoke and through which all higher mental functions of the child pass in their development.

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Soviet Psychology: Genesis of Higher Mental Functions by Lev Vygotsky 1931

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Lev Vygotsky 1931 The third level of our research is closest to the historical method of considering higher forms of behavior that we have adopted.

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 2. Research Method

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 2. Research Method

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Soviet Psychology: Research Method by L. S. Vygotsky 1931

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 2.

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 3. Analysis of Higher Mental Functions

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 3. Analysis of Higher Mental Functions

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 3.

Analysis of Higher Mental Functions

We have already said that the first and second form of our research is an analysis of higher forms of behavior; but the situation in modern psychology is such that before we can begin to analyze the problem, we have the problem of the analysis itself.

In modern psychology, as a result of the crisis that affects its very foundation, a change in its methodological bases is occurring right before our eyes. In this respect, a situation arose in psychology that more developed sciences do not experience. When we speak of chemical analysis, everyone clearly understands what we have in mind. But the situation is entirely different for psychological analysis. The concept itself of psychological analysis has an exceptional variety of meanings; it includes determinations that sometimes have nothing in common with each other arid sometimes are diametrically opposed to each other. Thus, in the last ten years, the concept of psychological analysis as a basic movement in descriptive psychology has experienced extensive development. Descriptive psychology has sometimes been called analytical, and in this way its concept was contrasted with the concept of modern scientific psychology. Actually the analytical method was close to the phenomenological method and for this reason the problem of psychological research was reduced to dividing the complex structure of experiences or direct data of consciousness into their component elements. According to this understanding, analysis coincided with breaking down experiences and, in essence, opposing this concept to the concept of explanatory psychology.

In a somewhat different sense, analysis dominates traditional psychology, where it is usually called associative. Actually, it was based on an atomistic conception of what higher processes consist of and summarizing certain separate elements; the task of research was again reduced to presenting higher processes in a certain way as a sum of associated simpler elements. In fact, this was the psychology of elements and, although it dealt with somewhat different problems, including explanation of phenomena, nevertheless even here a close tie existed between this understanding of analysis and the dominance of the phenomenological point of view in psychology. K. Lewin noted that, as a rule, the basis for such understanding is the opinion that higher mental processes are more complex or compounded and include a larger number of elements and their combinations than do the lower mental processes. Researchers attempted to break down complex processes into the independent processes comprising them and their associative ties. The dominance of the atomistic point of view led, in turn, to emphasizing the purely phenomenological problem which, as Lewin noted, in itself undoubtedly was of significant importance, but concealed a deeper causal-dynamic problem in the old psychology.

Thus, analysis in these two basic forms with which the old psychology was familiar was either opposed to explanation (in descriptive psychology) or actually led exclusively to describing and breaking down experiences and was incapable of disclosing the causal-dynamic connection and relation of any complex processes.

The development of modern psychology changed even the meaning of analysis in a radical way. The trend toward studying processes as wholes, toward disclosing structures that are the basis of psychological phenomena is the opposite of the old analysis, which is based on an atomistic conception of the mind. We are justified in thinking that the great difference in structural psychology is the reaction to the psychology of elements and to the place that the analysis of elements occupied in theory. The new psychology itself is consciously opposed to the psychology of elements, and its most essential characteristic is that it is the psychology of whole processes.

On the one hand, the extensive development of behavioral psychology in all its forms is undoubtedly a reaction to the dominance of purely phenomenological trends in the old psychology. In some-types of behavioral psychology, attempts were made to move from descriptive to explanatory analysis. Thus, if we wanted to summarize the course of the current state of this problem, we would have to say that the two positions that were represented in the old psychology, and from which the new is decisively distancing itself, resulted in a split between the two basic trends in the new psychology.

On the other hand, some psychological trends are developing before our eyes that are attempting to include explanatory analysis at the base of the psychological method. Such, for example, are certain trends in behavioral psychology that in essence preserved the atomistic character of the old psychology and consider all higher processes as sums or chains of more elementary processes or reactions. For example, Gestalt psychology, which constitutes a substantial trend in contemporary psychology, emphasizing the significance of the whole and its unique properties, rejects analysis of this whole and in this way is forced to remain within the limits of descriptive psychology. In recent years, many psychological trends of a synthetic character are attempting to split the two types.

Also before our eyes, a new understanding of psychological analysis is developing. The first, most clear theory of this new form of analysis originated with M. Ya. Basov, who tried to unite two lines of research in structural analysis - the line of analysis and the line of the holistic approach to the personality. The attempt to unite analysis and the holistic approach distinguishes Basov's method advantageously from the other two trends which usually follow one of the points of view indicated. We see this, on the one hand, following the example of extreme behaviorism, which from the correct premise "all depends on the reflex" reaches the erroneous conclusion "everything is reflex." On the other hand, we see the same thing in the example of contemporary holistic psychology which sees a universal property in structure, which accepts whole mental processes as the starting point, and in this way, taking the other extreme line, never finds a way to analysis and genetic study and therefore never finds a way to construct a scientific base for the development of behavior.

We believe it is necessary to consider somewhat more closely the new form of psychological analysis of which the method of research we use is a further development. Basov isolates the real, objective element of which this process consists and then differentiates them. He believes these phenomena to be independent, having an independent existence, but he looks for their component parts only to ascertain that each of the parts retains the properties of the whole. Thus, in an analysis of water, the molecule H20 will be an objectively real element of water although it is infinitely small in size, but homogeneous in composition. For this reason, particles of water must, according to this separation, be considered essential d elements of the formation being considered.

Structural analysis has to do with such real, objectively essential elements and sees as its task not only to isolate these elements, but also to explain the connections and relations that exist between them and to determine the structure of the form and the type of activity that arise from the dynamic combination of these elements.

Recently, even holistic psychology is coming to the same conclusion. Thus, H. Volkelt notes that a very basic trait of contemporary psychological research is that it is directed toward the study of the whole. However, problems of analysis persist here to the same degree as formerly and, in general, must persist as long as psychology continues to exist. Volkelt distinguishes two lines of such analysis. The first may be called holistic analysis, which keeps in view the holistic character of the object being studied, and the second, elemental analysis, the essence of which consists of isolating and studying separate elements. Thus far in psychology, specifically the second form has been dominant. Many think that the new psychology rejects analysis in general. Actually, it only changes the significance and tasks of analysis; it has in mind analysis in its original sense.

Naturally, the very meaning of analysis must be radically changed. Its principal task is not to break down the psychological whole into parts or even into pieces, but to isolate certain traits and instances in each psychological whole that have retained the pre-eminent importance of the whole. We see here a completely clear expression of the idea of uniting the structural and analytical approaches in psychology. It is easy to see, however, that avoiding one of the errors of the old psychology, specifically atomism, the new analysis falls into another and actually has nothing in common with explaining, with disclosing the real connections and relations that form the given phenomenon. This analysis, as Volkelt says, is based on a descriptive isolation of holistic properties of a process since any description always isolates certain specific traits, places them in the forefront, and attempts to comprehend them.

We can see, therefore, that the elimination of the errors of the old psychology is actually still far from complete, and many theories, wanting to avoid the atomism of the old psychology, fall into a pattern of purely descriptive research. This is the fate of the structural theory.

There is another group of psychologists who, wanting to go beyond the limits of purely descriptive psychology, come to an atomistic conception of behavior. However, before our eyes, a base is being laid for the first foundations of a synthetic, uniting concept of the first and second theories. Before our eyes, analysis in psychology is changing its character. Actually, behind the various forms of interpretation and application of analysis are hidden various conceptions of the psychological factor. It is not difficult to see that the conception of analysis in descriptive psychology is directly linked to the basic principle of this psychology, specifically, to the teaching on the impossibility of a natural-science explanation for mental processes. In the same way, analysis in the psychology of elements is linked to a certain interpretation of psychological fact, specifically, with the teaching that all higher processes arise by way of associative combination of a series of elementary processes.

Psychological theory changes the conception of analysis depending on the general main approach to psychological problems. Behind one application of analysis or another lies a certain conception of the fact being analyzed. This is why, together with a change in the bases of the methodological approach to psychological research, of necessity, the very character of psychological analysis changes We note three specific points on which analysis of higher forms of behavior is based and which serves as the basis for our research. The first point leads us to distinguishing between analyzing things and analyzing process. Thus far, psychological analysis almost always treated the process being analyzed as if it were a specific thing. Mental formations were understood as a certain stable and solid fact, and the problem of analysis essentially was reduced to breaking it down into separate parts. This is why in this psychological analysis, the logic of solid bodies has been dominant thus far. The mental process was studied and analyzed, in the expression of K. Koffka, primarily as a mosaic of hard and unchanging parts.

Analysis of things should be opposed to the analysis of process, which actually leads to a dynamic unfolding of the main points that form the historical course of a given process. In this sense, we are brought to a new understanding of analysis not by experimental, but by genetic psychology. Should we want to indicate the most important change that genetic psychology introduces into general psychology, we would have to admit, together with H. Werner, that this change leads to introducing the genetic point of view into experimental psychology. The mental process itself, whether we speak of the development of speech or volition, is a process that undergoes certain changes before our eyes. Development may be limited, as for example, in normal perceptions, to several seconds in all, or even to a part of a second. It may, as in complex processes of thinking, stretch over many days or weeks. It is possible to trace this development under certain conditions. Werner gives an example of how the genetic point of view can be applied to experimental research. Due to this, we are able experimentally, in the laboratory, to elicit a certain development that is a process that has long since been completed for modern man.

We said above that the method we use may be called an experimental-genetic method in the sense that it artificially elicits and creates a genetic process of mental development. Now we may say that the basic problem of the dynamic analysis that we have in mind is also contained in this. If we replace analysis of things with analysis of process, then the basic problem for consideration naturally becomes the genetic restoration of all the instances of development of the given process. Here, the principal task of analysis is restoring the process to its initial stage or, in other words, converting a thing into a process. This kind of experiment attempts to dissolve every congealed and petrified psychological form and to convert it into a moving, flowing flood of separate instances that replace one another. In short, the problem of such an analysis can be reduced to taking each higher form of behavior not as a thing, but as a process and putting it in motion so as to proceed not from a thing and its parts, but from a process to its separate instances.

The second point on which our understanding of analysis depends consists in opposing descriptive and explanatory problems of analysis. We have seen that the concept of analysis in the old psychology coincided essentially with the concept of describing as opposed to the problem of explaining phenomena. Moreover, the real task of analysis in any science is specifically to disclose the real causal-dynamic relations and connections that lie at the base of any phenomenon. Thus, in essence, analysis is a scientific explanation of the phenomenon being studied, and not just a description of it from the phenomenal aspect. In this respect, the separation of the two points of view of mental processes which Lewin is introducing into contemporary psychology seems extremely important to us. In its time, this kind of separation actually raised all the biological sciences to a higher level, or more precisely, this separation turned them from simple empirical description of phenomena into sciences in the true sense of the word, in other words, into an explanatory study of phenomena.

As Lewin correctly notes, in their time, all sciences made this transition from a descriptive to an explanatory approach, which is now the most basic characteristic of the crisis that psychology is experiencing. Historical study shows that an attempt to limit analysis to purely descriptive tasks is not a specific distinction of psychology. In old works on biology, statements were made that biology, in contrast to physics, can be, in the main, only a descriptive science. Today, everyone admits that this view was not justifiable.

Some ask, is not this transition from description to explanation a process of maturation typical for all sciences? Many sciences could see their unique features in the descriptive character of research. Dilthey defines the task of descriptive psychology in just this way. The transition from the descriptive to the explanatory concept is accomplished not by way of a simple replacement of some concepts by others. Extending the descriptive definition may also include transition to a certain genetic connection, and as development occurs, the science becomes explanatory. Lewin cites many basic biological concepts that made the transition from the category of description to explanation by extending and supplementing their content with genetic connections.

As we see it, this is the way science actually matures.

In essence, before Darwin, biology was a purely descriptive science that was based on a descriptive analysis of external properties of organisms without knowing their origin and, consequently, explaining their formation. The theory of botany, for example, placed plants into specific groups according to the form of leaves, flowers, according to their phenotypic properties. It developed, however, that one and the same plant may have a different external appearance depending on whether it grows at high or low altitudes. Thus, one and the same organism, depending on various external conditions, displays very important external differences and conversely: organisms very different in origin found in similar external conditions acquire a certain external resemblance, but in essence, remain different phenomena according to their nature.

For biology, overcoming the descriptive phenotypic point of view was connected with Darwin's discovery. The origin of species, which he discovered, laid the foundation for a completely new classification of organisms according to a completely new type of formation of scientific traits, which Lewin calls conditional-genetic in contrast to the phenomenological type based on external manifestations. A phenomenon is defined not on the basis of its external appearance, but on the basis of its real origin. The difference between these two points of view can be explained with any biological example. Thus, from the point of view of external traits, a whale is undoubtedly closer to fish than to mammals, but according to its biological nature, it is closer to the cow and to the deer than to the pike or the shark.

Phenomenological or descriptive analysis takes a given phenomenon as it is in its external manifestation and proceeds from the naive assumption that there is a coincidence between the external appearance or manifestation of matter and the real, actual, causal-dynamic connection that underlies it. Conditional-genetic analysis proceeds from disclosing real connections that are hidden behind the external manifestation of any process. The latter analysis asks about origination and disappearance, about reasons and conditions, and about all those real relations that are the basis of any phenomenon. In this sense, we could, following Lewin, move to a psychology of separating pheno- and genotypic points of view. Under genetic consideration of the problem, we will understand disclosure of its genesis, its causal- dynamic bases. Under phenotypic consideration, we will understand analysis that is based on directly presented traits and external manifestations of the object.

Wc could cite not a few examples in psychology that exhibit serious errors that are due to confusing these two points of view. In research on the development of speech, we will have the opportunity to consider two basic examples of this type. Thus, from the external, descriptive aspect, the first manifestation of speech similar to that of an adult appears in a child at the age of approximately one and a half years, and on the basis of this similarity, serious researchers such as W. Stern reach the conclusion that even at this age, the child recognizes the relation between the sign and the meaning, that is, he closes in on phenomena that from the genetic point of view, as we shall see later, have nothing in common with each other.

A phenomenon such as egocentric speech, which is not similar externally to internal speech and differs from it in a most fundamental way, as our research shows, must be close to internal speech from the genetic aspect.

We are coming to the basic point that Lewin makes: two phenotypic single or complex processes may seem to be causally-dynamically extremely different and conversely - two processes that are extremely close from the causal-dynamic aspect may seem different from the phenotypic aspect. We can find such phenomena at every step, and we shall see that a whole series of positions and achievements established by the old psychology appears in a completely new light when we make the transition from phenotypic to genetic consideration.

Thus, the basis for the phenotypic point of view is a combining of processes that is based on external resemblance or similarities. Marx said the same thing in a most general form, confirming that "if the form of manifestation and the essence of things coincided directly, then all of science would be superfluous" (K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 25, Chap. II, p. 384). Actually, if the thing were the same phenotypically as it is genotypically, that is, if external manifestations of the thing as they are seen every day actually expressed the true relations of the thing, then science would be completely superfluous and simple observation, simple everyday experience, simple recording of facts would fully replace scientific analysis. Everything we might perceive directly would comprise the subject of our scientific knowledge.

Actually, psychology teaches us at every step that two actions may proceed similarly from the external aspect, but may differ profoundly from each other in genesis, in essence, and in their nature. In such cases, special means of scientific analysis are required to disclose the internal differences that lie behind external similarity. In such cases, scientific analysis is also required, that is, knowing how to disclose the internal essence that lies behind the external appearance of the process, its nature, its genesis. The whole difficulty of scientific analysis consists in that the essence of things, that is, their true, real relation, does not coincide directly with the form of their external manifestations; for this reason, processes must be analyzed, and through analysis, the true relation that lies at the base of these processes, behind the external form of their manifestation, must be disclosed.

Analysis also has the task of disclosing these relations. Genuine scientific psychological analysis differs in a radical way from subjective, introspective analysis, which by its nature cannot go beyond the limits of pure description. In our sense, analysis is possible only as objective analysis; for this reason, it seeks to disclose not what the observed fact seems to us, but what it actually is. We are interested, for example, not in the direct experience of free will, which introspective analysis shows us, but in that real connection and relation of the external and the internal that lie at the base of this higher form of behavior.

In this way, we see that psychological analysis as we understand it stands in direct opposition to the analytical method in the old sense of that word. If the old analysis saw itself as opposed to explanation, then the new is a basic means for scientific explanation. If the old remained mainly within the limits of phenomenological study, then the new has as its task the disclosure of the real causal- dynamic relations. But in psychology, the explanation itself becomes possible to the extent that the new point of view does not ignore external manifestations of things, does not limit itself exclusively to genetic considerations, but of necessity includes both scientific explanation and external manifestations and the traits of the process being studied. It does this through the conditional-genetic approach.

In this way, analysis does not limit itself to only the genetic point of view, but of necessity considers the given process as a certain circle of possibilities that only with a certain complex of conditions or in a certain situation results in the formation of a certain phenotype. Thus, the new point of view does not eliminate, does not put aside the explanation of phenotypic features of the process, but places them m a subordinate position with respect to their actual genesis.

Finally, the third basic point consists of the fact that in psychology, we often are confronted with processes that have already become solidified, that is, passed through a very long historical development and were converted into a kind of fossil. Behavioral fossils most often are found in the so-called automatic or mechanical mental processes. These processes, which as a result of long functioning are perfected in the millionth repetition, become automatic and lose their initial appearance, and in their external form indicate nothing about their internal nature; they seemingly lose all traits of their genesis. Due to this kind of automatization, they create enormous difficulties for psychological analysis.

We will provide a very simple example that shows essentially how different processes acquire an external resemblance due to this kind of automatization. Let us take two processes that are called voluntary and involuntary attention in traditional psychology. Genetically, the indicated processes differ profoundly; moreover, in experimental psychology, the fact that is represented in the law of E. Titchener can be considered an established fact: voluntary attention, once it is aroused, functions like involuntary attention. According to the author's expression, secondary attention continuously turns into primary. Because of this, a higher degree of complex relations develops which at first glance leads to occluding the basic genetic connections and relations that control the development of any mental process. Describing both forms of attention and contrasting one with the other with great sharpness, Titchener said that there is still, however, a third stage in the development of attention; it consists in nothing other than a return to the first stage.

Thus, the last, higher stage in the development of any process exhibits a purely phenotypic similarity to the first or lower stage, and in the phenotypic approach, we consequently lose the possibility of distinguishing the higher form from the lower. For this reason, the researcher is confronted with the same basic problem of which we spoke above - converting thing into movement, fossil into process. We have no other way of studying this higher, third stage in the development of attention and comprehending all of its profound uniqueness, in contrast to the first except by a dynamic unfolding of the process, except by indicating its genesis. Consequently, what must interest us is not the finished result, not the sum or product of development, but the very process of genesis or establishment of the higher form caught in a living aspect. For this, the researcher must very frequently transform the automatic, mechanical, fossilized character of the higher form and turn its historical development back, experimentally return the form that we are interested in to its initial moments in order to make it possible to trace the process of its genesis. But as we have already said, this is what the problem of dynamic analysis involves.

We can summarize what has been said above on problems of psychological analysis in this way and enumerate in a single sentence all three determining points

that form its base: analysis of process, not thing, analysis that discloses the real causal-dynamic connection and relation, but does not break up the external traits of the process and is, consequently, an explanatory, not a descriptive analysis, and, finally, genetic analysis, which turns to the initial point and reestablishes all processes of development of any form that is a psychological fossil in the given form. All three points taken together are based on the new understanding of the higher psychological form that is neither purely a mental formation, as descriptive psychology assumes, nor a simple sum of elementary processes as associative psychology believes, but a qualitatively unique form, a truly new form that appears in the developmental process.

Three points that make it possible to contrast with full clarity the new psychological analysis with the old may be found in a study of any complex or higher form of behavior. We will move on along the same path on which we started, specifically, the path of contrasting, since it is the easiest way to disclose the basic and essential trait of the new studies of the basic or radical changes in all of the genesis, origin, and structure of the higher form of behavior. For this reason, in order to move from a methodological consideration to concrete analysis that allows disclosure of the general form of the law that is the basis for the higher form of behavior, we will stop and consider experimental analysis of a complex mental reaction. This research is advantageous in many respects. First, it has a long history and consequently allows a very clear contrast to be made between the new forms of analysis and the old. Second, with respect to special conditions of the psychological experiment, such research permits a formulation in a very pure and abstract form of two basic points to which the analysis of all higher forms of behavior leads.

If we approach the analysis of a complex reaction in the way in which it was developed in the old psychology, we will easily find, in a most classical and finished form, the three distinguishing traits whose negation was the starting point of our research. First, the analysis is based on what N. Ach calls graphic schematism and which may actually be called analysis of the thing. Nowhere does the atomistic character of the psychology of elements, its logic of solid bodies, its attempt to consider mental processes as a mosaic of solid and unchanging things, its conception that what is higher is simply cumulative - nowhere does all this appear with such clarity, with such truly graphic schematism as in the most developed chapter of the old psychology, in experimental analysis of the complex reaction.

If we turn to the problem of how this psychology represents the genesis of a higher or complex form of reaction, we see that it represents the process that interests us in an elementary and simplified way at a higher level. According to that teaching, the higher reaction differs from the simple one most of all in the increased complexity of the stimuli presented. If we usually have one stimulus in a simple reaction, then in a complex reaction there are usually several stimuli. Most often, the complex reaction is characterized by the fact that instead of a single impression, the subject is affected by a series of stimuli. From these complicated stimuli, another point necessarily develops, specifically, a complication of mental processes that are the basis of the reaction. But most essential is the fact that complicating the internal aspect of the reaction is analogous to complicating the stimuli.

It is easy to be convinced of this if we turn to the usual formulas that are used for experimental analysis of a complex reaction. Thus, the reaction of making a distinction arises if the subject, before he reacts to the stimuli presented, has to make a distinction between two or more stimuli. In this case, we can compute the exact time of making the distinction according to the simple formula P = p + Pi, where P is the time of the complex reaction of making the distinction, Pi is the time of the simple reaction, and p is the exact time of making the distinction.

In the same way, further complications bring us to constructing the reaction of selection. Where the subject is confronted with making a choice from among various movements, we have a further complication of the reaction that consists of the fact that the instant of making the distinction and the instant of selection is added and for that reason, the classical formula of the second reaction can be expressed in the form P = Pi + p + B, where B is the exact time of selection, and P is the time of reaction or of making the distinction.

If we disclose the conception of a complex reaction that was the basis of these formulas, it is easy to note that, in essence, it may be formulated as follows: the reaction of making a distinction is a simple reaction plus making the distinction; the reaction of selection is a simple reaction plus making the distinction plus selection. Thus the higher is constructed as a sum of elementary processes that underlie the purely arithmetical summation. Actually, if we are justified in defining making a distinction and selection by simply subtracting the simple reaction from the complex reaction, then, by the same token, we maintain that the complex reaction is a simple reaction plus a new added element because all subtraction is nothing other than a conversion of addition, and if we would want to present the same formulas in their initial form, then we would have to replace them with a sum of the elements entering into them.

True, in experimental psychology, the problem of the almost complete inconsistency of the operation of subtracting higher forms from lower forms has been addressed a number of times. Thus, Titchener established that a complex reaction is not made up piecemeal from simple reactions, that differentiation and recognition reactions are not sensory reactions to which the time for differentiation and the time for recognition are added. The selection reaction is not a differentiation reaction to which the selection time is added. In other words, differentiation time must not be arrived at by subtracting sensory reaction time from differentiation reaction time. Selection time must not be obtained by subtracting the differentiation reaction time from the selection reaction time.

This is done frequently in textbooks: differentiation time, recognition time, and selection time are indicated, but actually, the position that forms their base cannot be considered correct, as if the reaction is a chain of separate processes to which one may arbitrarily add or from which one may arbitrarily subtract separate links. The reaction is a single process which, with a certain degree of habit, depends as a whole on the links of instruction. Perhaps it may develop that in an associative reaction one may resort to subtraction, that we may be able to determine, with a high degree of reliability, the time required for association by subtracting the time of simple sensory reaction from the time of simple association reaction, but facts indicate otherwise. Instruction which determines association controls the whole course of recognition, and for this reason the two reactions specified are not comparable.

The basic experimentally established fact that completely overturns the classical formulas given above for analysis of a complex reaction by simple arithmetical computation of separate elements is Titchener's establishment of the position that the time of carefully preparing the selection reaction may be equal to the time of the simple sensory reaction. We know that the basic law of a complex reaction established in classical psychology is an exactly opposite position. Specifically, the old experiments established that the time for a complex reaction exceeds the time for a simple reaction and the time for a complex reaction increases in direct proportion to the number of stimuli among which a differentiation must be made and the number of reactive movements from among which a choice must be made. New experiments demonstrate that these laws do not always hold, that an adequately consequently, when its concrete size is computed, (he analytical formuln given above must result in absurdity. This formula will show that the selection time is equal to zero and in this way will disclose the factual, basic inconsistency of this conception of a complex reaction.

The impossibility of this kind of analysis based on arithmetical subtraction was disclosed by many other researchers as well. Here we will not begin a consideration of all the objections that were raised against such an operation from various aspects; we will only indicate that Ach came to this conclusion in his research. With solid basis, he indicates that the inconsistency of this operation is evident, among other things, in the following: as a result of similar subtractions, some researchers obtained negative numbers. Like Ach, we think that the old psychology also made this same error when it applied the same understanding to higher processes. Thus, L. Quetlet assumes that if we subtract the time required for explaining, translating ^ to a different language, and naming the word, we obtain the exact time of translation. Thus, from this point of view, even the higher processes of understanding speech are combined with each other by simple summation and may be isolated and analyzed by simple subtraction. If understanding a word and naming it is subtracted from the translation of a given word to a foreign language, we will have in an exact form the process that is the basis of translating from one language to another. It is indeed difficult to imagine a more mechanistic understanding of complex and higher forms of behavior.

The second feature of the teaching on reactions as it was developed in the old psychology is ascribing primary importance to purely descriptive analysis. If the first, classical stage in the development of this teaching was characterized by analysis of things instead of analysis of process, then the new point of view, as represented by Titchener, Ach, and others who understood the inconsistency of earlier views, limits itself to purely descriptive, introspective analysis of reactions. The only difference is that a mechanistic analysis of stimuli is replaced by an introspective analysis of experience. Description of external relations is replaced by description of internal experiences, but in both cases, the phenotypic approach to the object itself is preserved.

E. Titchener notes that all the instructions that refer to the first type of selection reaction can actually be quite different. And it is even doubtful, he continues, if even one of these instructions elicits an authentic process of selection. Unfortunately, in this area, researchers were more occupied with determining reaction time than with analyzing the reaction processes themselves. For this reason, the data from psychological analysis are often sparse. Introspective analysis had already shown that, practically speaking, the processes of selection actually have no place in the selection reaction. We may consider the fact as fully established that, from the psychological aspect, the selection reaction does not include processes of selection to any degree and for this reason it serves as a splendid example of how the external appearance of any process may fail completely to coincide with its actual psychological nature. Ach said that in this reaction we cannot speak of selection. All the processes from the psychological aspect occur in such a way that no place remains for selection. The same idea was formulated by Titchener: we must firmly keep in mind that the terms used for a complex reaction (simple reaction, differentiation reaction, selection reaction) are only conditional. Differentiation and selection refer to external conditions of an experiment and only to that. Titchener's assumption is that in the differentiation reaction, we do not differentiate, and in the selection reaction, we can originate operations, but we do not select reactions. The terms were assigned by way of a theoretical construct during the

analysis was still a matter for the future. These terms and certain others have become obsolete together with their time. For this reason, observers must take these terms for reactions simply as indicators of certain historical forms of experiments and not as real discovered psychological facts.

Thus we see that in the mechanical analysis of classical psychology, real relations that are the basis for processes of complex reactions were replaced by the relations that existed between stimuli. This was the common manifestation of intellectualism in psychology that attempted to disclose the nature of the mental process by making the conditions of the experiment itself logical.

And so this process, which from the external aspect is selection, actually yields no basis for any talk of selection. In this sense, analysis of introspective psychology was a step forward in comparison with the old analysis, but it did not take us very far. It was, as has been said, a purely descriptive analysis of experience which, with scrupulous precision transmits the experiences of the subject during reacting, but inasmuch as experience is not in itself the whole process of reacting, or even its main basis, but comprises only one aspect of the process and itself requires explanation, then it is natural that self-observation is often in no condition to give even a correct description, let alone an explanation of the subjective aspect of the reaction. This is the reason for the substantial discrepancies in the descriptions of one and the same process by various authors. Even this analysis could not present a real causal-dynamic explanation of the process itself since it necessarily requires rejecting the phenotypic point of view and replacing it with the genetic point of view.

Jhe third feature consists of the fact that the old psychology approached the study of the process of a complex reaction in its finished and dead form. Titchener said that the attention of researchers was directed toward the time of reaction and not toward the process of preparation and content of the reaction. Due to this, a historical precedent was set for considering reaction without its psychological preparation. We remember that a well-prepared selection reaction occurs as rapidly as a simple reaction. The whole attention of the old psychology was directed toward studying the process of the complex reaction in its automatized form, that is, when the process of development was already concluded. We might say that psychology began to study the complex reaction post mortem. It never could capture it in a living form; it set it up in test experiments and in this way, the interesting instance of setting up and establishing the connections of the reaction, the instant of its genesis was thrown away and the study began only after the reaction was established, its development concluded, and it was presented in its finished form, made automatic and completely identical under different conditions.

Many researchers usually rejected the first experiments, that is, that period in which the process of establishing the reaction itself actually occurred. Titchener recommended rejecting the first two experiments of each series during which the process of formation of the reaction occurs. Other researchers usually rejected the first experiment when it differed sharply in reaction time from subsequent experiments. Many researchers indicate that in complex experimental conditions, especially in selection reactions, they rejected all initial sittings in their studies.

It is not hard to see that the basic approach of the old psychology, which studied a complex reaction in a dead form, as a finished thing, after the process of its development was concluded, is evident in the technical practice of discarding the first stages of establishment of the selection reaction and then studying it. This is why understanding reaction as a certain developing process was foreign to these psychologists; this is why they frequently were misled by the external similarity between complex and simple reactions.

Once again we call attention to the fact that a carefully prepared selection reaction may take the same time as a simple reaction. We will connect this fact with the circumstance that we noted earlier in a general form when we said that in the process of development, the higher forms often resemble the lower in external characteristics. We could enumerate a number of psychological differences of complex reactions beginning with the ordinary reflex, but we will point out only one; as we know, a complex reaction takes longer than a reflex. However, Wundt had already established that reaction time can be decreased as the reaction is repeated, and as a result of this the reaction time drops to the time of the ordinary reflex.

As a general rule, we might say that all principal differences between reaction and reflex are also most clearly evident specifically at the beginning of the process of reaction formation and, as the reaction is repeated, they recede more and more. Differences in the one form and the other of behavior must be sought in their genetic analysis, that is, in the way they are generated, in their real conditionality. As it is repeated, a reaction has a tendency toward minimizing its difference from a reflex and conversely toward effacing it. As it is repeated, a reaction has a tendency to be converted to a simpler reflex. Test experiments prescribed by experimental methodology, which sometimes took whole sittings which were then disregarded, led to a situation in which the beginning of the study of the developmental process was finished and the researchers were dealing with established, mechanical reactions that lost the genetic differences between them and a reflex and acquired a phenotypic similarity with it. In other words, reaction in the psychological experiment was studied after it went through some of the process of dying off and was converted into a congealed form.

By describing the basic points in traditional analysis of a complex reaction, we determined at the same time, from a negative aspect, it is true, the principal problems that confront us. Obviously, the problem of dynamic analysis is to capture the process of genesis of the reaction.

The center of gravity of our interest shifts and moves to a new place. Experiments during which there is an establishment of a reaction and which were rejected by the old researchers are of central interest for us, for dynamic analysis, since to explain any thing means to explain its real genesis, its causal-dynamic connection and relation to other processes that determine its development. Consequently, the problem of analysis consists of returning the reaction to the initial moment, to conditions of its closure and in this way, to grasp by objective research the whole process as a whole and not just its external or internal aspect. Conversely, the reaction that is already established, being repeated stereotypically, is of no interest to us except as a finished form, a means of establishing the end point toward which development of this process leads.

We are interested in the instants of genesis, establishment, and closure of the reaction and the dynamic unfolding of the whole process of its development. We need to see the complex reaction. For this, in the experiment, we must convert the automatic form of the reaction into a living process and again turn the thing from which it arose into movement. If this defines the problem that confronts us from the formal aspect, then from the aspect of content of our research a problem arises. As we have said above, previous studies carried out critical disruptive work on the old teaching about the mental reaction of selection. They demonstrated that in the selection reaction, there can be no mention of selection, that at the base of such a conception of a complex reaction, there is a purely intellectualistic conception

that replaces the psychological connection and relation between processes by logical relations between elements of the external condition of the problem. Moreover, this logical formula of the complex reaction was supplemented by analysis of experiences observed by the subject in the process of reaction. These researchers attempted to replace the logical relation of things with the phenomenological relations of experiences. But they did pose one problem in all its clarity: in the selection reaction, they said, we carry out the most various operations, but we do not select. The question then is, what does actually occur in the selection reaction? If we take even the best representation of the subject's experiences as Ach or Titchener present them in a systematic form, we see that they do not go beyond pure description, that they cannot explain for us the selection reaction from the causal-dynamic aspect. Consequently, we might have framed the basic question that confronts us as follows: what is the real causal-dynamic nature of a complex reaction?

If we turn to experiments with complex reactions, it is easy to see that they usually differ in one general trait among the various researchers. The general trait consists in the absurdity of the connections that occur in the process of the experiment between separate stimuli and the reactions. In the arbitrariness and absurdity of the connections that are at the base of the reactions, many researchers saw the most essential trait of the given experiment. The subject was presented with a series of stimuli to which he had to react with various movements; here, neither the connection itself between the stimuli and the movements nor the order of presentation of the stimuli and the movements made sense to the subject.

The subjects could react to any stimulus with any movement with equal success. The principally mechanical combination of any stimuli with any reactions places this experiment in the same order with classical studies of remembering by using meaningless syllables.

True, isolated attempts were made to move from meaningless connections to selection reactions with sensible connections. For example, in Münsterberg's experiments, the subject was asked to react with a certain finger of one hand to five various acoustic stimuli, and each time the signal of the reaction was a simple count from one to five and the order of the reactions on a keyboard of an electric key coincided with the natural order of the count. With the word one, the subject had to raise the thumb, with two, the index finger, etc. F. Merkel studied the selection reaction with visual stimuli in a similar way.

So we see that there are two different processes through which the selection reaction is established. In one case, it is established simply by mechanical connection of the stimulus and the reaction, the major factor of which is repetition. Although none of the researchers considered the analysis of test experiments in detail, that is, the process itself of the formation of the selection reaction, nevertheless there is a firm basis for assuming that repetition of the instruction or presenting it in written form and repeated reading of it together with repeated experiments are the main means for establishing the required connections. The simplest way of putting this would be to say that the reaction is learned by the subject in the same way that he learns two meaningless syllables. In the second case, we are dealing with a process of a different order where the connection between the stimulus and the reaction of comprehension and, therefore, the difficulty of learning drops out at the outset. But in this case, we are dealing with the use of connections that are already established. In other words, this experiment in psychology may be considered an explanation or a mechanical method of adjusting connections or using connections that are already there, but in the course of our research, what interests us is the process of comprehending, the process itself of making adjustments and establishing connections that are the basis of the selection reaction.

From the very beginning, we set ourselves the problem of finding what distinguishes a complex form of reaction from a simple form, from a reflex. For this, we had to resort to two basic techniques which we ordinarily use. First, we faced the problem of impeding the reaction in order to prevent automatic suspension of closure of the connection, which would evade observation in this case. As we have already said, we saw the real task of the analysis to be the full dynamic unfolding of all the instances of the given process, but this always requires a certain slowing down of its progress and is best when the rate of the process is impeded. Second, in keeping with all of our methodology, we had to actually give the subject the external means with which he could solve the problem presented to him. Attempting to use an objectivizing method of research, in this case, we had to link the established connection to an external activity. Before doing this, we introduced the first complicating feature into the experiments on selection reaction before we placed the means for its mastery into the hands of the subject. The complication consisted of our eliminating trial experiments and proceeding directly to the basic research with the subject. The instruction provided for a reaction with different fingers to five or more various stimuli. We were interested only in seeing how the subject would conduct himself if he did not know how to deal with the problem. Without going into detail, in the most general form, we can say that the behavior of the subject always exhibited one and the same character. When the subject reacted mistakenly or found himself in difficulty, not knowing with which movement he should respond to the given stimulus, in each case, he looked for the required connection; this was expressed either in questions addressed to the experimenter as to how he should react or to remembering, either external or internal. We can say that in cases where the problem was beyond the powers of the subject, the difficulty lay in remembering and reproducing the instruction.

The second step of our experiment was the introduction into the situation of materials which the subject could use to create his own connection.

First of all, let us consider experiments with a two-and-a-half-year-old child since in these experiments both forms of the selection reaction were completely visible and occurred almost in parallel. Showing the child various stimuli, we told him to raise the right hand in one case and the left, in the other (for example, he was to raise his right hand when he was shown a pencil, and the left when he was shown a watch). This reaction was established immediately and usually proceeded normally, often with a long delay. In cases of error or not knowing which hand to raise, there was a seeking of the correct connection, which was evident in two basic forms. The child either asked the experimenter or reminded himself audibly or silently or, finally, made tentative movements expecting confirmation from the experimenter. This last is of most interest to us since in the very character of its progress it differs profoundly from reaction in the true meaning of that word. Frequently in these cases, the hand was not raised to the usual height, only initial movements were made, and the child's whole behavior had the character of cautious testing. If we leave aside the case of seeking a connection, we could say that in the child, the selection reaction with two stimuli very often proceeded along the completely usual type of establishing an ordinary connection.

Fig. 2

With the same child, we set up a selection reaction in a different way. Instead of repeating the instruction or response to trials, we placed some objects at the child's right and left side; the child could easily connect these with a corresponding stimulus. In our example, on the right side, we placed a sheet of paper that was intended to remind the child that he must react to a pencil with his right hand; on the left, we placed a thermometer which was to remind the child that he must react to a watch with his left hand. This kind of reaction proceeded without error, but the child's whole behavior changed substantially in this case.

It must be said that the connection between stimuli-objects and stimuli-means was extremely simple and accessible to the child; sometimes we alluded to the connection and sometimes we established it ourselves, and sometimes in the course of a series of experiments, we left the child to notice it himself. This latter was not successful, but in the first two cases, the child very easily used the connection. Our main interest was in comparing both components of the selection reaction. If the first corresponds to establishing a direct connection between the stimulus and the reaction, then the second has a mediating character. There is no direct connection between the stimulus and the reaction. The child must find this connection each time; he finds it with the help of the external stimulus-means that reminds him of the required connection.

In this case, the child's activity proceeds as if in two manifestations. The whole process of the selection reaction is clearly made up of two basic phases. Immediately after perceiving the stimulus, the required connection is set up and only after that is the corresponding reaction carried out. In looking at the pencil, the child now looks at the paper and only then does he react with his right hand.

From the experiment described, we moved on to an experiment with older children. We were interested in observing how both forms of the selection reaction develop and, the main thing, we were interested in finding the form with which the child himself creates the appropriate connection without the help of an adult. Experiments with older children were organized as follows. The child was presented with a series of stimuli and instruction requiring that he react by raising and lowering various fingers of the right and left hands. As a stimulus, we used words, drawings, colored figures, colored lights, etc. In no cases was there a sensible connection between the stimuli and the reaction.

During the experiment, the child's fingers were on the keyboard of a toy piano or a multiple electrical key. Together with each key in a special wooden apparatus, we placed various pictures or cards with words printed on them. Older preschool children and children in the early grades (younger pupils), convinced usually of the impossibility of carrying out the instruction by simply remembering it, turned to the auxiliary stimuli which they used as devices for remembering the instruction, placing them under the appropriate key and connecting them with the corresponding stimulus. In this way, a kind of reified outward extension of the instruction was created, external paths from the stimuli to the reactions were created, and the child was given the means to remember and reproduce the instruction. Here, the reaction again divided quite clearly into two phases: in the first, there was the seeking of a corresponding stimulus-device; in the second, the reaction directly followed the finding of the stimulus.

Without going into a detailed analysis of the experiment, we will turn at once to a generalized schematic consideration of what occurred in this ease. In our diagram (Fig. 2) two arbitrary points, A and B are presented; a connection must be established between these points. The uniqueness of the experiment consists of the fact that there is no connection at present and we are investigating the nature of its formation. 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 behavior consist of.

We will consider the triangle separately. If we compare the one method and the other for forming connections between the two points, then we will see that the relation between one form and the other may be visually expressed with our schematic triangle. With a neutral formation of a connection, a direct conditioned- reflex connection is established between the two points A and B. With a mediated establishment of the connection, instead of one, two other connections are established that lead to the same result, but in different ways. The triangle clarifies for us the relation that exists between the higher form of behavior and the elementary processes of which it is comprised. We formulate this relation in the most general aspect, saying that all higher forms of behavior can always be divided completely and without any remainder into the natural, elementary neuromental processes that make it up, just as the work of any machine can, in the last analysis, be reduced to a definite system of physicochemical processes. For this reason, the first task of scientific studies when they approach any cultural form of behavior is to give an analysis of the form and disclose its component parts. An analysis of behavior always leads to one and the same result, specifically, it demonstrates that there is no complex, higher apparatus of cultural behavior which would not consist in the final analysis of several primary elementary processes of behavior.

We have found that in the child, one associative connection is replaced by two others. Each of the connections taken separately is the same conditioned-reflex process of closure in the cerebral cortex as the direct associative connection. New is the fact that one connection is replaced by two others; new is the construction or combination of nerve connections; new is the direction of the specific process of closure of the connection with a sign; what is new are not the elements, but the structure of the whole process of the reaction.

The relations that exist between the higher and lower forms of behavior do not represent anything special, peculiar only to the given form. More likely, we are dealing with more general problems of relations of higher and lower forms that may be applied to all of psychology and are directly connected with more general methodological positions. The unconditional striving, so widespread at present, to cast out of the dictionary of psychology the very concept of elementary processes, including association, seems unjustified to us. Kretschmer said that the indispensability of the concept of association is demonstrated not only in the teaching about agnosia and apraxia, but also in treating many more complicated problems in psychology, for example, the psychology of children's thinking, incipient thinking, and the flow of ideas. The theory of a construction of higher mental life without an associative understructure is completely unthinkable according to Kretschmer.

In this sense, H. Høffding admitted in his time the relation that exists between the process of thinking and the law of association. He said: in the true sense, thinking has no means and forms that are not already present during the involuntary course of a representation. The circumstance that association of the representation becomes the subject of special interest and of conscious selection cannot, however, change the laws of association of the representation. It is just as impossible to free thinking, as understood in the true sense, from these laws as it is impossible for us to eliminate the laws of its internal nature from an artificial machine. But the psychological law, just like the physiological law, can be directed to serve our purposes.

In another place, Høffding returns to the idea in considering will. He says that involuntary activity forms the basis and content of voluntary activity. Will never creates, but always only changes and selects. The course of remembering and representation is subject to certain laws. When we deliberately recall or dismiss certain representations, we do this according to exactly the same laws, exactly in the same way as we can see them, change them, and make them serve our purposes according to laws of their external nature. According to Høffding, if we need to delay or dismiss a representation, we can do this indirectly according to the laws of forgetting. It seems to us that in the given case, the relation between higher and lower forms may be best expressed by admitting what in dialectics is usually termed sublation. We can say that the lower, elementary processes and patterns that direct them represent a removed category. Hegel indicates that we must remember the dual meaning of the German expression aufhebung. In this word, we understand, first, "removal," "rejection," and, according to this, we say that the laws are revoked, "cancelled," but the same word also means "preserved," and we say that we will "save" something. The dual meaning of the term "remove" is usually translated well into Russian by the word skhoronit' [to bury], which also has a positive and a negative sense - destruction and preservation.

Using this work, we could say that the elementary processes and the patterns that govern them are buried in the higher form of behavior, that is, they appear in it in a subordinate and cryptic form. Precisely this circumstance makes many researchers see analysis and breaking down higher forms into parts and reducing them completely to a series of elementary processes as the basic task of scientific research. Actually, this is only one aspect of scientific research that helps establish the connection and pattern of the appearance of any higher form from a lower form. In this sense, analysis contains a real relief from the metaphysical method of thinking that considers higher and lower forms as different fossilized essences not connected with each other and not being converted from the one to the other.

Analysis shows that the lower form is the basis and content of the higher form, that the higher form appears only at a certain stage of development and in turn itself continuously passes into the lower form. However, the problem is not limited to this, since if we should want to limit ourselves exclusively to analysis or reducing the higher form to the lower, we would never be able to develop an adequate representation of all the specific features of the higher form and those patterns to which they are subordinate. Here, psychology is no exception among the rest of the areas of scientific knowledge. Movement and use of matter - this is changing things. Engels objects to the attempts to reduce everything to mechanical movement, to reducing all other properties of matter to this and, in this way, blurring the specific character of other forms of movement.

This does not in the least imply rejection of the fact that each of the higher forms of movement is always connected in an essential way with real and mechanical, external or molecular movement just as the higher form of movement is actually impossible to produce without a change in temperature, or a change in organic life is impossible without mechanical, molecular, chemical, thermic, electrical, etc. changes. But the presence of secondary forms in each case does not exhaust the essence of the main form. Engels wrote: "Undoubtedly, in experimentation, we sometimes 'reduce' thinking to molecular and chemical movement in the brain, but docs this really exhaust the essence of thinking?" (K. Marx, E Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 563).

The need to study the main form together with the secondary forms, the claim that the essence of thinking cannot be exhausted by the lower forms that comprise its base, are nevertheless a basis for claiming the following. If we understand movement in the broadest sense as a change in things, we may say that thinking is movement. "Movement considered in the most general sense of the word, that is, understood as a method of existence of matter, as an attribute internally inherent in matter, includes in itself all changes and processes that occur in the universe beginning with simple displacement and ending with thinking. It is understood that a study of the nature of movement must be derived from its lower, simpler forms and we would have to learn to understand them before we could produce anything to explain its higher and more complex forms" (ibid., p. 391). We might transfer this general position pertaining in the same way to all areas of scientific knowledge, especially to the problem in which we are interested, and say that the relation between lower and higher processes in the selection reaction is similar also. No higher form of behavior is possible without lower forms, but the presence of lower or secondary forms does not exhaust the essence of the main form.

The task of our research also is to determine what the essence of the main form is. But the next chapter must provide the answer to this.

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Soviet Psychology: Analysis of Higher Mental Functions by L. S. Vygotsky. 1931

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L. S. Vygotsky. The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions. Chapter 3. We have already said that the first and second form of our research is an analysis of higher forms of behavior; but the situation in modern psychology is such that before we can begin to analyze the problem, we have the problem of the analysis itself.

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First of all, a key Vygotsky text for understanding his later work, specifically his notion of perezhivanie:L S Vygotsky, 1934, ‘The problem of the environment’

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First of all, a key Vygotsky text for understanding his later work, specifically his notion of perezhivanie:L S Vygotsky, 1934, ‘The problem of the environment’

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Vygotsky 1934

§14. The problem of the environment

Source: The Vygotsky Reader, pp. 338-354, ed. Rene van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner. Notes are by the editors;

Note: This was the fourth lecture published in Vygotsky, L. S. 1935: Foundations of Paedology (pp. 58-78). Leningrad: Izdanie Instituta, The chapter heading is our invention. In reality, the chapters (or rather, lectures) were simply numbered. The whole came out posthumously and was edited by Vygotsky's student and collaborator M. A. Levina. It is unclear whether Vygotsky has actually written the lectures that form the basis of Foundations of Paedology or whether the (typed!) text formed the result of the notes taken by one or more students during Vygotsky's lectures. Judging by the style (which is definitively that of oral speech) and some other clues (expressions such as 'The subject of my lecture today ...' etc.), the latter case seems more likely, but if it is true then immediately another question comes up: whether Vygotsky at least approved of the present transcriptions of his lectures. Again, we do not know for sure. The facts are that the lectures were published by the Faculty of Paedology of the Herzen State Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad (where Vygotsky lectured in the last years of his life) under the editorship of M. A. Levina and were used as a textbook for students of paedology.

The subject of our lecture today is the problem of the role that environment plays in child development. With regard to the environment, matters stand exactly the same as when we discussed the problem of heredity. We could see that paedology approaches heredity from its own special point of view and is not interested in the laws of heredity as such, but in the role heredity plays in child development. Paedology does not study the environment as such. This is the subject of other sciences. For example, among other disciplines, which may be considered as being closest to paedology, one could name hygiene, a field of study which investigates the environment primarily from the point of view of its relationship to disease and health care. In exactly the same way as when he studies heredity, a paedologist investigates not just the environment and the laws governing its framework, but the role, meaning and influence of the environment on child development. It is for this reason that we must, as with the problem of heredity, first of all explain some of the basic laws and concepts which characterize the meaning or role of the environment in child development.

I would like to start with something which we have already discussed in passing, namely that for a proper understanding of the role which environment plays in child development it is always necessary, if one can put it this way, to approach environment not with an absolute but a relative yardstick. At the same time environment should not be regarded as a condition of development which purely objectively determines the development of a child by virtue of the fact that it contains certain qualities or features, but one should always approach environment from the point of view of the relationship which exists between the child and its environment at a given stage of his development. One can also put it in the form of a general rule which is now frequently met with in paedology and which says that one should give up absolute indicators reflecting the environment in favour of relative ones, i.e. the very same ones, but viewed in relation to the child.

There are two considerations which lead us to believe that we are justified in defending this idea, the first being that the role of any environmental factor varies among different age groups. To give an example: the speech of the people around him can be absolutely identical when the child is six months old, 18 months old or when he is three and a half years old, i.e. the number of words which the child hears, the characteristic features of the speech from the point of view of how civilized it is, the size of the vocabulary, correct usage and grammar, the literary quality of the style, can all remain the same, but it is clear to anyone that this factor, which has not itself undergone any change at all during the course of development, takes on a different meaning depending on whether the child understands speech, or does not yet understand it at all, or is in the intermediate stage when he is just beginning to understand it. This means that we can only explain the role of the environment in child development when we know the relation between the child and his environment.

First of all, a child's environment in the direct sense of this word keeps changing at every age. Some authors maintain that a child's development consists precisely of such a gradual broadening of his environment. Before he is born, a child's environment consists of his mother's uterus, and soon after being born, his immediate environment continues to be limited to a very circumscribed space. It is well known that the world removed at any distance does not really exist for the newborn. For the newborn, only the world which immediately relates to him exists, i.e., a world limited to a narrow space linked with phenomena connected with his body and the objects around him. Then, gradually, a slightly wider range of the world around him begins to develop for the child, but to start with, this world is also very small, a world which includes the room, the backyard nearby and the street where he lives. As he begins to walk about, his environment expands and ever new relationships are formed between the child and the people surrounding him. And further, his environment changes according to the different kinds of environment each stage of his education provides: during his nursery school age, the nursery school; during his immediate pre-school years, the kindergarten; and during school age, the school. Every age presents the child with an environment which has been organized in a special way, so that the environment, in the purely external sense of the word, keeps changing as the child passes on from one age to another.

But there is a lot more to this. Even when the environment remains little changed, the very fact that the child changes in the process of development, results in a situation where the role and meaning of these environmental factors, which seemingly have remained unchanged, in actual fact do undergo a change, and the same environmental factors which may have one meaning and play a certain role during a given age, two years on begin to have a different meaning and to play a different role because the child has changed; in other words, the child's relation to the particular environmental factors has altered.

The case histories of children we have studied, have put us in a better position to be more exact and precise, and to say that the essential factors which explain the influence of environment on the psychological development of children, and on the development of their conscious personalities, are made up of their emotional experiences [ petrezhivanija]. The emotional experience [ perezhivanie] arising from any situation or from any aspect of his environment, determines what kind of influence this situation or this environment will have on the child. Therefore, it is not any of the factors in themselves (if taken without reference to the child) which determines how they will influence the future course of his development, but the same factors refracted through the prism of the child's emotional experience [ perezhivanie]. Let us now examine one such straightforward case from our clinic.

We are dealing with three children, brought to us from one family. The external situation in this family is the same for all three children. The essential circumstances were very straightforward. The mother drinks and, as a result, apparently suffers from several nervous and psychological disorders. The children find themselves in a very difficult situation. When drunk, and during these breakdowns, the mother had once attempted to throw one of the children out of the window and she regularly beat them or threw them to the floor. In a word, the children are living in conditions of dread and fear due to these circumstances.

The three children are brought to our clinic, but each one of them presents a completely different picture of disrupted development, caused by the same situation. The same circumstances result in an entirely different picture for the three children.

As far as the youngest of these children is concerned, what we find is the commonly encountered picture in such cases among the younger age group. He reacts to the situation by developing a number of neurotic symptoms, i.e. symptoms of a defensive nature. He is simply overwhelmed by the horror of what is happening to him. As a result, he develops attacks of terror, enuresis and he develops a stammer, sometimes being unable to speak at all as he loses his voice. In other words, the child's reaction amounts to a state of complete depression and helplessness in the face of this situation.

The second child is developing an extremely agonizing condition, what is called a state of inner conflict, which is a condition frequently found in certain cases when contrasting emotional attitudes towards the mother make their appearance, examples of which we have previously been able to observe among one of our children and which, you may remember, we have called an ambivalent attitude. On the one hand, from the child's point of view, the mother is an object of painful attachment, and on the other, she represents a source of all kinds of terrors and terrible emotional experiences [ perezhivanija] for the child. The German authors call this kind of emotional complex which the child is experiencing a Mutter-Hexekomplex, or 'a mother-witch complex', when love for the mother and terror of the witch coexist.

The second child was brought to us with this kind of deeply pronounced conflict and a sharply colliding internal contradiction expressed in a simultaneously positive and negative attitude towards the mother, a terrible attachment to her and an equally terrible hate for her, combined with terribly contradictory behaviour. He asked to be sent home immediately, but expressed terror when the subject of his going home was brought up.

Finally, at first glance, the third and eldest child presented us with a completely unexpected picture. This child had a limited mental ability but, at the same time, showed signs of some precocious maturity, seriousness and solicitude. He already understood the situation. He understood that their mother was ill and he pitied her.

He could see that the younger children found themselves in danger when their mother was in one of her states of frenzy. And he had a special role. He must calm his mother down, make certain that she is prevented from harming the little ones and comfort them. Quite simply, he has become the senior member of the family, the only one whose duty it was to look after everyone else. As a result of this, the entire course of his development underwent a striking change. This was not a lively child with normal, lively, simple interests, appropriate to his age and exhibiting a lively level of activity. It was a child whose course of normal development was severely disrupted, a different type of child.

When such an example is taken into account, and any researcher's experience who investigates concrete material is full of such examples, one can easily see that the same environmental situation and the same environmental events can influence various people's development in different ways, depending at what age they happen to find them.

How can one explain why exactly the same environmental conditions exert three different types of influence on these three different children? It can be explained because each of the children has a different attitude to the situation. Or, as we might put it, each of the children experienced the situation in a different way. One of them experienced it as an inexplicable, incomprehensible horror which has left him in a state of defencelessness. The second was experiencing it consciously, as a clash between his strong attachment, and his no less strong feeling of fear, hate and hostility. And the third child experienced it, to some extent, as far as it is possible for a 10-11 year old boy, as a misfortune which has befallen the family and which required him to put all other things aside, to try somehow to mitigate the misfortune and to help both the sick mother and the children. So it appears that, depending on the fact that the same situation had been experienced by the three children in three different ways, the influence which this situation exerted on their development also turns out to be different.

By citing this example, I only wished to clarify the idea that, unlike other disciplines, paedology does not investigate the environment as such without regard to the child, but instead looks at the role and influence of the environment on the course of development. It ought to always be capable of finding the particular prism through which the influence of the environment on the child is refracted, i.e. it ought to be able to find the relationship which exists between the child and its environment, the child's emotional experience [ perezhivanie], in other words how a child becomes aware of, interprets, [and] emotionally relates to a certain event. This is such a prism which determines the role and influence of the environment on the development of, say, the child's character, his psychological development, etc.

In connection with this example, I would like to turn your attention to one more factor. If you recall, when we were discussing the methods we employ in our science, I attempted to defend the idea that in science the analysis into elements ought to be replaced by analysis which reduces a complex unity, a complex whole, to its units. We have said that, unlike elements, these units represent such products of analysis which do not lose any of the properties which are characteristic of the whole, but which manage to retain, in the most elementary form, the properties inherent in the whole.

Today, whilst basing myself on a concrete example of the theory about the environment, I would like to show you a few such units with which psychological research operates. One example of such a unit is the emotional experience [ perezhivanie]. An emotional experience [ perezhivanie] is a unit where, on the one hand, in an indivisible state, the environment is represented, i.e. that which is being experienced - an emotional experience [ perezhivanie] is always related to something which is found outside the person - and on the other hand, what is represented is how I, myself, am experiencing this, i.e., all the personal characteristics and all the environmental characteristics are represented in an emotional experience [ perezhivanie]; everything selected from the environment and all the factors which are related to our personality and are selected from the personality, all the features of its character, its constitutional elements, which are related to the event in question. So, in an emotional experience [ perezhivanie] we are always dealing with an indivisible unity of personal characteristics and situational characteristics, which are represented in the emotional experience [ perezhivanie].

That is why from the methodological point of view it seems convenient to carry out an analysis when we study the role the environment plays in the development of a child, an analysis from the point of view of the child's emotional experiences [ perezhivanija] because, as I have already said, all the child's personal characteristics which took part in determining his attitudes to the given situation have been taken into account in his emotional experience [ perezhivanie]. For example, do all of my own personal constitutional characteristic elements, of every type, participate fully and on an equal basis? Of course not. In one situation, some of my constitutional characteristics play a primary role, but in another, different ones may play this primary role which may not even appear at all in the first case. It is not essential for us to know what the child's constitutional characteristics are like per se, but what is important for us to find out is which of these constitutional characteristics have played a decisive role in determining the child's relationship to a given situation. And in another situation, different constitutional characteristics may well have played a role.

In this way the emotional experience [ perezhivanie] also helps us select those characteristics which played a role in determining the attitude to the given situation.

Imagine I possess certain constitutional characteristics - clearly, I will experience this situation in one way, and if I possess different characteristics, it is equally clear that I will experience it in quite a different way. This is why people's constitutional characteristics are taken into account when differentiating between those who are excitable, sociable, lively and active and others who are more emotionally slack, inhibited and dull. It is therefore obvious, that if we have two people with two opposite types of constitutional characteristics, then one and the same event is likely to elicit a different emotional experience [ perezhivanie] in each of them. Consequently, the constitutional characteristics of the person and generally the personal characteristics of children are, as it were, mobilized by a given emotional experience [ perezhivanie], are laid down, become crystallized within a given emotional experience [ perezhivanie] but, at the same time, this experience does not just represent the aggregate of the child's personal characteristics which determine how the child experienced this particular event emotionally, but different events also elicit different emotional experiences [ perezhivanija] in the child. A drunken or mentally ill mother amounts to the same thing as a mentally ill nanny, but it does not mean the same as a drunken father or a drunken neighbour. Which means that the environment, which in this case was represented by a specific concrete situation, is also always represented in a given emotional experience [ perezhivanie]. This is why we are justified in considering the emotional experience [ perezhivanie] to be a unity of environmental and personal features. And it is precisely for this reason that the emotional experience [ perezhivanie] is a concept which allows us to study the role and influence of environment on the psychological development of children in the analysis of the laws of development.

Let us take one more example, which should also help us clarify the concrete way in which paedology investigates the role environment plays in child development by studying the relationships which exist between a child and his environment.

I think that you will agree with me when I say that any event or situation in a child's environment will have a different effect on him depending on how far the child understands its sense and meaning. For example, try to imagine a situation where someone in the family has died. Clearly, a child who understands the meaning of death will react differently to this event than a child who does not understand anything of what has happened. Or in a family the parents decide to split up. Very frequently we come across families with difficult children where this has occurred. Again, in a case where the child understands what is going on and its true significance, he will react to it in a different way than another child who fails to understand it.

To put it more succinctly and simply, I could say that the influence of environment on child development will, along with other types of influences, also have to be assessed by taking the degree of understanding, awareness and insight of what is going on in the environment into account. If children possess various levels of awareness, it means that the same event will have a completely different meaning for them. We know that, frequently, unhappy events may have a happy meaning for a child who does not understand the significance of the event itself, especially in view of the fact that he is now allowed what he is normally not allowed - just to keep him quiet and prevent him from pestering he may be given sweets and, as a result, the child might end up experiencing his mother's dangerous illness as an event which for him is joyful and fun, and to look at him, he may appear like a birthday child. The crux of the matter is that whatever the situation, its influence depends not only on the nature of the situation itself, but also on the extent of the child's understanding and awareness of the situation.

When the case involves mentally retarded children, particularly severely retarded ones, we often have the impression that they do not have sufficient understanding and frequently, for this very reason, are spared and protected from situations which may cause extreme suffering for normal children. Everyone is familiar with the following frequently occurring situation in which children find themselves when they are deformed. Recently we had such a severely deformed child in our clinic. The children were teasing him, and the child himself, realizing that he was very deformed, talked about it. For a child with normal intellect, such a situation could become the source of endless trauma, because everywhere he goes he is constantly reminded of his deformity, of the fact that he is not like all the other children, that everyone is laughing at him, teasing him, putting him down, that they refuse to play with him; the continual humiliation which the child encounters frequently results in extremely unpleasant emotional experiences [ perezhivanija], leading to neuroses, functional disorders or other psychogenic disorders, i.e. arising from these emotional experiences [ perezhivanija]. But nothing like this happened to the child I have been describing here. This child is also being teased and humiliated and in fact he, too, has ended up in an extremely difficult position, but all this for him is like water off a duck's back, because he is not capable of generalizing what was happening to him. Every time when he now is being teased he does not like it, but neither is he able to generalize it and, as a result, he never reached the stage which every normal child reaches, by developing a feeling of inferiority, a sense of humiliation and one of damaged self-esteem. This does not happen because he does not fully comprehend the sense and meaning of what is happening to him.

Here we have a striking example of how an inadequate interpretation of some event or situation, which we come across in connection with mentally retarded children, often protects them from illnesses, from pathological reactions and from developmental disorders to which other children are subject.

So what exactly does happen? We may find a situation in the environment which would result in a normal child becoming traumatized and would lead to the development of a disorder. But this does not happen in the case of our child. Why is this? It is due to the fact that the child is not fully aware of his situation. And the case which I have used as an example here, as a pathological case, in reality occurs at all ages. One and the same situation, when it occurs when a child is one year old or when he is three, or seven or 13, would have a different significance. One and the same event occurring at different ages of the child, is reflected in his consciousness in a completely different manner and has an entirely different meaning for the child.

In connection with this, a quite complicated concept, but one which is very important for the understanding of how environment influences development, is of some interest. The concept has this connection because it represents the meaning of our words. You know, of course, that we mainly communicate with the people surrounding us by using speech. This represents one of the basic means with which a child attains psychological communication with the people around him. Speech research has shown that the child's word meaning does not coincide with our word meaning, i.e. the word meaning at different ages has a different structure. I shall now attempt to explain this with the help of an illustration.

First, let us ask ourselves what exactly is the meaning of a word. I think that you will agree with me if I say that the meaning of a word, from the psychological point of view, always represents a generalization. Let us take such words as 'street', 'man' or 'weather'. These words do not relate just to one single object, but to a certain class and a certain group of objects. From the psychological point of view, the meaning of any word always represents a generalization. This we understand and this is the first main point.

These generalizations tend to be constructed by children in a different way than they are by us. After all, a child does not invent his own language, but he finds the words in a ready-made state, fixed to ready-made things, and he assimilates our language and the meaning the words have in our language. This means that a child attributes [confers] these words to the same objects to which we attribute them.

When a child says 'weather' or 'man', he means by it the same things, the same objects as all of us, but he generalizes these things in a different way, using a different mental act. He still lacks such higher generalizations which we call concepts and his generalizations have a more concrete, more graphic [ nagljadnyj] character. And it is said that these generalizations, which children form during early stages of their development, are reminiscent of those generalizations which we find exemplified in our family names. For us, too, the family name does not represent a single person, but a group of people. But how is this group of people generalized under one family name? It is generalized on the basis of a factual kinship relation; not on the basis of logical relationships as a particular category, but on the basis of factual kinship between these people. There is no way I can tell by looking at a man whether he is a Petrov or an Ivanov. But if I learn that he is Petrov's son, or Ivanov's son, i.e. if I find out his real relationships with other people, I will also find out his affiliation with one of the family names. In the same way as we construct generalizations of family names, so as research has shown - pre-school children construct generalizations of all sorts of objects. In other words, the child assigns words to the same objects as we do, but he generalizes these objects in a different more concrete, more visual, [ and] more factual way.

As a result of this, children's generalizations are different from ours and this in turn results in the well known fact that a child interprets reality, apprehends the events which are happening around him, not entirely in the same way as we do. The adult is not always able to communicate the full meaning of some event to a child.

The child understands part of it, but not completely, he understands one side of the matter, but not the other, he understands the matter, but he understands it in his own way, reworking and reshaping it to suit himself, and selecting only certain parts of what had been explained to him. So, as a result, children at different stages of their development do not yet possess a system of communication with adults which is sufficiently compatible. This means that a child at different stages of his development does not generalize to the same extent, and consequently, he interprets and imagines the surrounding reality and environment in a different way. Consequently, the development of thinking in children in itself, the development of generalization in children in itself, is also connected with the way the environment influences children.

So, as time goes by, the child begins to understand more and more. Now he is able to understand the things he could not understand earlier. Does this mean that now some events occurring in the family will affect the child in a different way? Yes. In the past they may have had a neutral character, now they become basic factors in the child's development. This means that the development of thinking in children in itself, the meaning of children's words, is what determines the new relationship which can exist between the environment and the different developmental processes.

If we wanted to generalize everything we have been saying till now, we could formulate it something like this: as I have already said, paedology does not so much investigate the environment itself using its absolute indicators, but the role and influence of environment on child development, because the relationship between a given environmental situation and the child assumes primary importance in the study of the role of environment in development, and this relationship can be elucidated by using various concrete examples. As I have said, one and the same situation in a family can result in three different types of influence on the development of the children involved. Depending on his age, the environment exerts this or that type of influence on the child's development, because the child himself changes and his relation to this situation changes. The environment exerts this influence, as we have said, via the child's emotional experiences [ perezhivanija], i.e. depending on how the child has managed to work out his inner attitude to the various aspects of the different situations occurring in the environment. The environment determines the type of development depending on the degree of awareness of this environment which the child has managed to reach. And we could show many more instances which would demonstrate that absolutely every aspect of development will determine which way the environment will influence development, i.e. the relationship between the environment and the child and not just the environment in its own right, or just the child in its own right, will always be central.

We have now reached the conclusion that environment cannot be regarded as a static entity and one which is peripheral in relation to development, but must be seen as changeable and dynamic. Here we have environment, a situation which influences the child in one way or another and directs his development. But the child, his development, keeps changing, becomes different. And it is not just the child who changes, for the relationship between him and his environment also changes, and the same environment now begins to have a different influence on the child. This dynamic and relative interpretation of environment is the most important source of information for paedology when environment is under discussion. But this in itself is far from concrete. We may well agree that it is important to study the relation with the environment, that if the relation is different the environment exerts its influence in different ways. However, the most important thing has not yet been said: what is the basic role of environment in relation to child development? I would now like to give an answer to this question.

To begin with, once again we come across the same problem which was facing us when we were investigating heredity. If you recall, we said then that no all-out definition of the influence of heredity on every aspect of development exists or can exist, and that, when we want to study not just the laws of heredity, which are basically uniform in nature, and the influence of heredity on development, then we must differentiate the effects of heredity upon various aspects and development. If you remember, I tried to demonstrate how results obtained from an investigation of twins have disclosed that heredity does not play the same role in relation to higher psychological functions as it does in relation to elementary psychological functions. So it follows that one must differentiate the effect of heredity upon various aspects of development.

The same thing applies entirely to environment, for example to the influence of environment on such developmental processes as growth and children's logical thinking. It is unlikely that, apart from the general principle which remains in power, the relation of environment to a given aspect of development has everywhere the same degree of influence. Apart from this general principle, it is unlikely that environment carries the same influence and exerts this influence in exactly the same way in relation to all aspects of development. This is not so. Together with a dynamic interpretation of environment, we are beginning to understand that the different aspects of development have different relations with the environment. It is for this reason that we have to study the various environmental influences differentially as, for example, on the child's growth, the environmental influence on the growth patterns of individual parts and systems in the organism and, say, its influence on the development of sensory and motor functions in children, the influence environment exerts on the development of psychological functions, etc., etc.

When one wants to set forth the theory of the environment, the easiest thing would be to tackle that which is central and essentially important, rather than some narrow aspect of development, and to choose that side of the developmental process where the influence of environment is expressed with maximum force. Let us consider the development of a child's personality, his consciousness, and of his relationship with the reality around him, and let us examine what the specific role of environment consists of in the development of a child's personality, consciousness and relationship with reality.

If we consider all the specifically human personality traits which have evolved during the period of human historical development, we are bound to come to an extremely simple conclusion, namely that here, the relations which exist between environment and child development are characteristic of childhood development and of no other general type of development.

What is this specific relationship between environment and development, if we are talking about the development of a child's personality, and its specifically human characteristics? It seems to me that this singularity consists of the following, namely in child development that which it is possible to achieve at the end and as the result of the developmental process, is already available in the environment from the very beginning. And it is not simply present in the environment from the very start, but it exerts an influence on the very first steps in the child's development. Let me clarify this by the following example.

We have a child who has only just begun to speak and he pronounces single words, as children who are just mastering the art of speech tend to do. But is fully developed speech, which the child is only able to master at the end of this period of development, already present in the child's environment? It is, indeed. The child speaks in one word phrases, but his mother talks to him in language which is already grammatically and syntactically formed and which has a large vocabulary, even though it is being toned down for the child's benefit. All the same, she speaks using the fully perfected form of speech. Let us agree to call this developed form, which is supposed to make its appearance at the end of the child's development, the final or ideal form (as it is called in contemporary paedology) - ideal in the sense that it acts as a model for that which should be achieved at the end of the developmental period; and final in the sense that it represents what the child is supposed to attain at the end of his development. And let us call the child's form of speech the primary or rudimentary form. The greatest characteristic feature of child development is that this development is achieved under particular conditions of interaction with the environment, where this ideal and final form (that form which is going to appear only at the end of the process of development) is not only already there in the environment and from the very start in contact with the child, but actually interacts and exerts a real influence on the primary form, on the first steps of the child's development. Something which is only supposed to take shape at the very end of development, somehow influences the very first steps in this development.

The same sort of thing can be seen everywhere, say in the way that children's conception of number, their arithmetical thinking, develops. It is well known that at the beginning, during pre-school age, a child still has a very limited and vague idea about quantities. However, these primary forms of children's arithmetical thinking are involved in interaction with the already established arithmetical thinking of adults, i.e. once again, the final form which should result from the whole course of child development, is already not only present, but actually determining and guiding the first steps which the child takes along the road of development of this form.

In order for you to realize fully to what extent this creates very special, inimitable and unique conditions inherent in child development, I will put the following question to you: can you imagine, for example, what biological evolution is like? Could one possibly imagine that it would work in such a way that the ideal, higher form, which has appeared only as a result of development, would already exist during the initial period when only the lower, most primary forms were there, and for these lower forms to have evolved under its direct influence? Of course, nothing like this could ever be imagined.

In the realm of historical social development, could one ever imagine that when the primary form of human economy and society still existed, a higher form, say a communist economy and society, was already there to actually direct these first steps of the historical development of humanity? It is quite impossible to imagine such a thing.

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 man was taking? One cannot imagine this. So things never happen in such a way in any of the types of development known to us, that at the moment when the primary form is taking shape, a higher, ideal form which appears at the end of a period of development is there at the same time, and that it becomes involved in direct reciprocal action with the child's first steps along the road of development of this rudimentary or primary form. This fact contains the greatest peculiarity of child development as compared with other types of development, where we never detect or find any equivalent state of affairs.

What does all this mean? I think that one can draw a very important conclusion which can immediately make clear to us the singular role that environment plays in child development. How does this ideal or final form of, say, speech, develop in children? We have seen that, at the beginning of his development, a child has only mastered the primary form, i.e. in the realm of speech, for example, he is only able to pronounce individual words. But these individual words make up part of the child's dialogue with his mother, who has already mastered in ideal form, the same form which the child should achieve at the end of his development. Will the child be capable of mastering this ideal form, will he simply assimilate and imitate it in one or one and a half years of his life? He will not. But, nevertheless, can a child this age, moving from the first to the last step, gradually adjust his primary form to this final one? Yes, investigations show that this is exactly what does happen.

Consequently, what this signifies is that environment is a factor in the realm of personality development and its specific human traits, and its role is to act as the source of this development, i.e. environment is the source of development and not its setting.

What does this mean? First of all it indicates a very simple thing, namely that if no appropriate ideal form can be found in the environment, and the development of the child, for whatever reasons, has to take place outside these specific conditions (described earlier), i.e. without any interaction with the final form, then this proper form will fail to develop properly in the child.

Try to imagine a child who is growing up among deaf people and is surrounded by deaf and dumb parents and children his own age. Will he be able to develop speech? No, but will he develop babbling? Yes, he will. Babbling develops even in deaf and dumb children. This means that babbling is one of the functions which are, more or less, part of the most basic hereditary instincts. But speech will not develop at all in such a child. In order for speech to develop, it is necessary for this ideal form to be present in the environment and to interact with the child's rudimentary form; only then can speech development be achieved.

Firstly, this means that environment in this sense constitutes a source of all the child's specific human traits, and if the appropriate ideal form is not present in the environment, then in the child the corresponding activity, characteristic or trait will fail to develop.

Secondly, try to imagine that this ideal form is not to be found in the child's environment, that his development is not subject to the law which I have just been describing, namely that the final form is not present, does not interact with the rudimentary form, but that the child develops among other children, i.e. that his environment is made up of children of his own age who are all at the lower, rudimentary form stage. In such a situation, will the proper activity and traits develop in this child? Research shows that it will, but in an extremely peculiar way.

They will always develop very slowly and in an unusual manner, and will never attain the level which they reach when the suitable ideal form is present in the environment.

Let us look at two examples. If one observes a deaf and dumb child, then it turns out that his speech development will follow two separate lines, depending on whether this deaf and dumb child is the only child in the family or whether he is growing up with other deaf and dumb children. Research has revealed that deaf and dumb children create their own peculiar speech, mimicry and a very richly developed sign language. Such a child develops his own different, personal language. The children develop this language in co-operation, in society. But can one compare the development of this sign language with the development of speech in children who have a chance to interact with the ideal form? Of course not. So this, generally, means that if we are dealing with a situation where this ideal form is not present in the environment, and what we have is interaction between several rudimentary forms, the resulting development has an extremely limited, reduced and impoverished character.

Now let us look at the other example. You have probably heard that children attending a day nursery have a number of educational advantages over children brought up in the family; already, at a very young age, they learn how to be independent, how to do things for themselves and about discipline. But, at the same time, there are also some negative sides to being educated in a nursery school and not at home, and one of these negative aspects, which is the cause of serious worry for all people working with this age group, is delayed speech development. As a rule, the nursery school-aged child who is being educated at home develops speech earlier, and reaches a higher and more sophisticated level than a child who gets his corresponding education in day nurseries. Why is this so? For the simple reason that at home a child has his mother or another person who is taking her place, say, a nanny, and he hears her speak directly to him, which amounts to a continuous interaction process with the ideal form. But in nursery school, where there may only be one teacher to several or to a whole group of children, a child has much less chance of direct interaction with this ideal form. What happens instead is that these children have a chance to talk to one another. But they do not speak very well or very much, and their own conversations cannot serve as a source of any significant development for them. It appears that, in order for any auspicious and successful development of the higher specific human traits to occur, it is necessary for this ideal final form to guide, if one can put it in this way, the child's development from the very start.

So this is why when a child grows up in a group of other children, say in a day nursery, his speech development remains limited. And if one compares large numbers? Take a number of physically fit three year olds who are growing up in favourable conditions, and compare those growing up in day nurseries with those staying at home. You will see that, on the average, from the point of view of speech development, the children who stay at home will rate higher than the children in nursery schools, but at the same time, in many ways, the nursery school child will score considerably higher than the home reared child, as far as independence, discipline and looking after themselves are concerned.

Another simple, hypothetical example. Imagine a child who will develop his concept of numbers, his arithmetical thinking, only among other children, who will be left to his own devices in an environment where no developed form of arithmetical thinking exists, rather than in school or in kindergarten, i.e. without any interaction with the ideal form of adults. What do you think, will these children get far in developing their arithmetical thinking? None of them will, not even the mathematically gifted ones among them. Their development will remain extremely limited and very narrow in scope.

This means that we can draw a conclusion from all these examples which amounts to the idea that in these cases when, for various external or internal reasons, the interaction between the final form which exists in the environment and the rudimentary form which a child possesses, becomes disrupted, the development of the child turns out very limited, and what results is a more or less completely underdeveloped state of the child's proper forms of activity and traits.

There are many different reasons why this interaction can become disrupted. These can be external circumstances - the child can hear, but he is living with deaf and dumb parents, or internal ones - he is living with parents who can speak but is himself deaf. In both cases the result will be the same, namely that the child is excluded from any interaction between the rudimentary and the ideal form and thus the whole development becomes disrupted.

I think that the theory about the interaction of ideal and rudimentary forms and the examples which I have provided may have elucidated the idea I stated at the very beginning, namely that the environment's role in the development of higher, specifically human characteristics and forms of activity is as a source of development, i.e. that it is just this interaction with the environment which becomes the source of these features in children. And if this interaction with the environment becomes disrupted, the proper traits themselves will never appear if their only source is based in the child's hereditary instincts.

I would now like to attempt, in a few words, to assess the theoretical meaning of all this and to further clarify this theory, which should appear sufficiently convincing and clear if it is explained from the point of view of what is generally known about human development and human nature, and not simply from the point of view of paedology.

What is the significance of this principle which I have just explained to you? It signifies a very simple fact, namely that man is a social creature, that without social interaction he can never develop in himself any of the attributes and characteristics which have developed as a result of the historical evolution of all humankind.

How did you and I develop our power of speech? After all, we did not create this speech by ourselves. Humanity created it during the entire course of its historical development. My own development consists of the fact that, during the course of my general development, I mastered this power of speech following the historical laws of my development and through the process of interaction with the ideal form. But can you imagine what would have happened if I had found myself in the same circumstances as a deaf child, where I would have had to create my own language? I would not have been able to make use of the form which has been shaped during the course of the development of humanity. I would not have got very far. I would have created speech whose dimensions would have been very primitive, elementary and circumscribed. In fact, this means that just the very fact that a human being is a creature who is social by his very nature, whose development consists of, among other things, mastering certain forms of activity and consciousness which have been perfected by humanity during the process of historical development, this fact is essentially what provides the foundation for this interaction between the ideal and the rudimentary form.

The environment is the source of development of these specifically human traits and attributes, most importantly because these historically evolved traits of human personality, which are latent in every human being due to the organic makeup of heredity, exist in the environment, but the only way they can be found in each individual human being is on the strength of his being a member of a certain social group, and that he represents a certain historical unit living at a certain historical period and in certain historical circumstances. Consequently, these specifically human characteristics and attributes manifest themselves in slightly different ways in child development than do other traits and attributes which are more or less directly conditioned by the course of prior historical human development. These ideal forms which have been refined and perfected by humanity and which should appear at the end of the development process, prevail in the environment. These ideal forms influence children from their very early beginnings as part of the process of mastering of the rudimentary form. And during the course of their development children acquire, as their personal property, that which originally represented only a form of their external interaction with the environment.

I should like to end by clarifying the nature of this last principle which governs the influence of environment on child development and which will elucidate for us what I have in mind when I speak about environment as a source of development.

During the course of child development, which we intend to examine at great length when we discuss the psychological development in children, the researcher is faced with one basic principle. I intend to formulate it only in a general way and to elucidate it by using just one example.

This principle consists of the fact that the child's higher psychological functions, his higher attributes which are specific to humans, originally manifest themselves as forms of the child's collective behaviour, as a form of co-operation with other people, and it is only afterwards that they become the internal individual functions of the child himself. I shall take but one example which should make all this clear to you. You know that speech first makes its appearance as a means of communication with other people.

With the help of speech a child can converse with other people around him and they, in turn, can talk to him. But now take each of us. You know that each of us possesses so called inner speech and that this inner speech, i.e. the fact that we are able to formulate in silence for ourselves ideas embodied in words, plays a major role in our thinking. This role is so great, that some researchers have even, albeit incorrectly, identified the process of speech with the process of thinking. But, in actual fact, for every one of us, this inner speech is one of the most important functions we have at our disposal. When this inner speech in human beings becomes disturbed due to some disorder, it can result in the most severe disruption of the entire thinking process.

How did this process of inner speech in each of us come about? Research has revealed that the emergence of inner speech is based on external speech. Originally, for a child, speech represents a means of communication between people, it manifests itself as a social function, in its social role. But gradually a child learns how to use speech to serve himself, his internal processes. Now speech becomes not just a means of communication with other people, but also a means for the child's own inner thinking processes. Then it no longer represents that speech which we use aloud when we communicate with one another, but it becomes an inner, silent, tacit speech. But where did speech as a means of thinking come from? From speech as a means of communication. From the external activity which the child was involved in with the people around him, appeared one of the most important inner functions without which man's very thinking process could not exist.

This example illustrates the general proposition concerning the understanding of environment as a source of development. An ideal or final form is present in the environment and it interacts with the rudimentary form found in children, and what results is a certain form of activity which then becomes a child's internal asset, his property and a function of his personality.

Notes

The Russian term perezhivanie serves to express the idea that one and the same objective situation may be interpreted, perceived, experienced or lived through by different children in different ways. Neither 'emotional experience' (which is used here and which only covers the affective aspect of the meaning of perezhivanie), nor 'interpretation' (which is too exclusively rational) are fully adequate translations of the noun. Its meaning is closely linked to that of the German verb 'erleben' (cf. 'Erlebnis', 'erlebte Wirklichkeit').

Here Vygotsky is using the verb perezhivat (German: 'erleben') from which the noun perezhivanie has been deduced. See note 1.

Vygotsky is referring to the twin research about which he and Luria reported several times. See pp. 312- 15 of van der Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. 1991 : Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Oxford : Blackwell Publishers.

'Methodical' appeared in the original text. It should probably be 'historical'.

The famous principle which Vygotsky borrowed from Janet, Baldwin and Piaget. Parr of its history has been sketched in Van der Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. 1988: Lev Vygotsky and Pierre Janet. On the origin of the concept of sociogenesis. Developmental Review, 8, 52-65; Valsiner, J. and Van der Veer, R. 1988: On the social nature of human cognition. Journal for the Theory of the Behavioral Sciences, 18, 117-35, and Van der Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. 1991: Sociogenetic perspectives in the work of Pierre Janet. Storia della Psicologia, 3, 6- 23.

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§14. The problem of the environment by Vygotsky

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Vygotsky 1934 Source: The Vygotsky Reader, pp. 338-354, ed. Rene van der Veer and Jaan Valsiner. Notes are by the editors; Note: This was the fourth lecture published in Vygotsky, L. S. 1935: Foundations of Paedology (pp. 58-78). Leningrad: Izdanie Instituta, The chapter heading is our invention.

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Wolff-Michael Roth & Alfredo Jornet (2016) ‘Perezhivanie in the Light of the Later Vygotsky’s Spinozist Turn’.Mind, Culture, and Activity, 23:4, 315-324

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Wolff-Michael Roth & Alfredo Jornet (2016) ‘Perezhivanie in the Light of the Later Vygotsky’s Spinozist Turn’.Mind, Culture, and Activity, 23:4, 315-324

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F.T. Mikhailov (2001) ‘The "Other Within" for the Psychologist’, Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 39:1, 6-31             

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F.T. Mikhailov (2001) ‘The "Other Within" for the Psychologist’, Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 39:1, 6-31             

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Anna Stetsenko (2022) ‘Radicalizing Theory and Vygotsky: Addressing Crisis Through Activist‑Transformative Methodology’,Human Arenas 

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Anna Stetsenko (2022) ‘Radicalizing Theory and Vygotsky: Addressing Crisis Through Activist‑Transformative Methodology’,Human Arenas 

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Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the topic of crisis and, more centrally, focus on methodologies to address it. My argument is that the methodology most useful to moving forward with research (including theorizing), especially at this time of crisis, is to clearly connect this work to, and embed it within, the ongoing sociopolitical struggles on the ground via contributing to, and taking a stance on, these struggles. This includes going to the roots of conflicts these struggles address, as the term radical implies. Arguably, this is the path to turning research into a critical/radical-and thus, also and simultaneously, theoretical/practical-work directly relevant to real-life issues and concerns. This is especially pertinent during the times of crisis since such times demand not only having a critical lens in order to interrogate the status quo but also, and more to the point, being decisive (as the word "crisis" implies), that is, ready and resolute to take a stand, stake a claim, and make a commitment to a particular future. I draw on Vygotsky's methodology (grounded in Marxism) and expand it in several ways, including through the notion of ethico-ontoepistemology, to advance an activist-transformative methodology. In developing it, I draw on the scholarship of resistance by scholars of color and others who pursue activist agendas and connect to struggles on the ground. To preface this approach, I contrast it with what I term scholastic approaches to historical legacies.

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Notes

1. This paper is an invited commentary on a paper by Dafermos ( 2022), addressing the topic of crisis.

2. In scrambling to provide support for his interpretation, Miller finds just one passage in Vygotsky that appears to be in sync: "Not a gradual socialization [sic], brought to the child from without, but a gradual individualization, arising on the basis of inner socialization of the child, is the major path of child development" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 259). However, Miller is going by a plainly erroneous translation: "inner socialization" [внyтpeнняя coциaлизaция - Rus.] is a mistranslation of "inner sociality" [внyтpeнняя coциaльнocть - Rus.] in the original language. What Vygotsky is saying is that humans are inherently social, right from start, being fully embedded in collective forms of life with others, profoundly saturated by sociality and interactivity, at first even indistinguishable from other people, sharing their very existence with them and only gradually going through a process of individualization, that is, becoming relatively independent from others (for details, see Arievitch & Stetsenko, 2014). Note that I am compelled to take a bit of a scholastic approach in this particular case-to show that Miller is on shaky grounds even within the confines, and by the rules, of his own scholastic approach.

3. A detailed analysis of Zavershneva and Osipov ( 2012)-comparing one of Vygotsky's manuscripts with its version published in his Collected Works and claiming gross editorial violations-in fact reveals a different picture. Namely, one finds editorial corrections that boil down to small, and in an overwhelming majority of cases insignificant, omissions, typographic errors, and inconsequential changes, none of which rises to the level of a substantive distortion (further details available upon request to the present author).

4. Bruner ( 1997) captured Vygotsky's style quite perceptively, writing that "his early literary formation inclined him more toward intuitive aperçu than propositional derivation" (p. 68). Note that Bruner presents a tour de force in comparing Piaget and Vygotsky, with deep observations and conclusions, while hardly using direct quotes from either of them. Another brilliant, and clearly non-scholastic insight into Vygotsky's approach-putting his work on the international map as a cutting-edge voice-is Toulmin's ( 1978) short presentation (without a single quote from Vygotsky).

5. This is my translation correcting the English version (where "идeйнaя бopьбa" [Rus.]- an idiomatic expression for "ideological struggle" - is mistranslated as "conceptual struggle").

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Keywords

Vygotsky

Marx

Decolonizing

Scholarship of resistance

Critical/radical theory

Sociopolitical struggles

Theory-practice

Cultural-historical activity theory

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Radicalizing Theory and Vygotsky: Addressing Crisis Through Activist-Transformative Methodology - Human Arenas

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In this paper, I discuss the topic of crisis and, more centrally, focus on methodologies to address it. My argument is that the methodology most useful to moving forward with research (including theorizing), especially at this time of crisis, is to clearly connect this work to, and embed it within, the ongoing sociopolitical struggles on the ground via contributing to, and taking a stance on, these struggles.

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P E Jones & M C Magalhães (2020) ‘Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: methodological discussions on the role of language in socialtransformation’. (Marx, Vygotsky e Freire: discussões metodológicas sobre o papel da linguagem na transformação social’). DELTA, 36 (3) 

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P E Jones & M C Magalhães (2020) ‘Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: methodological discussions on the role of language in socialtransformation’. (Marx, Vygotsky e Freire: discussões metodológicas sobre o papel da linguagem na transformação social’). DELTA, 36 (3) 

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Our basic aim here is to offer a Marxist grounding for a particular dialogical praxis within the liberatory, critical-collaboratory tradition of 'problem-posing education' () and consider its implications in realizing the potential role of the school as a site of 'cultural synthesis' () within a transforming social totality. The paper draws on fundamental principles of Marx's 'materialist conception of history' concretized through the educationally-based dialogical approaches of Vygotsky and Freire and the recent attempt at a new synthesis of such intellectual currents in Anna Stetsenko's 'Transformative-Activist Stance' ().

The radical politico-economic transformation of society involves organization of progressive social actors on a mass scale. Such organization requires its own communicational practices - 'cultural action' (: 147) - as a break with the alienating practices of the exploitative past and present. In that light, here we examine the potential of dialogical action for opening to conscious critique and transforming the very modes of communication and organization through which institutional schooling ('banking education', Freire, 1970) is usually constituted. Given the contradictory character of all social institutions within a conflictual social order built on class struggle, we argue that the socio-communicative regime of the school, ostensibly imposed to fragment and alienate the oppressed, in fact also offers a transformable platform for critical contestation and organization-for-social-revolution. We focus particularly on dialogue as the core praxis for critical collaboration between teachers and students in working out how to construct a unity of social forces 'directed towards humanization' (: 58).

Starting from Marx

It is often taken for granted in discussions of cultural-historical theory that the fundamental principles of this tradition are traceable to Marx's theoretical and scientific legacy. Did not Lev Vygotsky, after all, aspire to create a 'Marxist psychology', informed by the method of Marx's Capital ()? The issue is by no means straightforward, as readers will know, since scholars differ on what aspects of Vygotsky's approach could be said to be Marxist in origin or inspiration (cf) , KEILER, P. 2017. "What Is Absolutely Impossible for One Person, Is Possible for Two" - A Historical-Methodological Study Concerning Feuerbachian Elements in the Later Works of L.S. Vygotsky // История российской психологии в лицах: Дайджест. 2017. № 3. С. 179-211. Available in Available in http://journals.hist-psy.ru/index.php/HPRPD/article/view/328 . Accessed on March 1, 2020. ²⁰¹⁹JONES, P. E. 2019. Vygotsky and Marxism: re-setting the relationship. In: YASNITSKY, A. (Ed.). Questioning Vygotsky's Legacy. Scientific Psychology or Heroic Cult. London: Routledge . p. 22-42. ; ; ). The sustained line of work by Peter Keiler, uncovering and elucidating the specifically Feuerbachian source and inspiration for key principles of cultural-historical psychology ( Keiler, 2017
http://journals.hist-psy.ru/index.php/HP... ) further complicates the picture.

After all, the fundamental problem at stake in our thinking and action is how we understand what is going on in society and how we work out, in our practical interventions, what to do about it. More specifically, we are concerned with how we approach the task of understanding the specific social role and social function of educational institutions and educational practices within society today, what we might do to transform them and ourselves in the process, and how such transformation may contribute to the progressive transformation of social relations more generally. It is from that perspective that we seek to understand a) the import and implications of the method and ideas of Marx for an understanding of education within capitalist society, and b) how the contributions of Paulo Freire and Lev Vygotsky may help us to develop a more concrete vision for the potential role of dialogical practices in education in relation to the urgent and acute problems of the world today.

Marx's analysis of capitalism in Capital begins with the commodity, a historically specific form of capture (by the capitalist 'valorization process') of the labour process, the latter a necessary condition of all forms of human society. But Marx's analysis does not end there; it is simply the starting point for a systematic analytical re-creation of all the social relations, functions and practices peculiar to a society based on the exploitation of human activity by capital. His initial analysis takes the process of commodity production in isolation from all the other processes and forms of activity, including education, law, politics and so on, in which it is empirically embedded. Such isolation, or abstraction, is viewed by Marx as essential to constructing a fully concrete picture of capitalist society, on the assumption that, in its ascendency, the capitalist mode of production strives to reshape and redesign all domains of social life to serve the interests of capital and to quell or suborn all forms of resistance to that dominance.

At the same time, and in contrary motion, the agents of the labour process struggle to protect themselves from exploitation, to get a bigger share of the product of their own labour in the shape of higher wages, housing, education, health care, leisure time and so on. They also strive to develop their own forms of organization - historically, trade unions and political parties - to enhance and amplify through the collectivity their powers of resistance and to articulate an alternative vision of society without exploitation. And so, If the exploitation of living labour is the basic economic condition and ground of capitalist production, then this ground is continually contested, a contest which plays out everywhere in society, through all its institutions, since all spheres of life and work are interconnected on this ground. Accordingly, Marx's method does not involve reducing each and every sphere of production or working practice in society to the same abstract model of commodity or capital production but in tracing how these spheres and practices grow up as inter-dependent and inter-related processes on the basis of the struggles to impose, and to resist, capitalist exploitation of labour (). Marxist analysis comes into its own, therefore, precisely when we need to see the bigger picture into which our own professional practices and aspirations fit (). The apparently very 'concrete', local work activity of any particular professional sphere or branch of the social division of labour is, in fact, an abstract and, consequently unhelpful, starting point for trying to find a clear understanding of the deeper societal processes and conflicts which shape, often drastically and without compromise, the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people independently of, or despite, their personal intentions, goals and aspirations.

What, then, is specific to education under capitalist conditions? What is the concrete role played by educational institutions and practices in societies built up around the exploitation of labour? And, most importantly, what opportunities exist for teachers and students to transform educational spaces into catalysts for social change?

Education in Marxist perspective

Any educational system or institution, therefore, represents an unstable confluence of various social functions representing conflicting social interests. That also means that the role of the school, or of the individual teacher, with respect to these wider social struggles, is neither pre-determined nor set in stone: the social role of the school, indeed, the pedagogical relationship itself, is up for grabs. To affirm, for instance, that education is a right for all, that it should really educate, motivate and inspire, that it should help protect us from exploitation and poverty, that it should not reproduce but counter social inequality - all of this is also a call to arms: it says what education should be, what it can be, and leads us to find ways and means to make it so. Just as, for example, to say that good clean water should be accessible and free to everyone is at the same time a challenge to the private utilities (and their political backers) who profit from natural resources while leaving billions of people worldwide without proper drinking water.

This means that teachers have the chance, when circumstances are propitious, to make a real difference to both their students and their communities. Schools can provide safe opportunities to learn outside of the home, outside of the workplace, off the streets; they can help to raise awareness in children and their families of basic health issues; they can become catalysts of community self-education; they can help communities to organize, to help them find their voice and use it; they can help communities gain confidence and strengthen their sense of identity; they can help to create a vision of an alternative future for the working people and poorest sections of society and challenge the inequalities of wealth that determine life chances and, indeed, life expectancy; and they can help to create a new vision of what real learning is and how it should be developed and rewarded. If opportunities of this kind can be made or seized, then schooling becomes a powerful transformative practice. In these circumstances teachers can become role models for empowerment and social conscience, just as enlightened employers, in providing conditions for labour to take place with dignity and in spaces where personal learning and growth can take place, can also play a part in advancing the cause of progressive social change.

While such general reflections, informed by Marx's thinking, may be a useful starting point for contextualizing the problem of education, and the school, in wider social processes, the world today is faced with challenges and problems that were quite unknown in Marx's day and which require new forms of analysis and, more importantly, new forms of practice. More particularly, the global climate emergency challenges us all to re-appraise our traditional forms of resistance to capitalist domination in general and our view of the school and its social role more especially. Indeed, such a re-appraisal - in theory and practice - has already motivated the new generations of school children across the world to take their own independent protest and strike action against existing political, economic, cultural and educational institutions which have proved incapable of rising to the urgent tasks of global governance that the climate emergency requires.

For schools in particular, the contradictory character of their social 'mission' has been stretched to breaking point and the ideology of schooling as a preparation for a prosperous future life exposed as a lie: what future life could the school prepare us for if the world itself is becoming uninhabitable? And if the school is not doing its utmost to educate to this emergency agenda and to promote such awareness throughout society, then the school itself becomes complicit in the destruction of the earth.

All of this, then, puts the role of teachers in uncharted territory and, more acutely than ever before, forces us as educators to confront the challenge of how to help, rather than hinder, children's own self-actualization for their future. Rather than preparing them for what we may have believed was a bright(er) future in a world of enhanced opportunity, we find that the present world is now literally disappearing and the vision of that better world a grotesque fantasy which distorts, if not poisons, our whole authority as educators and guides to future life. After all, what right do we have to insist on students' compliance with the game of institutional education, their attendance at school, their conformity to school discipline and attention to the curriculum if all this is part of the problem and not part of the solution? What can we do to help children become leaders in this struggle for their future - humanity's future - and to develop the organizational means to win it?

Critical Research must therefore be an attempt to confront unfairness; an effort to implement dialectical relations, allowing for world contradictions to come forth and domineering cultural features to be challenged. As part of the school, critical theory must be a process of hope where joint work between different agents (researcher, teacher, students, other staff members, parents and the surrounding communities) takes place, ultimately transforming the school, the society and participants themselves as part of the process.

Language and revolution - from Marx to Vygotsky and Freire

Progressive social movements, consequently, 'are at once struggles for foundational economic, political and social change and at the same time necessarily struggles over language, about language, in language and for language which enables and promotes the consciousness and organization upon which such transformation depends' (: 3; see also ).

One might therefore ask:

Indeed, as Emmanuel Schegloff noted:

As it happens, this activity - conversation and its transformations into other forms of talk-in-interaction - is the vehicle through which a very great portion of the ordinary business of all the major social institutions (and the minor ones as well) gets addressed and accomplished. It is evident that much - even most - of the work of such institutions as the economy (in its several institutional contexts), the polity (in its several contexts), the institutions for population replacement (courtship, marriage, socialization, and education), the law, religion, social control, culture, and so forth, is accomplished in episodes of talk-in-interaction (: 1340).

More specifically, Schegloff goes on:

On the one hand, much of the grasp of the world that informs the sentience and conduct of members of a society is, or can be, managed (crystallized, assessed, challenged, clarified, revised, confirmed, shared, reinforced, etc.) through talk, including objects of understanding that are not themselves talk. Any reference to an object, person, action, dream, fantasy, that is, anything real, or unreal but mentionable, and indeed anything understood to be presumed or presupposed by what is said or conveyed, can be made the object of talk - not necessarily at topic, but what the talk is understood to bear on (1992: 1340).

From that point of view, the dialogical practices within the school must be seen in their future-oriented, synergistic contribution to the transformability of that dynamic and constantly emergent network (a 'creative chain', ; ) of interconnected and inter-constituting communication processes of which 'social reality' actually consists Furthermore, taking a Marxist view on this communicationally constituted 'reality' also fundamentally means taking a view on the precise kinds of connections - or communicational presuppositions - which are distinctive to capitalist exploitation:

The insights of Vygotsky and Freire for an understanding of the role of language praxis in the struggle to transform society

Among Vygotsky's many insights into the educational process, in the context of the child's social development more generally, there are several which are particularly relevant here. Firstly, far from a transmission-based model of educational practice, Vygotsky saw the teaching-learning process as an interaction between more expert adult and child: a collaborative, dialogic process in which the freedom of the child to question, to challenge to reflect on and re-imagine the challenging 'content' of the educational material, in dialogue with the teacher and peers, was indeed the foundation of the whole developmental process. But Vygotsky went further, showing how the very social environment in which the child acts could not be understood - and certainly not re-made - independently of the child's active relationship to his or her manner of engagement with and, therefore, transformation of, this lived 'reality'.

The environment, then, is not an objectively given thing or condition but a continually renewed and dynamic product of the engagement of the child with the 'reality' to be transformed. The 'social situation of development' () was precisely then not an objective set of factors or circumstances existing independently of the child but a relationship to the world refracted through the child's vital experience ( perezhivanie), the consciously apprehended feeling of life being lived.

Secondly, Vygotsky's late work, despite all the problems and controversies in its understanding and interpretation, is particularly significant for reflecting on the social processes of learning and development and the key role of language and linguistic meaning (and sense) within these processes.

From 1932 onwards, we see a whole series of self-critical re-considerations and re-evaluations of Vygotsky's work, in effect calling everything into question. In particular the 'causal-mechanical' semiology () of his 'instrumental method'/'dual stimulation' phase is radically modified in favour of an emphasis on the meaning of the 'sign operation' for the acting subject, as opposed to any putative causal or impelling power.

Now, the meaning or 'sense' of words (and possibly all communicational phenomena) in relation to the individual subject becomes the primary factor in an understanding of thinking, purposeful action ('free action') and the development of speech itself. Key principles or assumptions of earlier work, in particular the speech internalization process and even the representationalist 'genetic ladder' of conceptual development are challenged in favour of a purely situational-contextual account of word meaning within a purposeful field of sense-saturated action (). Furthermore, a new unit of psychological understanding is advanced in the form of perezhivanie () which carries an intimation of a novel model of semiology in which meaning lies not in some 'auxiliary sign' (a word etc) as mediator of mental processes but in the very relationship between the acting subject and the people and things with whom the subject engages.

With these innovations and departures from previous theoretical principles, Vygotsky's thinking arrives at a very different, more productive starting point for a new direction in research and, surely, one which is more in keeping with the spirit of Marx: a concrete focus on the actual lived experience of the social individual and on the developing semiological powers unique to that individual as a function of his/her active life in the community/collective.

Thirdly, for Vygotsky, the role of language was crucial to this developmental process as a dialogic interaction-in-cooperation in which a 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) could be established:

For Freire, too, education must be a process of dialogue, but it is one in which all parties - teachers and students - are equally engaged and equally transformed in contributing to it. As with Vygotsky, this is not a transmission process but a process of mutual and collaborative creative questioning and discovery - pushing the barriers and transcending them. The time is up for 'banking education' (: 52) 'as the exercise of domination stimulating the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression'. As Freire put it ( ¹⁹⁷² FREIRE, P. [1970]1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. : 53): 'Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information'. What he referred to as 'problem-posing education' therefore 'demands a resolution of the teacher-student contradiction. Dialogical relations - indispensable to the capacity of cognitive actors to cooperate in perceiving the same cognizable object - are otherwise impossible'.

Indeed, as he went on:

problem-posing education, breaking the vertical patterns characteristic of banking education, can fulfill its function of being the practice of freedom only if it can overcome the above contradiction. Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges - teacher-student with students-teachers... They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. In this process, arguments based on "authority" are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. Here no-one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. Men (sic) teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are "owned" by the teacher.

The fundamental significance of the dialogical, problem-posing approach is the simultaneous breaking down of the social relations and vertical power differential in the traditional teacher-student roles and the transcendence of the cognitive fixity and stability of the object to be cognized: 'The students - no longer docile listeners - are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher' ( ¹⁹⁷² FREIRE, P. [1970]1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. : 54). For Freire:

In problem-posing education, men (sic) develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation (1972: 56).

Such thinking has been amplified and extended most recently in the work of Anna Stetsenko who calls for 'an elaboration of Marxist and Freirean approaches that would not cancel their core premise of a desired directionality of knowing and development yet guard against these notions morphing into a regime of truth that leads into indoctrination and passive transmission of ideology' (2017: 66).

In her 'Transformative-Activist Stance', Stetsenko insists on the future-oriented or future-creating activity of human beings as the fundamental reality of their social existence:

people can be said to realize their development in the agentive enactment of changes that bring the world, and simultaneously their own lives, including their selves and minds, into reality (2017: 31).

Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students ( ¹⁹⁷² FREIRE, P. [1970]1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. : 46).

Thus, teachers-students and students-teachers ( ¹⁹⁷² FREIRE, P. [1970]1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. : 53) are fully equal partners and participants in the dialogic social process, jointly pushing the horizon of the known into the uncharted waters of 'untested feasibility' (: 85) Such dialogic action cannot be limited to the (re)production of what any of the partners already know, or can do, but is a genuine becoming - the dawning of an emergent social reality through '"testing action" which reveals its hitherto unperceived viability' (1972: 85). 'Problem-posing education', therefore, 'is revolutionary futurity', 'prophetic (and, as such, hopeful)' (: 57).

In this context, collaborating means creating trusting and respectful relations in which each participant intentionally acts to mutually and inter-dependently listen to the other and ask problematic questions in order to: comprehend the other's senses, share reasoning, be willing to expand others' and their own understandings, raise doubts, pose challenges and make suggestions, ask for clarification, disagree, review or complement ideas previously explained, describe experiences as a means to relate to others (2016: 42-43).

Dialogue as critical cultural action: the critical-collaborative approach in Applied Linguistics

language-bound issues as means for organizing the type of thought (...) defined in critical reflective terms, i.e., as a type of thought that might allow individuals - actual agents of their own thoughts [or reasoning processes] - to probe into their routine practices. The focus is on the deconstruction-neoconstruction of theoretical-methodological choices that organize educational contexts by looking into the interests they serve, so as to allow for new reasoning and acting, leading to social, political and educational transformations, as pointed out by Vygotsky (1921-23: 463-464).

) argue for a theoretical-methodological approach (Collaborative Critical Research (PCCol)) able to create critical contexts in which participants can act collaboratively, based on a dialogical theory of action "in order to transform the world' (: 135). For this to be possible, they find support in cultural artefacts that are socio-historically constructed, as well as in experiences organized with the objective of transforming the social environment, its culture and prospective development. Organizing contexts for linguistic communication in which participants, in school environments, can engage in understanding and transforming the world collectively requires one's actions to be focused on contradictions and conflict between the ideas and points of view being discussed. In particular, it is a matter of understanding the intricate organization of argumentative speech that constructs a new shared meaning rather than merely persuades of an existing point of view. This is not an easy task, however, since it involves both an argument-oriented organization of linguistic contributions and collaborative actions. Thus, collaborative relations are an indispensable condition for the negotiation with the other, which presupposes participants' intentional involvement and the development of mutual trust (; ). At the same time, argumentation is necessary for the creation of collaborative relationships and both are responsible for new ways to understand our own and others' ways to think and act in the world: argumentation by itself would seem like an authoritarian imposition if used without collaboration, which would create a difficult negotiation.

In this theoretical-methodological frame, the role of teachers is to work collaboratively with students to create spaces organized through dialogical action for the posing of problems that they themselves see as central to their own existence, and to build new ways to act on these problems to transform society. In this way, a communicational process is created which allows the participants to critically identify, confront and develop vital themes and topics and ways in which schools, connecting productively with their communities, can find ways to address them. In that creative dialogic action, teachers-students/students-teachers are able to problematize the nature of school knowledge itself as well as the relationship between teachers and students, the relationship between the school and the surrounding 'environment' and to discover new and untested ways to make the pursuit of knowledge a collaboratively organized project for wider social 'conscientization'.

In Freire´s words, creating a "true dialogue cannot exist unless it involves critical thinking (...), a kind of thinking which perceives reality as process and transformation, rather than as a static entity - thinking which does not separate itself from action, but constantly immerses itself in temporality without fear of the risks involved" (: 64-65). As already discussed by : 136), 'Dialogue, as essential communication, must underlie any cooperation'.

We have also noted that Vygotsky´s late work brings starting points for a new understanding of collaborative research, focusing on the actual lived experience of the social individual and on the developing semiological powers unique to that individual within his/her active life in the community/collective. We hope that these thoughts may be useful in concretizing the principles set out by Marx and Engels in relation to the organizing of dialogical action among subjects through collaborative (cooperative) communication in schools.

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Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: methodological discussions on the role of language in social transformation

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Our basic aim here is to offer a Marxist grounding for a particular dialogical praxis within the liberatory, critical-collaboratory tradition of 'problem-posing education' () and consider its implications in realizing the potential role of the school as a site of 'cultural synthesis' () within a transforming social totality.