DIALECTIC OF ACTIVITY AND THEORETIC PSYCHOLOGY

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DIALECTIC OF ACTIVITY AND THEORETIC PSYCHOLOGY

• Lev Naumenko

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• Im not a psychologist so my participation in
  psychological discussion cant be legitimate. It
  looks as strange as if Id started to discuss
  mathematical problems.
• But there is one area where the dialog between a
  philosopher and a psychologist as well as a
  philosopher and a mathematician is not only
  possible but absolutely inevitable. That is the
  problem of subject matter of psychology as well
  as mathematic. Better to say the problem of
  reality both in psychology and in mathematic. We
  take maths as an illustration. Here is the point
  where the productive dialogue between philosophy
  and psychology is quite possible. The very
  subject matter of psychology is dialectical.
  Nowhere else we have such insistent need in
  dialectic as in psychology because as Evald
  Ilenkov said a human is a dialectical creature.

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• 1. What is subject matter of science in general
  and psychology in particular?
• Our subject matter is an object of our attention,
  an object of our discourse. In psychology it is
  evidently in the same time an object of our
  observation and investigation, and a subject,
  that is we ourselves, and what we see in the
  object, what we ascribe to it, what we say about
  it, how we judge it. One can hardly deny that
  subject matter of psychology is a function of our
  aim, in our case researchers aim.
• An object of psychology is a human being. In the
  same time a human can be an object of mechanics,
  chemistry, physics, biology, physiology etc.
• One object different subject matters.

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• Thus a subject matter is a section of an object
  or its side. E.g. the crosscut of a tree opens
  the growth rings, while a length cut - the wood
  fibers. The side or section is an abstraction.
  When this abstraction is regarded separately as
  self-sufficient system, when it turns into a
  hypostatized abstraction it forms a special
  subject matter of special science or research
  area. Thus subject matter of science is not only
  a bare object, but our discourse about it as well
  with all its judgments, thoughts, assumptions,
  abstractions, idealizations, with all what
  science highlights in the object. That is popular
  or better to say vulgar conception of subject
  matter of a science.

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• 2. Lets say that an object is given to us in
  reality as a fragment of this sensual reality.
• Is the subject matter of science given to us in
  the same way?
• Surely not. The subject matter of science is our
  description of an object, a product of our
  researching approach, of our angle of view,
  methodology etc., it is a result of our treatment
  of the object, of its replacing by our theoretic
  model. That is quite simple and in the same time
  absolutely false understanding which induces an
  illusion of arbitrariness of model, its
  dependence only to special investigators point of
  view. Here we meet a serious theoretic problem.
• What is subject of mathematic? Numbers,
  figures, functions. Do such objects as
  mathematical point which has no length, no width,
  no height really, physically exist? Surely no. To
  save the situation positivists invented so called
  abstract objects scoffed by Evald Ilenkov.
• If a circle is locus of points equidistant from a
  centre, while a center is point which has not any
  spatial dimensions, thus it cant take any place.
  In the same manner soul which possess
  nonextended essence in Cartesian philosophy
  cannot be located in body and cannot interact
  with it. Such soul is a typical abstract
  object, nonsense, a contradiction, by no means
  dialectical one.
• Thus what is subject matter of math? Real
  physical objects or our thoughts about them, our
  arbitrary abstractions, our inventions?

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• We can hardly accept the traditional explanation
  of Aristotle if we abstract from weight,
  density, color, heat capacity, conductivity and
  let alone only one characteristic abstract
  quantity, spatial geometric form, we will get the
  pure form as a subject matter of geometry.
  Similarly if we abstract from all characteristics
  of active, living body and leave only inner,
  subjective, hidden, which can only manifest
  itself through action, we will have a typical
  abstract object.
• In both cases we will burn our ships and close
  the door to the reality, to physical objects, to
  sensual bodies. In the beginning of the last
  century Bertrand Russell describe the situation
  in words Arithmetic knows nothing about US
  population. We can add that it knows nothing
  about the whole Universe as well. No one of
  mathematics follows Aristotles methodology, we
  mean no one starts from physical reality in order
  that to receive their theoretic abstractions in
  the process of abstracting. No one mathematic
  will even seriously discuss such an approach. The
  do start from abstractions and not come to them
  in the end.
• One can ask what is subject matter of maths
  then? Where, in what reality it finds its subject
  matter?

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• Lets make a reservation. Surely one can fudge
  some object under mathematical abstraction,
  invent an arbitrary abstraction. Thus we can
  identify in the one notion shoe brush and mammal.
  As ironically mentioned Engels the brush will not
  end by growing of breasts.
• Thus the idea that the object of research of
  maths is not real objects but their ideas about
  the reality was deeply rooted in philosophy and
  epistemology after Kant.
• This old but still alive prejudice insists that a
  theoretician doesnt investigate reality but
  his/her own artificial constructions, invented by
  researchers mind. A human can cognize only
  products of his own creativity. The very reality
  as an object of cognition is discarded. So
  instead of cognition of an object we have (in
  better case) self cognition of a subject.
• Here we have to ask why in this case, if all
  engineering calculations of Eiffel had nothing to
  do with reality and were based on fictions of his
  imagination, his real Tower is still standing in
  real Paris? Just in the same theme Malebranche
  was puzzled in his own witty way during the
  siege of Vienna, the defenders of the city
  undoubtedly saw and shot at the Turkish army as
  transcendental Turks, but real Turks were
  killed. The idea of specific point of view
  cant save the situation looking from one side
  we have physic, looking from the other side
  mathematic. Taking from outside we have body,
  brains, physiology, taking from the other side
  a soul, a psyche.Utterly naive methodology.

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• 3. What is subject matter of psychology?
• A psyche.
• And what is psyche?
• A psyche is a subjective reality, i.e. images,
  ideas, feelings, affects, thoughts, motives, aims
  etc. I.e. something inner.Where is this
  inner situated? Inside what? Inside a test,
  person or inside us as investigators? Can we find
  this inner and subjective as something real
  or even as a side of this real? Or all this is
  only our own construction or abstract object?
  What is a subject matter of psychologist? Objects
  per se or his/here thoughts about those objects?
  Those what do exist or those what we think about
  its existence?
• Really and truly looking from any point of view
  we cant see the ideal or psyche inside the grey
  substance.
• A subject matter of psychology is a human being
  i.e. living, thinking body. But is his inner
  world, his psyche given to us? Where can we find
  this reality?

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• 4. Lets imagine the following a
  neurophysiologist or neurosurgeon say Penfield
  implants electrodes into the brain tissue of a
  patient, gives a weak electric impulse and asks a
  patient about his feelings. The patient replies
  that he sees his late grandfather and other
  relatives talking to him.
• That is what a subject can see. And what can see
  a surgeon? Can he see the grandfather?
• Surely not. He can see the brains and electric
  activity in the brain tissue on his electronic
  monitors. Evidently a patient and a surgeon can
  see the different things. Do those things belong
  to one and the same or to absolutely different
  realities? That is the question.
• In his external experience a surgeon deals with
  objects and objective, observable processes. Here
  he deals with the problem as a neurophysiologist.
  But where he finds a psyche? A subjective? Why he
  has to ask his patient?
• The answer is obvious because he finds the
  subject matter of psychology only in his own
  inner experience, in introspection.
• Thats why a psychologist is looking with one eye
  outside, while with the other one inside. He
  tries to superpose two pictures into one. But is
  it possible in principle? Can we judge about age
  of schooners master measuring the height of the
  mast? Psychologist can judge only by analogy.

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• But is this analogy legitimate? What can he see
  in his object, in another person, in test person?
• He can see observable physical and physiological
  conditions, vasomotor phenomena, shouts,
  movements, gestures, expressive behavior. All
  these are physical phenomena. But what is he
  looking for?
• A psyche. Can he observe a psyche of another
  person, can he feel a pain of the other one? No.
  He can only conclude about it by analogy with
  himself. Watching an expressive behavior he ties
  it with something hidden, inner. But what is this
  inner? Inside what does it exist? Inside a skull?
  Under a skin cover? But we know that there is
  only physics and physiology. Thus looking outside
  we can see only physical and physiologic
  phenomena and we cant see a tiny hint on psyche,
  while looking inside we see only phenomena of our
  psyche and nothing alike physiology. An eye cant
  see itself, and even if he really sees itself in
  the mirror he cant see stars or trees, i.e.
  objects. Thus the only possible method of
  psychological investigation is an analogy with
  our own feelings and thinking.
• Thus we have a situation when a psychologist is
  looking on the object with one eye and inside
  himself with the other one. One of his eyes is
  directed to the North, while the other to the
  South. This basic psychological squint is a
  congenital malformation of traditional, non
  dialectic psychology which cannot bridge the gap
  between the opposites. Under this approach these
  oppositions are incommensurable as masters age
  and the height of the mast. It means that we
  cant take as a starting point neither body nor
  psyche, neither inner nor external. These are two
  opposite ends of one and the same thread. And we
  cannot cut it. The single thread is an active
  vital activity, object oriented activity, the
  embodiment of subjects conditions and
  subjectivisation of material objects. This
  movement constitutes the essence of
  cultural-historical process, its substance.
  Without realizing this, cultural-historical
  approach can give birth only to nonsense and
  anecdotes. Here it is - an example of such
  absurdity.

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• 5. Levi-Brule investigating a primitive
  thinking in Amazonian region put forward the
  central idea of his theory of pre logic
  thinking a primitive is experience-impermeable
  .  
• The primitive The primitive is primitive just
  because he cannot think at all. He lives as if in
  the delusion or in the state close to autism,
  lives in the realm of dreams. This position was
  shared by Jan Piaget concerning the egocentric
  thought of a little baby. It looks rather
  strange when a primitive builds a canoe from
  the cortex he is a good deal experience-permeable,
  moreover he is obviously logical and wise.
  Moreover well bet our boots that the very
  Levi-Brule was considerably more
  experience-impermeable in such situation and
  hardly could build a boat. Though in all other
  cases he considered a primitive a fool.
• Lets take an illustration from Levy-Brule
  himself. Natives from Bororo tribe dont
  distinguish themselves from red Arara parrot.
  They simply consider that they Bororo, and
  parrots Arara is one and the same thing. In all
  meanings - one and the same! Levi-Brule made a
  helpless gesture what a stupidity, these
  primitives cant distinguish themselves from a
  parrot? What a load of bull! And as a result the
  inevitable conclusion all they are insane.

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• Lets perform a little mental experiment. Lets
  imagine that we have overheard Bororo
  conversation after mentally advanced
  psychologist-European had left them.
• Near Bororo there lives another tribe, say
  identifying themselves with jaguars. They are as
  primitive as Bororo. They also cannot
  distinguish themselves from an animal. The tribes
  are at permanent war. And in case if Bororo is
  captured by Jaguars he can be eaten by them. That
  is the first premise.
• The second premise is that both Bororo and
  Jaguars are red-skinned, that they speak one and
  the same language, that they have very similar
  culture, i.e. they are practically
  indistinguishable. But the need to distinguish is
  absolutely vital otherwise the risk to meet
  Jaguars on the narrow path and to be eaten turns
  real. How they can distinguish? Objectively their
  distinction is blood distinction. But Bororo can
  hardly make DNA test. How to solve a problem? No
  within Bororo, nor within Jaguars there is no
  alive ancestors. Meanwhile the real distinction
  is the distinction between ancestors. Here we
  have quite reasonable answer we, as Bororo
  distinguish ourselves from this hostile tribe as
  Arara distinguishes from Jaguar. And what do we
  need in excess to distinction?

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• Meanwhile how can we distinguish Levi-Brules from
  Levi-Strausses? Both are white, both speak French
  and all are different. Levi-Brules are babies and
  adults, men and women, children and old.
  Levi-Strausses too. Then how we can distinguish
  Levi-Brules from Levi-Strauss?
• Just in the same simple manner as we can
  distinguish a parrot from a jaguar cause the
  signs Brule and Strauss means the same. The
  family names Levi-Brule and Levi-Strauss are
  conventional signs, while a sing is something
  which has nothing to do with denotatum. These
  European names are as dissimilar to their owner
  as parrot or Jaguar are dissimilar to humans.
  Each one is simply a language. And the Bororo
  language is as good as French. Thus Bororo
  summarize we basically cant go without a
  parrot. And probably add This European is
  absolutely experience-impermeable.
• In Mike Coles and Silvia Scribners monograph
  were the convincing criticism of linguistic
  determinism doctrine (hypothesis of Sapir-Warf)
  is given one can find the following example Hopi
  designates all flying objects except birds (i.e.
  airplanes, pilots, dragonflies) with one word.
  Whether this mean that they cannot distinguish
  between a pilot and a dragonfly?

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• It is not an objects which are labeled with a
  word, but meanings. Meanings, not images
  expressed in word. Ilenkov insisted on it. As a
  material thing an axe has very little distinction
  from a splitting axe. Both are wedges one more
  thin and sharpen, while another more thick and
  blunt. A townsman will hardly distinguish one
  from another. As things and as sensual images
  they are very similar. But they have quite
  different meanings. Lumberjacks know it very
  well. Try to cut flexible twigs with a splitting
  axe and you risk to lose your eyes. Try to split
  with a simple axe a billet of elm tree and you
  risk to lose the axe which can be seized in the
  billet. In meaningful idea of an axe and
  splitting axe is represented the objective
  structure of wood and the logic of action with
  this wood cutting and splitting. All meanings
  are born only in object oriented activity, there
  where the schemas of thinking coincide with the
  schemas of the very object, where the logic of
  aims coincide with the logic of objects, i.e.
  there where The order and connection of ideas is
  the same as the order and connection of things
  (Spinoza). These are not two distinct, but simply
  one and the same order.
• Linguistic determinism turns a subject into
  wooden marionette stimulated mechanically from
  the language structures. The source of stimuli
  can have sociocultural or cultural-historic
  nature and be presented as archetypes, all
  kinds of taboo and prescriptions, mental schemes
  and paradigms etc.
• Is there any distinction between this secondary
  structures and primary structures molecular,
  cerebral and alike structures? We are sure that
  there is nothing different between them.

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• 6. I cant characterize the category of subject
  in a different way than through the concept of
  activity. The activity in its turn must be
  characterized as self causal, spontaneous, not
  forced from outside action. It means that a
  causal explanation of phenomena of psyche somehow
  or other reduces subjective to the objective,
  psychic to physic, to those which is external to
  the subject. They can be physical,
  molecular-genetic, physiological, socio-cultural,
  linguistic schemes, archetypes everything which
  Russian positivist Bogdanov called Schemes of
  socially organized experience. In all cases
  there is no distinction between physical or
  physiological from one side and sociocultural
  determination from the other. In both cases
  subjective categories and phenomena reduce to
  external regarding to the subject factors, thus a
  psychology lose its special subject matter and
  reduces to physics or physiology, to biology,
  linguistic or sociology. Psyche is regarded in
  this case as epiphenomenon of processes which
  have quite different nature. If in effect we can
  find only those which previously contained in
  cause (while this is the essence of Leibnitz law
  of sufficient reason) thus psychology is
  impossible as a special science.
• Category of causality is related to objects,
  while subjectness and subjectivity needs in other
  category in category of self causality. How can
  we combine causality with self causality, the
  necessity with freedom, only dialectic can give
  an answer. More definitely the dialectic of
  activity.

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• We have described in short in our thesis the
  essence of this dialectic. The dialectic of
  activity doesnt exclude a causality, causal
  relations between subject and object. But we deel
  here with a special type of causality. A call it
  inverted causality. A drag acts on psyche
  directly, causing a pathologic state. The saucer
  of special kef is situated inside the brains.
  Not in the reality. Here we meet the causing of
  the state and not reflection of the reality. It
  is not a reality which cause the state, but a
  physical state is a cause of imaginary reality.
  The physical object, the drag is not an object
  for the subject. It stays behind the scene. The
  psychic experience is only the result, the
  effect. On the contrary in the normal situation
  the psychic experience is reflection of the
  object. The relation is quite reverse.
• Lets pay attention to the fact that in both
  cases we have an object. But in the first case it
  is not the object for subject, while in the
  second case it is. This forces us to split the
  notion of object and isolate a subject,
  subjectness (predmet or predmetnost) as a
  special category.
• Exactly on this category is based our
  understanding of inverted causality. And exactly
  with this category and only with it is connected
  everything what has any relation to the subject.
  Exactly with this category is connected all
  content of psychology as a special science a
  science concerning a subject. Spinoza, Vygotsky
  and Ilenkov understood it perfectly. Therefore
  Vygotsky consider freedom as a central problem of
  psychology. Meanwhile a freedom take place only
  there were the subjects statue is determined not
  from behind as Mikhail Lifshitz said, not from
  physiology, but from the front, through
  contemplation of an object before him.
• is absolutely insistent task of the time. One is
  fruitless without another. I dare say that here
  lies the core problem of CHAT psychology.

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• Lets compare two modi of speech I am scared
  (Mne strashno) and I am afraid of somebody or
  something (ja bojus). Psychologically we have
  even one and the same state and in the same time
  we have two different meanings. The first is only
  my state, while the second is objectified state,
  I am afraid because there is HE, who is terrible,
  who exists objectively outside me Their, their
  in the corner as shouts tsar Boris Godunov in
  Musorgskys tragic opera. Not inside me but in
  the corner, outside me. I am afraid not because
  Ive got drugged but because there in the corner,
  before me is standing bloody child. Exactly
  this object causes the Boris fear. This fine
  point is well expressed by the Russian word
  predmet something which is thrown forward and
  is standing before me. Quite the same meaning has
  a German word Genestand standing before me.
  Thus a predmet is not mere external thing.
• Objects do exist outside me and can stimulate me
  without affecting my subjectivity, my I just as
  radiation. Predmets has to be posited by my own
  activity. An object turns to be a predmet being
  involved into an active object oriented activity.
  A predmet is an object not for itself but for us.
  A subject and its object are an indivisible
  whole. An acacia is a predmet for giraffe only
  because the giraffe himself is for some extent an
  acacia its negative. One dont exist without
  another. A cat is in some extent a mould of a
  mouse, while a mouse is a mould of cat. Evidently
  whalebones are copied from krill. An animal
  posits its object, its predmet not because it has
  a powerful creativity but because itself it is
  posited by ecologic system or biosphere as a part
  of the food chain. Both subject and object
  (predmet) are parts of one and the same thread. A
  subject posits its object in the same extent in
  which an object posits a subject. That is real.
  objective relationship.
• However the theme of positing of objects, of
  objective intention of psyche is the theme of
  Sasha Surmavas report. From our side we want to
  add to it that the subjects state, his ideas,
  his notions, his affects and aims are posited by
  the object, while the very object is posited by
  the subject. It means that the subject matter of
  psychology is not an isolated object or isolated
  subject, but something single. Splitting of this
  singularity into two opposite sides has to
  investigate a theoretic psychology. This alive
  singularity is a content of dialectic of
  activity. Within any other approach we will be
  doomed to be held up in the hole of crisis
  described by Vygotsky.
• Thus we can conclude a synthesis of principles
  of cultural-historical approach and principles of
  activity approach

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• 7. The determination of psychic processes say of
  thinking by sociocultural schemes and stereotypes
  is a fact. But we can stop on recognizing this
  fact. On the contrary we will come to
  cultural-historic agnosticism and even
  solipsism as Lifshitz indicated.  
• Its senseless to discuss the nature of humans
  psyche, thinking and consciousness putting aside
  cultural and sociocultural distinctions. Culture
  being widely understood as a sphere of collective
  human activity is the special objective reality
  inside which all human psyche is formed. It is
  this collective work that all sides of human
  psyche consciousness, thinking, reason,
  imagination, memory are involved into. The
  collective experience of generations objectifies,
  turns generally accessible, and its rules,
  schemes and laws turn valid. A person has to
  consider them even more than his/her own
  experience. Evald Ilenkov didnt stop even
  before characterizing the influence of these
  collectively produced schemes and norms with the
  word forced to underline the objective
  character, without which the discussion about
  human thinking turns senseless. Take it away and
  youll keep an event stream without any
  stability, certainty, order or form, and a
  stream of feelings corresponding with it in
  which the human self consciousness, deprived of
  identity, flounders.
• But all this is only one side of the deed, its
  half. In the very word forced a very
  complicated problem is hidden. Ilenkov realized
  this problem. Unlike animals the schemes of vital
  activity are not given to a human individual
  together with the organization of his natural
  body, they are not encoded in his/her anatomy and
  physiology, in the structure of his brains and
  instincts. In this (but only in this) sense a
  human being can be estimated as tabula rasa a
  creature mostly plastic and capable to act
  according to shapes and schemes of all things. We
  can say the lesser role are paying in his/her
  vital activity encoded structures, a fixed
  order, the freer is he/she the more adequately
  he/she can cognize the order of things. This is
  Spinozian thought. What will change in principle
  if in place of biologiczl organization we put a
  socio-cultural organization? Both there and her?
  the schemes of activity will act forcibly. How in
  this case we can distinguish a human from a
  trained animal, from a bicycling bear acting
  according schemas alien to his biology? If a
  Chinese will never understand Kant while a
  European Confucius (as Spengler asserted) then
  an interaction of cultures and the very existence
  inside one culture are a fiction, something like
  bicycling bear. Thus an acquisition of both alien
  and native sociocultural schemes will be no more
  than banal training.

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• If the schemes of human activity are encoded in
  his/her social, inorganic body, in culture, if
  they are acting forcibly then what will be the
  distinction between forcibility of the second
  type and the first one? Both there and here weve
  lost a subject. Both there and here he is only
  forced from outside. Both there and here he/she
  is mere a marionette. Both there and here there
  is no room for psychology.
• Culture instructs while an individual is
  learning, he/she instructs himself/herself,
  he/she discovers social truths as truths of
  his/her own experience. Teaching and schooling
  are two opposite poles of human thinking. It lies
  in crossing of these coordinates.
• Unfortunately many theorists find it sufficient
  to include to their discourses in psychology, in
  logic or in philosophy of science etc. the
  magic word socio-historic (context or
  determination or something alike) to solve
  magically all problems. If you meat some
  culturally specific individuals mode of thinking
  try to find an archetype hidden in the history
  of this society. We have nothing to object to
  such type of investigation in the sphere of
  psychology or cognitive sociology, but we have to
  realize that an invocation on society in
  explanation of thinking demands big sacrifice.
• Here is the explanation of the term social fact
  given by one of the founders of modern sociology.
  If you leave your house in fair weather and open
  your umbrella only because everybody in the
  street are standing with open umbrellas, in this
  case we deal with social fact. Was he right? We
  are sure that a person who opens his umbrella
  only because everybody do it is not a human being
  but a marionette which is pulled strings wires,
  hi is mere automaton, acting according
  behaviorist S?R scheme. Similarly a person who
  laughs no because something makes him laugh but
  only because everybody are laughing around him
  is looking as an idiot. S?R idiot.

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• A subject, a thinking, a psyche are only exist
  where culture is not an opaque egg but it plays
  role of an optical system which enables us to see
  an objective world. Surely each human can see
  originally but in general case he/she is not
  contemplating his own uniqueness but the very
  reality which is one and the same for all of us
  just as the Sun. In the same time the originality
  doesnt restricts, but on the contrary it widens
  our cognitive capacities. A human who feels free
  inside different cultures has a wider mental
  outlook and can understand much more.
• We have to grasp in one and the same notion and I
  the same time two opposites both object and
  subject, internal and external.
• How can we realize this aim?
• Here you are the key to this antinomy. WE cant
  understand the nature of psyche neither from
  objective nor from subjective. Psyche is a real
  dialectical movement of 1. objectification, i.e.
  objectification (opredmechivanie) of subjects
  condition, and 2. subjectivisation, i.e.
  desobjectification (raspredmechivanie), revealing
  of its human meaning and activity function.
• Thus our starting point is not something
  external (a thing) as well as not something
  internal (a subjective reality) but the very
  process of transition, of transformation of
  external into internal and vice verca. This
  process is accomplished in object oriented
  activity.

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• 8. And finally a few words about the role of
  signs in thinking.
• Here we have to highlight the basic divergence
  between two strategies in research of thinking
  the strategy of Vygotsky and the strategy of
  Illenkov.
• The Vygotskys strategy consists of tracing of
  development of thinking from concrete to
  abstract, from sensual contemplation to abstract,
  significative, sign mediated thinking. He
  realised his strategy in investigation od so
  called syncrets, complexes and notions.
• Ilenkovs strategy is quite opposite, it starts
  from an abstract and ascends to concrete, he
  moves from the concept (predstavlenie) even
  expressed in words, to the real understanding, or
  conception (ponatie), i.e. to the real meaning.
• Vygotsky deals with a word as with a unit of
  analysis of thinking. A word mediates the
  relation between stimulus and reaction, i.e. S?R
  relation. It is an essence of his famous triangle
  of mediation. Consequently in the basis of
  thinking he put a mechanical S?R relation.
  Something like knee reflex.
• Basically important chain in his discourse is a
  sign mediating stimulus and reaction connection.
  A sign or a word in this scheme is something like
  meditative structures of Levi-Strauss. A sign
  as a mediator.
• A purpose of mediating structures is the follows
  to help a child to perfume a transition from
  vital stimulus to abstract thought, to cultural
  value. We try to impart knowledge to a child, to
  provoke his/her intellectual appetite to learning
  and to science etc. Then on the way to
  sought-for reaction we put a bait - positive
  reinforcement. Do you like a candy? Than solve a
  problem. Thus stretching your hands for sweet you
  will unwittingly eat the useful things.
• Unfortunately that is the predominant way of
  teaching in modern school. The school say learn
  and you turn rich, learn and you become
  successful. It looks like a bitter pill in sweet
  cover.
• Just in this way Vygotsky understands a mediating
  role of abstract word. The initial premise is
  natural interest to something concrete, to
  something sweetish. But on the way to the candy
  one unwittingly will eat bitter.

22

• Vygotsky distinguished three functions of a word
  1. nominative, 2. indicative, and 3. signicative.
  
• The nominative function of a word consists of
  ascribing an individual name to an object. Sign
  is therefore a label stuck on a thing.
• In indicative function a sign is not attached to
  the single thing but to the group of things. It
  indicates the common trait now. Here we have
  generalisation and abstraction.
• The third and the highest stage is abstract
  thinking as it is. In word as a sign the general
  is separated from individual, the meaning of the
  word is general as it is.
• Thus sign can separate abstract and general from
  one side and concrete and individual from the
  other. Thus the verbal thinking because it
  operates with abstractions and generalisations is
  declaring a thinking as it is.
• A word, a sign replaces a thing. On what grounds?
  A sign has nothing to do with his denotatum.
  Repeating the word chocolate doesnt make you
  feel the taste of it. Meanwhile we are being
  persuaded that say the word milk is nearly this
  tasty and nourishing white liquid.
• Bergson ironically remarked we think with
  labels, i.e. fictions. A conventional sign is a
  fiction. Consequently a thinking based on signs
  is based on fictions.

23

• I dare to say that the nominative function of a
  sign doesnt exist at all. A sign cant be
  related to a thing. That is absurdity, nonsense.
  According to Alexander Mescheriakov which worked
  with deaf-blind children in Zagorsk a dog can
  grasp a conditional relation between a sign and a
  thing after eight to ten attempts, while a human
  child needs roughly eight thousand attempts. One
  can say that a dog is a thousand times more smart
  than a child.
• But the thing is that this connection is absurd
  and a human child is more sensible for this
  absurdity just because of his smartness. An
  isolated sign cant be connected with a thing
  because the isolated sign is something
  meaningless. We have had minimum two signs. If at
  each crossroads we can see only red traffic light
  it means for us no more than say the color of its
  mast. The name Lev has some meaning only because
  besides and alongside with Lev exist Ivan, and
  Mike, and Natalia and so on. The object
  attribution is not a quality of a single sign but
  of relation between signs. This relation is the
  same as the relation between things. (Ordo et
  connection). The so called nominative function
  is no more that a new edition of decrepit
  Hegelian idea of Namengebendekraf - or naming
  ability.
• Ferdinand de Saussure convincingly argued that a
  language consists from phonemes, not from sounds.
  It is a speech which consists of sounds.
  Meanwhile Vygotsky didnt distinguish a language
  and a speech. Phoneme is a sound in function of
  differentiation of meanings. Not the identifying
  of a sound and a thing lies in the basis of
  language, but identifying of two orders of order
  of things and of order of signs (sounds). So we
  can see how exact was Spinoza in his idea that
  The order and connection of ideas is the same as
  the order and connection of things (Spinoza)
  One instead of two different orders. It is
  similar to the case with Bororo and Arara. Bororo
  differ from their neighbours in the same way as a
  parrot and a jaguar.

24

• Ilenkovs strategy of study of thinking is
  opposite to the one described above to the
  strategy of Vygotsky
• 1. Thinking moves not from concrete to abstract
  (this is movement to nowhere), but from abstract
  to concrete, to exactly definite sense. When I
  say clock I dont mean the generalities of
  mechanical, electronic, sidereal or sun clocks,
  hourglass, and even my pulse. I mean only one
  absolutely concrete thing the function of time
  measurement the meaning.
• 2. What Vygotsky calls ponyatie, conception, is
  only predstavlenie, concept expressed in word for
  Il'enkov
• 3. Vygotsky understands generalization as the
  finding of the general characteristic, abstract,
  that is inherent in all things of the given
  class. On the contrary, Ilenkov says, that
  ponyatie, conception doesnt need lots of things,
  a group of different things that have something
  similar. Nicola Carno didnt need thousands of
  steam engines he needed only one.
• 4. The thinking of an engineer isnt expressed
  in words, but in schemes, and the thinking of
  Leonardo da Vinci isnt expressed in words
  either. Both examples of thinking arent anyhow
  worse than thinking of a philosopher or a
  mathematician that is expressed in words.
• The conclusion the cultural-historical
  psychology is impossible without a theory of
  object oriented activity. We find approach to
  understanding this in the works of Vygotsky. In
  Russia Il'enkov, Leont'ev and Mescheryakov
  confidently worked in this direction.