Vygotsky: An introduction

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Vygotsky An introduction
Luis C. Moll University of Arizona 31 August
2006 Revised September 4, 2006
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Concept of mediation
the psyche of social man (1971, 39)
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social in essence

• Vygotsky's special genius was in grasping the
  significance of the social in things as well as
  people. The world in which we live in is
  humanized, full of material and symbolic objects
  (signs, knowledge systems) that are culturally
  constructed, historical in origin and social in
  content. Since all human actions, including acts
  of thought, involve the mediation of such objects
  (tools and signs) they are, on this score
  alone, social in essence. This is the case
  whether acts are initiated by single agents or a
  collective and whether they are performed
  individually or with others (Scribner 1990, p.
  92).

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Mediation Psychological tools

• Psychological tools are artificial formations.
  By their nature they are social and not organic
  or individual devices. They are directed toward
  the mastery of mental processes, ones own or
  someone elsesjust as technical tools are
  directed toward the mastery of processes of
  nature
• Examples language, numeration, memory
  techniques, algebraic symbolism, works of art,
  writing, diagrams, maps, blueprints, conventional
  signs. (M. Cole, 2003).

• Mediation tools include the semiotic systems
  pertaining to different languages and to various
  scientific fields these are procedures, thought
  methodologies, and cultural objects thathave to
  be appropriated, practices of discourse and
  reasoning that have to be developed, and play or
  study practices that have to be exercised.
  (Pontecorvo, 1993, p. 191)

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Lifeworld

• Autopoiesis - Human beings not as a
  self-contained entities but as growing along a
  way of life (Ingold)
• Creating the conditions for development
• the evolution of species in nature is not the
  evolution out of nature

• Range of mediation
• Ideal
• Material
• Frequency
• Heterogeneity
• Social situation of development
• Structural
• Ideological
• Cultural activity or practices
• Personality
• Emotions
• Developmental Emphasis

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Situating mediation in social practices

• For Vygotsky, the social basis of mind involves
  all levels or organization of human affairs --
  societal and institutional as well as
  face-to-face. In a deep sense, it is difficult
  to understand how negotiation in direct
  face-to-face contexts take the forms they do
  without considering larger institutional and
  societal arrangements -- their resources and
  constraints, the social practices they involve,
  the motivations they inspire or extinguish, and
  the values they express and conceal ... The
  history of individuals participating in
  face-to-face encounters is interwoven with this
  larger social order of things. These meanings of
  social involve people, their relationships and
  their projects on multiple levels of analysis.
  (Scribner, 1990, p. 92)

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Language as semiotic mediation

• Most studies have addressed the use of semiotic
  systems, especially language, which Vygotsky
  emphasized as the tool of tools.
• Hasan (2004)
• What gives Vygotskys theoretical approach to
  mental development its enormous reach is the
  concept of semiotic mediation, which establishes
  connections across some of the most important
  areas of human social existence and foregrounds
  the fundamental relationship between mental
  functions and linguistic discourse within
  social/cultural activity (p. 112)

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Semiotic mediation and dispositions

• The most important role of semiotic
  mediations is to enable speaking subjects to
  internalize the world they experience in the
  living of their livesAs such, the most basic
  and fundamental achievement of semiotic mediation
  is the inculcation of mental dispositions
  tendencies to respond to situations in certain
  ways and beliefs about what things are worth
  doing in ones community and how they are to be
  done (p. 113)
• Invisible and visible mediations invisible is
  spontaneous
• primary visible is deliberate

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A sociocultural approach

• It emphasizes
• Mediated action in social context
• Developmental or genetic approach
• Grounded in analysis of everyday life events
• That thinking develops through joint mediated
  activity of people
• That individuals are active agents, but not in
  settings entirely of their own choosing
• The emergent nature of mind in culture
• Drawing upon multiple methods of study
• (from Cole, 1996, p. 104)

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1. The epigraphic finds of the 2001 excavation
season at Tell Brak included a fragment of a
large tablet containing an Early Dynastic scribal
exercise. The preserved portion of the tablet
contains lines 115-122 of ED Lu A, otherwise
known as the Standard Professions List. The
complete tablet must have contained a copy of the
full one hundred and twenty-nine-line
composition. This piece, TB 12381 (locus
TCJ-1674), is published as no. 3 in the
preliminary report that will appear in the
journal Iraq.
Figure 1 The Brak tablet TB 12381
Piotr Michalowski lt piotrm_at_umich.edu gt
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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References

• Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology A once and
  future discipline.
• Hasan, R. (2005). Language, Society and
  Consciousness Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan.
  Equinox PublishingUK.
• Ingold, T. (2002). On the distinction between
  evolution and history, Social evolution and
  history. Vol. 1, pp. 5-24, Uchitel Publishing
  House Moscow, Russia.
• Michalowski, Piotr http//cdli.ucla.edu
• Pontecorvo, C. (1993) Forms of discourse and
  shared thinking. In Cognition-and-Instruction.
  Vol 11(3-4) 189-196.
• Riviere, A. (2001/1996). La mirada Mental. Aique
  editores. (Spanish) ISBN 950701344X.
• Scribner, S. (1990). (cite to be supplied)
• Vygotsky, L.S. (1971/1925). Psychology of Art.

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On the origin of Autopoietic Theory in biology

• H. R. Maturana and F. J. Varela, Autopoiesis and
  Cognition. Dordrecht, Holland D. Reidel, 1980.
• F. J. Varela, Principles of Biological Autonomy.
  New York North Holland, 1979.
• H. R. Maturana and F. J. Varela, The Tree of
  Knowledge. Boston, MA Shambhala Publications,
  1987.
• Maturanas homepage http//www.inteco.cl/biology/