Psychology - Vygotsky L. Formation of psychological theory L.S.
Everyone knows Freud, Jurg - the majority, Carnegie and Maslow - many. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich is a name more likely for professionals. The rest have only heard the name and, at best, can associate it with defectology. That's all. But this was one of the brightest stars of Russian psychology. It was Vygotsky who created a unique direction that has nothing in common with the interpretation of the formation of the human personality of any of the science gurus. In the 30s, everyone in the world of psychology and psychiatry knew this name - Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. The works of this man created a sensation.
Scientist, psychologist, teacher, philosopher
Time does not stand still. New discoveries are being made, science is moving forward, restoring in some ways and rediscovering in others what was lost. And if you conduct a street survey, it is unlikely that many respondents will be able to answer who Lev Semenovich Vygotsky is. The photos - old, black and white, blurry - will show us a young, handsome man with a thoroughbred, elongated face. However, Vygotsky never became old. Perhaps fortunately. His life flashed like a bright comet on the arch of Russian science, flashed and went out. The name was consigned to oblivion, the theory was declared erroneous and harmful. Meanwhile, even if we discard the originality and subtlety of Vygotsky’s general theory, the fact that his contribution to defectology, especially children’s, is invaluable is beyond doubt. He created a theory of working with children suffering from damage to the sensory organs and mental disorders.
Childhood
November 5, 1986 It was on this day that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born in Orsha, Mogilev province. The biography of this person did not contain any bright and surprising events. Wealthy Jews: father is a merchant and banker, mother is a teacher. The family moved to Gomel, and there a private teacher, Solomon Markovich Ashpiz, was involved in teaching the children, a rather remarkable figure in those parts. He did not practice traditional teaching methods, but Socratic dialogues, which were almost never used in educational institutions. Perhaps it was this experience that determined Vygotsky’s own unusual approach to teaching practice. His cousin, David Isaakovich Vygodsky, a translator and famous literary critic, also influenced the formation of the worldview of the future scientist.
Student years
Vygotsky knew several languages: Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Latin, English and Esperanto. He studied at Moscow University, first at the medical faculty, then transferred to law. For some time he studied science in parallel at two faculties - law and history and philosophy, at the University. Shanyavsky. Later, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky decided that he was not interested in jurisprudence and focused entirely on his passion for history and philosophy. In 1916, he wrote a two-hundred-page work devoted to the analysis of Shakespeare's drama Hamlet. He later used this work as his thesis. This work was highly appreciated by experts, since Vygotsky used a new, unexpected method of analysis, which allows one to look at a literary work from a different angle. Lev Semenovich was only 19 years old at that time.
When he was a student, Vygotsky did a lot of literary analysis and published works on the works of Lermontov and Bely.
First steps into science
After the revolution, having graduated from university, Vygotsky first left for Samara, then with his family looked for work in Kyiv and, in the end, returned to his native Gomel, where he lived until 1924. Not a psychotherapist, not a psychologist, but a teacher - this is precisely the profession that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky chose. A brief biography of those years can fit in a few lines. He worked as a teacher in schools, technical schools, and courses. First he headed the theater department of education, and then the art department, wrote and published (critical articles, reviews). For some time, Vygotsky even worked as an editor for a local publication.
In 1923, he was the leader of a group of students at the Moscow Pedological Institute. The experimental work of this group provided material for study and analysis that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky could use in his works. His activity as a serious scientist began precisely in those years. At the All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurologists in Petrograd, Vygotsky made a report based on the data obtained as a result of these experimental studies. The work of the young scientist created a sensation; for the first time words were heard about the emergence of a new direction in psychology.
Carier start
It was with this speech that the career of the young scientist began. Vygotsky was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. Outstanding psychologists of that time - Leontyev and Luria - already worked there. Vygotsky not only organically fit into this scientific team, but also became an ideological leader, as well as an initiator of research.
Soon, practically every practicing psychotherapist and defectologist knew who Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was. The main works of this outstanding scientist will be written later, but at that time he was a brilliant practitioner for everyone, personally engaged in pedagogical and therapeutic activities. Parents of sick children made incredible efforts to get an appointment with Vygotsky. And if you managed to become an “experimental sample” in the laboratory of anomalous childhood, it was considered an incredible success.
How did a teacher become a psychologist?
What is so unusual about the theory that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky proposed to the world? Psychology was not his core subject; he was, rather, a linguist, literary critic, cultural critic, and practicing teacher. Why exactly psychology? Where?
The answer lies in the theory itself. Vygotsky was the first to try to move away from reflexology; he was interested in the conscious formation of personality. Figuratively speaking, if personality is a house, then before Vygotsky, psychologists and psychiatrists were exclusively interested in the foundation. Of course it is necessary. Without this there will be no home. The foundation largely determines the building - shape, height, some design features. It can be improved, improved, strengthened and isolated. But this does not change the fact. The foundation is just the foundation. But what will be built on it is the result of the interaction of many factors.
Culture determines the psyche
If we continue the analogy, it was precisely these factors that determine the final appearance of the house that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was interested in. The main works of the researcher: “Psychology of Art”, “Thinking and Speech”, “Psychology of Child Development”, “Pedagogical Psychology”. The scientist's range of interests clearly shaped his approach to psychological research. A person passionate about art and linguistics, a gifted teacher who loves and understands children - this is Lev Nikolaevich Vygotsky. He clearly saw that it was impossible to separate the psyche and the products it produced. Art and language are products of the activity of human consciousness. But they also determine the emerging consciousness. Children do not grow up in a vacuum, but in the context of a certain culture, in a linguistic environment that has a great influence on the psyche.
Educator and psychologist
Vygotsky understood children well. He was a wonderful teacher and a sensitive, loving father. His daughters said that they had a warm, trusting relationship not so much with their mother, a strict and reserved woman, but with their father. And they noted that the main feature of Vygotsky’s attitude towards children was a feeling of deep, sincere respect. The family lived in a small apartment, and Lev Semenovich did not have a separate place to work. But he never pulled the children back, did not forbid them to play or invite friends to visit. After all, this was a violation of the equality accepted in the family. If guests come to their parents, children have the same right to invite friends. To ask not to make noise for a while, as an equal to an equal, is the maximum that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich allowed himself. Quotes from the memoirs of the scientist’s daughter, Gita Lvovna, will allow you to look “behind the scenes” of the life of an outstanding Russian psychologist.
Vygotsky's daughter about her father
The scientist’s daughter says that there was not much separate time dedicated to her. But her father took her with him to work, to college, and there the girl could freely look at any exhibits and preparations, and her father’s colleagues always explained to her what, why and why she needed it. So, for example, she saw a unique exhibit - Lenin’s brain, stored in a jar.
Her father did not read children's poems to her - he simply did not like them, he considered them tasteless and primitive. But Vygotsky had an excellent memory, and he could recite many classical works by heart. As a result, the girl developed excellently in art and literature, without at all feeling her age inadequacy.
People around about Vygotsky
The daughter also notes that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was extremely attentive to people. When he listened to the interlocutor, he concentrated on the conversation completely. During the dialogue with the student, it was impossible to immediately make out who was the student and who was the teacher. The same point is noted by other people who knew the scientist: janitors, servants, cleaners. They all said that Vygotsky was an exceptionally sincere and benevolent person. Moreover, this quality was not demonstrative, developed. No, it was just a character trait. Vygotsky was very easily embarrassed; he was extremely critical of himself, but at the same time he treated people with tolerance and understanding.
Work with children
Perhaps it was sincere kindness, the ability to deeply feel other people and treat their shortcomings with condescension that led Vygotsky to defectology. He always maintained that limited abilities in one thing are not a death sentence for a child. The flexible child's psyche actively seeks opportunities for successful socialization. Dumbness, deafness, blindness are just physical limitations. And the child’s consciousness instinctively tries to overcome them. The main responsibility of doctors and teachers is to help the child, push him and support him, and also provide alternative opportunities for communication and obtaining information.
Vygotsky paid special attention to the problems of mentally retarded and deaf-blind children as the most problematic socialized children, and achieved great success in organizing their education.
Psychology and culture
Vygotsky was keenly interested in the psychology of art. He believed that this particular industry is capable of exerting a critical influence on the individual, releasing affective emotions that cannot be realized in ordinary life. The scientist considered art to be the most important tool of socialization. Personal experiences form personal experience, but emotions caused by the influence of a work of art form external, public, social experience.
Vygotsky was also convinced that thinking and speech are interconnected. If developed thinking allows you to speak a rich, complex language, then there is an inverse relationship. The development of speech will lead to a qualitative leap in intelligence.
He introduced a third element into the consciousness-behavior connection familiar to psychologists - culture.
Death of a Scientist
Alas, Lev Semenovich was not a very healthy person. At the age of 19, he contracted tuberculosis. For many years the disease lay dormant. Vygotsky, although he was not healthy, still coped with his illness. But the disease progressed slowly. Perhaps the situation was aggravated by the persecution of the scientist that unfolded in the 1930s. Later, his family sadly joked that Lev Semenovich died on time. This saved him from arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, and his relatives from reprisals.
In May 1934, the scientist’s condition became so severe that he was prescribed bed rest, and within a month the body’s resources were completely exhausted. On June 11, 1934, the outstanding scientist and talented teacher Lev Semenovich Vygotsky died. 1896-1934 - only 38 years of life. Over the years, he has accomplished an incredible amount. His works were not immediately appreciated. But now many practices of working with abnormal children are based precisely on the methods developed by Vygotsky.
Ecology of knowledge. Psychology: The famous Russian psychologist and one of the founders of neurophysiology, Alexander Luria, has repeatedly admitted that “we owe everything good in the development of Russian psychology to Vygotsky.”
The famous Russian psychologist and one of the founders of neurophysiology, Alexander Luria, has repeatedly admitted that “in We owe this good thing in the development of Russian psychology to Vygotsky».
Lev Vygotsky- a truly iconic figure for several generations of psychologists and humanists, and not only domestic ones.
After his work “Thinking and Speech” was published in English in 1962, Vygotsky’s ideas spread widely in the USA, Europe, and then in other countries. When one of the American followers of the cultural-historical school, Uri Bronfenbrenner from Cornell University, managed to come to the USSR, he immediately confused Vygotsky’s daughter Gita Lvovna with the question: “I hope you know that your father is God for us?”
Vygotsky’s students, however, considered him a genius during his lifetime. As the same Luria recalls, at the end of the 20s, “our entire group devoted almost the entire day to our grandiose plan for the restructuring of psychology. L.S. Vygotsky was an idol for us. When he went somewhere, students wrote poems in honor of his journey.”
Lev Vygotsky with his daughter Gita, 1934.
- Vygotsky came to psychology from among theatergoers and art lovers - from the world of the “Silver Age” of Russian culture, in which he was well versed.
- After the revolution, he wrote reviews of theatrical productions and taught in his hometown of Gomel, prepared several works on Shakespeare's drama and developed the fundamentals of the psychology of art. Before the revolution, he attended the Shanyavsky People's University in Moscow, where he listened to lectures by the literary scholar and critic Yuri Aikhenvald and the philosopher Gustav Shpet and Georgy Chelpanov. Thanks to these courses and independent reading (in several languages), Vygotsky received an excellent education in the humanities, which he later supplemented with natural science.
- After the revolution, he wrote reviews of theatrical productions and taught in his hometown of Gomel, prepared several works on Shakespeare's drama and developed the foundations of the psychology of art.
- In 1924, he moved to Moscow again at the invitation of the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology, where he finally found his calling.
In the difficult conditions of post-revolutionary Russia, before he even reached the age of 38, he proposed many solutions in psychological theory and pedagogy that remain fresh today.
Already in 1926, Vygotsky stated: not only domestic, but also world psychology is in crisis. A complete restructuring of its theoretical foundations is necessary. All the opposing schools, the development of which was rapidly occurring in the first quarter of the 20th century, can be divided into two parts - natural science and idealistic.
The first studies reflexes and reactions to stimuli, and the position of the latter was most clearly expressed by Wilhelm Dilthey, who argued that “we explain nature, but we understand mental life.”
This opposition and this crisis can be overcome only through the creation of a general psychology- through systematization and organization of individual data about the human psyche and behavior. It was necessary to combine explanation and understanding in a single and holistic approach to the analysis of the human psyche.
What is most common to all the phenomena studied by psychology, what makes a wide variety of phenomena psychological facts - from the salivation of a dog to the enjoyment of tragedy, what is common in the delirium of a madman and the strictest calculations of a mathematician?
- Lev Vygotsky from “The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”
A person is fundamentally distinguished by the fact that he uses consciousness and signs- and this is precisely what psychology until then ignored (behaviourism and reflexology), considered in isolation from social practice (phenomenology) or replaced with unconscious processes (psychoanalysis). Vygotsky saw the way out of the crisis in dialectical materialism, although he was skeptical about attempts to directly adapt Marxist dialectics to psychology.
Marx had fundamentally important provisions about the determining role of social relations, instrumental and sign activity in the formation of the psyche:
The spider performs operations reminiscent of those of a weaver, and the bee, with the construction of its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head.
- Karl Marx "Capital", Chapter 5. The labor process and the process of valorization
A general psychology that would overcome the differences between different schools and approaches did not appear during Vygotsky’s lifetime, and it does not exist now. But in these revolutionary years in all respects, it seemed to many that this was quite possible: a general psychological theory was somewhere nearby, “we now hold in our hands the thread from it,” he writes in 1926 in notes that were later revised and published under the title “The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis.” At this time, Vygotsky was lying in the Zakharyino hospital, where he was urgently hospitalized due to an exacerbation of tuberculosis.
Luria later said: “ Doctors said that he had 3-4 months to live, he was placed in a sanatorium... And then he began to write frantically in order to leave behind some basic work».
Vygotsky’s classic scheme of behaviorism “stimulus - reaction” turns into the scheme “stimulus - sign (means) - reaction”. It was at this time that what would later be called “cultural-historical theory” began to take shape.
In 1927, Vygotsky was discharged from the hospital and, together with his colleagues, began conducting research on higher mental functions, which would bring him world fame. He studies speech and sign activity, genetic mechanisms of the formation of the psyche in the process of development of children's thinking.
The intermediate element transforms the entire scene of thinking, changes all its functions. What was a natural reaction becomes a conscious and socially conditioned cultural behavior.
3 theses of Vygotsky's psychology
« ...Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people as an interpsychic category, then within the child as an intrapsychic category. This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, to the formation of concepts, to the development of will.».
Similar ideas were once expressed by the French psychologist and philosopher Pierre Janet: he then transfers those forms of behavior that others initially applied to the child (“wash your hands,” “don’t talk at the table”) to himself.
This is what the famous formulation of the “general genetic law of cultural development” looks like:, which Vygotsky proposed in Thinking and Speech. We are talking here about the social origin of consciousness - but this formula can be interpreted in completely different ways.
Vygotsky does not at all claim that social factors entirely determine the development of the psyche. Just as it does not say that consciousness arises from natural, innate mechanisms of adaptation to the environment.
« Development is a continuous self-determined process, and not a puppet directed by pulling two strings" A child emerges as a separate personality only through interaction and active participation in the lives of others.
As Luria's experiments conducted in Uzbekistan in the early 1930s showed, the logical operations that we consider natural arise only in the context of formal learning. If they don't tell you at school what a circle is, the idea of a circle itself will not come down to you from Plato's world of ideas.
For the illiterate, a triangle is a tea stand or an amulet, a filled circle is a coin, an unfinished circle is a month, and there is nothing in common between them.
Let's say you were offered the following syllogism:
1. In the Far North, where there is always snow, all bears are white.
2. Novaya Zemlya is located in the Far North.
3. What color are the bears there?
If you have not been taught to reason in abstract terms and solve abstract problems, then you will answer something like “I have never been to the North and have not seen bears” or “you should ask people who have been there and seen them.”
Pioneers walk along the Maidan with drums. Uzbekistan, 1928.
Vygotsky and Luria showed that many mechanisms of thinking that seem to be universal are in fact conditioned by culture, history and certain psychological tools that do not arise spontaneously, but are acquired through learning.
« A person introduces artificial stimuli, signs behavior and, with the help of signs, creates, acting from the outside, new connections in the brain”; “in the highest structure, the functional defining whole or focus of the entire process is the sign and the way of its use” .
Vygotsky emphasizes that all forms of behavior characteristic of humans have a symbolic nature. Signs are used as psychological tools: the simplest example is a knot tied to memory.
Let's see how children play with blocks. This can be a spontaneous game in which pieces are piled on top of one another: this cube becomes a car, the next one a dog. The meaning of the figures is constantly changing, and the child does not come to any stable solution. The child likes it - the process itself brings him pleasure, and the result does not matter.
A teacher who considers such an activity pointless can ask the child to build a certain figure according to a drawn model. There is a clear goal here - the child sees where each cube should stand. But he is not interested in such a game. You can also offer a third option: let the child try to assemble a model from cubes, which is only approximately indicated. It cannot be copied - you need to find your own solution.
In the first version of the game, signs do not determine the child’s behavior - he is driven by the spontaneous flow of fantasy. In the second version, the sign (drawn model) acts as a predetermined sample that just needs to be copied, but the child loses his own activity. Finally, in the third version, the game gains a goal, but allows for multiple decisions.
This is precisely the form that human behavior has, mediated by signs that give it purpose and meaning without taking away freedom of choice.
«... By being involved in behavior, a psychological instrument changes the entire course and structure of mental functions. He achieves this by defining the structure of a new instrumental act, just as a technical tool changes the process of natural adaptation, determining the type of labor operations" But the action of a sign, unlike a weapon, is directed not outward, but inward. It not only conveys a message, but also acts as a means of self-determination.
Removal of the monument to Alexander III in Moscow, 1918.
“The immaturity of functions at the time of the start of training is a general and fundamental law”; “Pedagogy should focus not on yesterday, but on tomorrow’s child development. Only then will she be able to bring to life, in the process of learning, those developmental processes that now lie in the zone of proximal development.”
The concept of the "zone of proximal development" is one of Vygotsky's most famous contributions to educational theory. A child can independently perform a certain range of tasks. With the help of leading questions and tips from the teacher, he can do much more. The gap between these two states is called the zone of proximal development. It is through her that any learning is always carried out.
To explain this concept, Vygotsky introduces a metaphor about a gardener who needs to monitor not only the ripened, but also the ripening fruits. Education should focus specifically on the future - what the child does not yet know how to do, but can learn. It is important to stay within this zone - not to dwell on what you have learned, but also not to try to jump too far ahead.
A person cannot exist separately from others - any development always occurs in a team. Modern science has achieved a lot not only because it stands on the shoulders of giants - no less important is the whole mass of people, who for the majority remain anonymous. Genuine talents arise not in spite of, but thanks to the surrounding conditions that push and direct their development.
And here Vygotsky’s pedagogy goes beyond the classroom: To ensure comprehensive human development, the entire society must change.
Many of Vygotsky's ideas and concepts remained unformed. The experimental work to test his bold hypotheses was mainly carried out not by himself, but by his followers and students (therefore, most of the specific examples in this article are taken from the works of Luria). Vygotsky died in 1934 - unrecognized, reviled and forgotten for many years by everyone except a narrow circle of like-minded people. Interest in his theory was revived only in the 50-60s in the wake of the “semiotic turn” in humanities research.
The famous “eight” of Vygotsky’s students. Standing: A.V. Zaporozhets, N.G. Morozova, and D.B. Elkonin, seated: A.N. Leontyev, R.E. Levina, L.I. Bozhovich, L.S. Slavina, A.R. Luria.
Today, his work is relied upon by both domestic representatives of cultural-historical theory and foreign sociocultural psychologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists and linguists. Vygotsky’s ideas have become part of the compulsory baggage of educators around the world.
This might interest you:
How would you define who you are if not for the avalanche of cultural clichés that others bombard us with on a daily basis? How would you know that the major and minor premises of a categorical syllogism lead to a very specific conclusion? What would you learn if it weren't for teachers, notebooks, classmates, class books, and grades?
The reason for Vygotsky's continued influence is that he shows the importance of all these elements that so easily escape our attention. published
Psychologist, professor (1928). He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1917) and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philology of the A. L. Shanyavsky People's University. In 1918-1924. worked in Gomel. Since 1924, in psychological scientific and educational institutions of Moscow (Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, Academy of Communist Education named after N.K. Krupskaya, Faculty of Pedagogy of the 2nd Moscow State University, Experimental Defectology Institute, etc.); He also worked at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov.
He began his scientific activity by studying the psychology of art - he explored the psychological patterns of perception of literary works ("The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", 1916; "Psychology of Art", 1925, published in 1965). He studied the theory of reflexological and psychological research (articles of 1925-1926), as well as the problems of educational psychology ("Educational Psychology. Short Course", 1926). He gave a deep critical analysis of world psychology of the 1920-1930s, which played an important role in the development of Soviet psychological science ("The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis", 1927, published 1982; see also Vygotsky's preface to the Russian translation of V. Köhler, K. Koffka, K. Bühler, J. Piaget, E. Thorndike, A. Gesell, etc.).
He created a cultural-historical theory of the development of human behavior and psyche, in which, based on the Marxist understanding of the socio-historical nature of human activity and consciousness, he examined the process of ontogenetic development of the psyche. According to this theory, the sources and determinants of human mental development lie in the historically developed culture. “Culture is the product of social life and social activity of a person, and therefore the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already introduces us directly to the social plan of development” (Collected Works, vol. 3, M., 1983, pp. 145-146). The main provisions of this theory: 1) the basis of a person’s mental development is a qualitative change in the social situation of his life; 2) the universal moments of a person’s mental development are his training and upbringing; 3) the initial form of life activity - its detailed implementation by a person in the external (social) plan; 4) psychological new formations that have arisen in a person are derived from the internalization of the original form of his life activity; 5) a significant role in the process of internalization belongs to various sign systems; 6) important in a person’s life and consciousness are his intellect and emotions, which are in internal unity.
In relation to human mental development, Vygotsky formulated a general genetic law: “Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then within the child, as an intrapsychic category.” ... The transition from outside to inside transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Behind all higher functions and their relationships there are genetically social relationships, real relationships between people" (ibid., p. 145).
Thus, according to Vygotsky, the determinants of mental development are not located inside the child’s body and personality, but outside it - in the situation of the child’s social interaction with other people (primarily with adults). In the course of communication and joint activity, patterns of social behavior are not only learned, but also basic psychological structures are formed, which subsequently determine the entire course of mental processes. When such structures are formed, we can talk about the presence in a person of the corresponding conscious and voluntary mental functions, consciousness itself.
The content of a person’s consciousness, arising in the process of internalization of his social (external) activity, always has a symbolic form. To realize something means to attribute meaning to an object, to designate it with a sign (for example, a word). Thanks to consciousness, the world appears before a person in a symbolic form, which Vygotsky called a kind of “psychological tool.” “A sign located outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the personality and serves, in essence, as a social organ or social means” (ibid., p. 146). In addition, a sign is a means of communication between people: “Every sign, if we take its real origin, is a means of communication, and we could say more broadly - a means of connecting certain mental functions of a social nature. Transferred to oneself, it is the same means of connection functions in itself" (ibid., vol. 1, p. 116).
Vygotsky's views were important for the psychology and pedagogy of education and training. Vygotsky substantiated the ideas of activity in the educational process, in which the student is active, the teacher is active, and the social environment is active. At the same time, Vygotsky constantly emphasized the dynamic social environment that connects teacher and student. “Education should be based on the personal activity of the student, and the entire art of the educator should be reduced only to directing and regulating this activity... The teacher is, from a psychological point of view, the organizer of the educational environment, the regulator and controller of its interaction with the student. .. The social environment is the true lever of the educational process, and the entire role of the teacher comes down to controlling this lever" (Pedagogical psychology. Short course, M., 1926, pp. 57-58). The main psychological goal of education and training is the purposeful and deliberate development in children of new forms of behavior and activity, i.e. systematic organization of their development (see ibid., pp. 9, 55, 57). Vygotsky developed the concept of the zone of proximal development. In Vygotsky’s view, “properly organized education of a child leads to the child’s mental development, brings to life a whole series of development processes that would otherwise be impossible without education. Education is... an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development of a child’s non-natural , but the historical characteristics of man" (Selected psychological studies, M., 1956, p. 450).
Analyzing the stages of mental development, Vygotsky formulated the problem of age in psychology and proposed a variant of periodization of child development based on the alternation of “stable” and “critical” ages, taking into account the mental neoplasms characteristic of each age. He studied the stages of development of children's thinking - from syncretic through complex, through thinking with pseudo-concepts to the formation of true concepts. Vygotsky highly appreciated the role of play in the mental development of children and especially in the development of their creative imagination. In a polemic with J. Piaget about the nature and function of speech, he methodologically, theoretically and experimentally showed that speech is social both in origin and in function.
Vygotsky made major contributions to many areas of psychological science. He created a new direction in defectology, showing the possibility of compensating for mental and sensory defects not through training of elementary, directly affected functions, but through the development of higher mental functions (“Main problems of modern defectology”, 1929). He developed a new doctrine about the localization of mental functions in the cerebral cortex, which marked the beginning of modern neuropsychology (“Psychology and the doctrine of the localization of mental functions”, 1934). He studied the problems of the connection between affect and intellect ("The Teaching of Emotions", 1934, partially published in 1968, fully in 1984), problems of the historical development of behavior and consciousness ("Studies on the History of Behavior", 1930, jointly with A.R. Luria).
Some of Vygotsky’s studies, psychological in essence, were carried out using pedological terminology in the spirit of the times (for example, “Pedology of the Adolescent,” 1929-1931). This led to the mid-30s. sharp criticism of Vygotsky’s ideas, dictated mainly by extra-scientific reasons, since there were no real grounds for such criticism. For many years, Vygotsky's theory was excluded from the arsenal of Soviet psychological thought. Since the mid-50s. the assessment of Vygotsky’s scientific creativity is freed from opportunistic bias.
Vygotsky created a large scientific school. Among his students are L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, D. B. Elkonin and others. Vygotsky’s theory causes a wide resonance in world psychological science, including in the works of J. Bruner, Koffka, Piaget, S. Toulmin and others.
Literature: Scientific creativity of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1981; Bubbles A. A., Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1986; Davydov V.V., Zinchenko V.P., L.S. Vygotsky’s contribution to the development of psychological science, Soviet Pedagogy, 1986, No. 11; Yaroshevsky M. G., L. S. Vygotsky: search for principles of constructing general psychology, Questions of Psychology, 1986, No. 6; Leontiev A. A., L. S. Vygotsky. Book for students, M., 1990; Wertsch J. V., Vygotsky and the social Formation of mind, Camb. (Mass.) - L., 1985; Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives, ed. by J. V. Wertsch, Camb. - , 1985.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky is a famous Soviet psychologist, an outstanding researcher, the founder of the cultural-historical concept of the development of higher mental functions.
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born on November 17, 1896 in the city of Orsha, Mogilev province, in the family of a merchant and a teacher. A year later, the family moved to Gomel, where the father worked as deputy manager of a local bank. Lev graduated from school in this city. His interest in psychology arose after reading the book “Thought and Language” (author - A.A. Potebnya). His cousin, the later famous literary critic, David Vygodsky, had a significant influence on the future psychologist.
After graduating from school in 1913, he entered two educational institutions: the Faculty of Law of Moscow University and the Faculty of History and Philosophy at the People's University. As a student, he wrote a study on “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W. Shakespeare.” In 1916, he published articles on literary topics, wrote actively on topics of Jewish history and culture, expressing a negative attitude towards the ideas of socialism and rejection of anti-Semitism in Russian literature. Already in 1917, he dropped out of his studies at the Faculty of Law and completed his studies at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the university.
After the revolution of 1917, Lev Semyonovich went to his hometown of Gomel and worked first as a literature teacher, and then as a teacher of philosophy and logic at a technical school, where he soon created an office of experimental psychology and conducted research work.
In 1924, at a congress on psychoneurology in Leningrad, Lev Vygotsky made a report “Methodology of reflexological and psychological research.” An unknown young scientist gave a brilliant presentation, which attracted the attention of famous psychologists of that time: A. Leontiev and A. Luria, and was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology, which was headed by N.K. Kornilov.
Lev Semenovich, without a psychological education, who came to psychology as if “from the outside,” looked at psychological science in a new way; he was not burdened by the traditions of “academic” psychology.
Vygotsky gained the greatest fame by creating a psychological theory called the “cultural-historical concept of the development of higher mental functions.” The essence of the concept, which is an alternative to existing theories, and above all behaviorism, lies in the synthesis of teachings about nature and culture. The study of the laws of cultural development gives an idea of the laws of personality formation.
According to the researcher, all mental functions given by nature itself are transformed over time into functions of the highest level of development: mechanical memory becomes logical, the flow of ideas becomes creative imagination, impulsive action becomes voluntary, etc. All these processes originate in the child’s social contacts with adults, becoming entrenched in his consciousness. The spiritual development of a child was made dependent on the influence of adults on him. Lev Semyonovich became convinced that the formation and development of a child’s personality is equally influenced not only by heredity, but also by social factors.
He devoted a lot of work to the study of mental development, as well as the formation of personality in childhood, teaching children at school, including those with various developmental anomalies.
Lev Semyonovich played a special role in the development of the science of defectology. He first created a laboratory for the psychology of abnormal childhood, which later became part of the Experimental Defectology Institute. Vygotsky theoretically substantiated and confirmed in practice that any deficiency in psychological and physical development can be corrected. When studying the psychological characteristics of abnormal children, he paid special attention to the mentally retarded and deaf-blind. Lev Semyonovich considered it his duty that if defective children live among us, then every effort must be made to ensure that they become full members of society.
In 1924, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky moved to Moscow and lived in this city for the last decade of his life with his whole family.
In 1925, Vygotsky defended his dissertation “The Psychology of Art,” in which he put forward the position of a special “psychology of form” and argued that art is a means of transforming personality and radically changes the affective sphere, which plays an important role in the organization of behavior. This work was published after the scientist’s death.
Already at the last stage of his scientific activity, he investigated the problem of thinking and speech, and published a work called “Thinking and Speech,” in which he emphasized the idea of the existing inextricable connection between thinking and speech. The level of development of thinking depends on the formation and development of speech, that is, these processes are interdependent.
In the summer of 1925, for the only time as a responsible employee of the People's Commissariat for Education, he traveled abroad, to London, to the International Conference on the Education of Deaf-Mute Children.
L.S. Vygotsky belongs to the triad “consciousness-culture-behavior” instead of the dyad “consciousness-behavior”, with which the thoughts of other psychologists were associated.
He published about 200 scientific works (over a total of 37 years of life), including Collected Works in six volumes, works on problems of psychological development from birth and personality formation, and on the influence of the team on the individual.
Of course, Lev Semyonovich influenced not only psychology, but also related sciences - pedagogy, philosophy, defectology. Unfortunately, his fruitful work, as happens with talented people, was not appreciated during his lifetime. Moreover, from the beginning of the 30s of the last century, persecution began; the authorities accused him of ideological perversions.
Back in 1919, Vygotsky fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, and throughout the subsequent years of his life he struggled with this disease, but it turned out to be stronger. Lev Semyonovich died on June 11, 1934 in Moscow at the age of only 37 years.
