Introduction to Vygotsky's Mind in Society

From WikEd

Two of the editors, Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner, author the Introduction to this volume. One of their primary goals seems to be to place Vygotsky and his work in a historical context--within the fields of child development, biological science and comparative psychology, and philosophy.

According to Cole & Scribner, Vygotsky was striving to address several fundamental questions (not a comprehensive list):

(1) How is human development unique and separate from other animals or primates?

(2) What is the relationship between tools and material labor on the one hand (a la Engels) and individual cognition and social meaning on the other?

(3) How can higher psychological functions be studied, operationalized, and understood in non-reductive terms?

The authors strive to place these questions and Vygotsky's efforts toward addressing them squarely within the existing interests of the scientific community of Vygotsky's peers. One criticism occasionally leveled at Soviet Psychology is that it is entirely derivative of Marx and attempts to merely translate Marxist thought into the study and theory of mind. Cole & Scribner argue (effectively, I think) that rather, Vygotsky found in Marx's writings a novel and compelling approach to many questions that were already "in the air," so to speak.

Cole & Scribner also address another criticism often leveled at Vygotsky in particular, that his "experiments" are lacking the kind of large subject pool and statistical tests we associate with experimental psychology today. They point out that his illness was the driving force behind the desire to articulate many facets of his theory and use limited "experiments" as demonstrations or examples, rather than to delve deeply into repeated measures and test subtle nuances of one area. Sadly, Vygotsky's laboratory and his work in psychology only lasted for 10 years before he died of tuberculosis in 1934. Thus is has been up to his students and those who come after and find his theory compelling to explore all the possibilities.