{"title":"Capital and the Urpraxis of Socialism","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127219750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Unit of Analysis and Germ Cell in Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","authors":"A. Blunden","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_004","url":null,"abstract":"“Psychology is in need of its own Das Kapital,” wrote Vygotsky in 1928, observing that “the whole of Das Kapital is written according to this method,” the method in which Marx identifies the ‘cell’ of bourgeois society ‒ an exchange of commodities ‒ and then unfolds the entire process of bourgeois society from an analysis of the contradictions within this single cell. Vygotsky was the first to grasp Das Kapital in this way, and his application of the method of ‘analysis by units’ is his most important legacy. What Vygotsky did was to produce one study which would function as an exemplar for research in psychology. That one study addressed the age-old problem of the relation between thinking and speech. By solving this one problem in an exemplary fashion, he created a paradigm for research in all domains of psychology, and as a matter of fact, in all the sciences. Vygotsky in fact left us as many as five different exemplars of analysis by units.","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127437995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anthony Giddens on Structuration","authors":"A. Giddens","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"435 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123417781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perezhivanie as Human Self-Creation","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129998286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tool and Sign in Vygotsky’s Development","authors":"A. Blunden","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_008","url":null,"abstract":"Vygotsky’s view on tools, signs and the spoken word are elaborated through a comparison of his early anthropological writings with his later works. It is argued that these relations underlie ideological tensions which persist across the human sciences to this day. There is a tension within Vygotsky’s writing, and in its interpretation, hinging around the relation of sign and tool, sometimes taken up under the heading of word and deed (or action). This contradiction turns out to be a microcosm of the tension between language and labour in the wider field of Marxist theory, which in turn evokes the class antagonisms underlying the original work of Marx and Engels, antagonisms which have continued to be reflected in the development of theory up to the present time. Vygotsky’s final position was expressed clearly enough on the last page of “Thinking and Speech” (1934), here taken up under the heading of word and deed: The connection between thought and word is not a primal connection that is given once and forever. It arises in development and itself develops. “In the beginning was the word.” Goethe answered this Biblical phrase through Faust: “In the beginning was the deed.” Through this statement, Goethe wished to counteract the word’s over-valuation. ... we can agree with Goethe that the word as such should not be overvalued and can concur in his transformation of the Biblical line to, “In the beginning was the deed.” Nonetheless, if we consider the history of development, we can still read this line with a different emphasis: “In the beginning was the deed. (1934, p. 284-5) Although Vygotsky does not here touch on the question of tool and sign, this is, as will be seen, a clear and succinct statement of the relation, leaving to the reader the work of unfolding from that relation the richness and complexity of the history of intertwined development alluded to. However, there are other statements of Vygotsky, at other times and in other terms, and interpretations of his writing by other writers which oblige us to look more deeply into this problem. Let us first review what Vygotsky himself said on the topic, which is variously expressed in terms of sign/symbol & tool, word & action/deed or psychological tool & technical tool. Vygotsky’s Early Writing on the Development of Tools The story begins with the book Vygotsky wrote in collaboration with Luria in 1929, Ape, Primitive Man, and Child: Essays in the History of Behaviour. Vygotsky wrote the first two chapters, mainly drawing on the reports of contemporary zoologists, anthropologists and ethnologists. Vygotsky’s ideas were later tested out by Luria in an expedition to * This article was first published on the web in 2015. Vygotsky uses the term “primitive man.” This expression is ‘unmentionable’ in the light of both postcolonial and feminist sensibilities. However, it would be dishonest to excise this and similar terms from Vygotsky’s writing, written at a time before these terms were problematis","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130173621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Amartya Sen on Critical Voice and Social Choice Theory","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134058002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Origins of Collective Decision Making (Synopsis)","authors":"A. Blunden","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_020","url":null,"abstract":"Ever since participating in the S11 protests against the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in 2000, I have been intrigued by processes of collective decision making and in particular by the antagonism between the two main paradigms used on the Left, viz., Majority and Consensus. Reading the literature arising from the Occupy Wall Street events in 2011 I became alarmed at the depth of this antagonism and in particular the way the problem was being aggravated by ‘histories’ of Consensus decision making based on hearsay and ill-informed speculation, and the apparent belief that Majority decision making does not have a history at all.","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133434446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bourdieu on Status, Class and Culture","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_026","url":null,"abstract":"If social class is defined by relation to the means of production, this still does not tell us how classes are constituted as classes, nor how the complex status hierarchies of capitalist societies are articulated and internalised by individuals or how other systems of status subordination are integrated within a class system of domination. On its own, possession of greater or lesser title to means of production (“economic capital”) in fact explains very little about the dynamics of bourgeois society.","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128834855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Invention of Nicaraguan Sign Language","authors":"A. Blunden","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_013","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction In the 1980s, Nicaragua was a poor country, lacking in specialist resources and with low levels of literacy even amongst the hearing population, and was a country in which the deaf had no sign language. If a brand new sign language were to be created from scratch, it is hardly likely that children with no language capacity to begin with were going to be the ones to do it. So linguists and psychologists were shocked when it was reported that in the 1980s, in Nicaragua, without even the awareness let alone assistance of adults, deaf children themselves had invented a brand new sign-language, Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), linguistically distinct both from spoken Spanish and other sign languages ‒ a fully-fledged language with syntax and the capacity to reference abstract concepts and hypothetical or distant events. Since the children had no access to any language ‒ spoken Spanish or sign language, and mostly not even written Spanish ‒ it seemed impossible that they should have been able to acquire a language, let alone collectively invent one, unaided, from scratch – the only recorded case of the creation of an entirely new language, as opposed to a dialect or a creole of existing languages. “[Normal speech] development is achieved,” said Lev Vygotsky, “under particular conditions of interaction with the environment, where the final or ideal form [of speech] ... 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.” It follows from this that a deaf child will not","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"299 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115868683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Power, Activity and Human Flourishing","authors":"A. Blunden","doi":"10.1163/9789004470972_015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470972_015","url":null,"abstract":"Activity theory is a theory of human flourishing. ‘Human flourishing’ is the usual English translation of the Greek word eudemonia, the central concept of Aristotle’s ethics. As a current of scientific thinking, activity theory has the great merit that its central concept – ‘collaborative project’, also often referred to as ‘an activity’ – is equally a descriptive, explanatory and normative concept. ‘Human flourishing’ refers to the enjoyment of a good life, something which bears little relation to the consumption of material goods, is little concerned with rights, but rather with the expansion of a person’s capacity for enjoyment. As Aristotle showed, human flourishing is meaningful only in the context of the collaborative creation of a good life for all human beings. So activity theory is a scientific theory which is simultaneously an ethical theory. We not only see the world as made up of collaborative projects, and use collaborative projects to promote human flourishing, but we also advocate collaboration as the norm for secular life. The way all people ought to deal with one another is to collaborate with each other in projects. What I would like to reflect on in this essay is the question of how we see situations where the norm of collaboration goes wrong, and people find themselves trapped in projects toxic to their own health and that of others. In particular I want to tackle the problem of abuse of power, a topic which cannot even be clearly framed so long as ethical and analytical concepts are at odds with one another.","PeriodicalId":320224,"journal":{"name":"Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124024631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}