Questions of theory and history of psychology.

The first volume includes a number of works by the outstanding Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, devoted to the methodological foundations of scientific psychology and analyzing the history of the development of psychological thought in our country and abroad. This also includes the work The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis, published for the first time, which is, as it were, a synthesis of Vygotsky's ideas concerning a special methodology of psychological cognition.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 2. Problems of General Psychology

In the second volume of the Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky included works containing the main psychological ideas of the author. This includes the well-known monograph "Thinking and Speech", which represents the result of Vygotsky's work. The volume also includes lectures on psychology.

This volume directly continues and develops the range of ideas presented in the first volume of the Collected Works.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 3. Problems of the development of the psyche

The third volume includes the main theoretical study of L.S. Vygotsky on the problems of the development of higher mental functions. The volume consists of both previously published and new material. The author considers the development of higher psychological functions (attention, memory, thinking, speech, arithmetic operations, higher forms of volitional behavior; the child's personality and worldview) as the transition of "natural" functions into "cultural" ones, which occurs in the course of a child's communication with an adult on the basis of mediation. these functions by speech and other sign structures.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Child psychology

In addition to the monograph “Pedology of the Adolescent”, known from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters from the works “Problems of Age”, “Infancy”, and a number of special articles published for the first time.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Part 2. The problem of age

The volume is devoted to the main problems of child psychology: general issues of periodization of childhood, the transition from one age period to another, the characteristic features of development in certain periods of childhood, etc.

In addition to the monograph “Pedology of the Adolescent”, known from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters published for the first time from the works “Problems of Age”, “Infancy”.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 6. Scientific heritage

The volume included previously unpublished works: "The Teaching of Emotions (The Teaching of Descartes and Spinoza on Passions)", which is a theoretical and historical study of a number of philosophical, psychological and physiological concepts about the laws and neuromechanisms of a person's emotional life; "Tool and sign in the development of the child", covering the problems of the formation of practical intelligence, the role of speech in tool actions, the functions of sign operations in the organization of mental processes.

A detailed bibliography of the works of L. S. Vygotsky, as well as literature about him, is presented.

Imagination and creativity in childhood

Psychological and pedagogical foundations for the development of children's creative imagination are considered. First published in 1930 and republished by Enlightenment in 1967, this work has not lost its relevance and practical value.

The book is provided with a special afterword, which evaluates the works of L.S. Vygotsky c. areas of children's creativity.

Thinking and speech

The classic work of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky occupies a special place in the series on psycholinguistics. This is the work by which psycholinguistic science itself was actually founded, although even its name was not yet known. This edition of Thought and Speech offers the most authentic version of the text, untouched by later editorial revisions.

The main currents of modern psychology

The authors of the collection present and develop views on the psychology of the victorious clan of anti-mechanists in Soviet philosophy and openly support the positions of A.M. Deborin, who monopolized the study of philosophy in the country for almost the entire 1930.

Nevertheless, already at the end of 1930, Deborin and his group were criticized for "Menshevik idealism" and were removed from the leadership of philosophy in the country. As a result of this critique and a two-front campaign against mechanism (left inflection) and "Menshevik idealism" (right inflection), this publication has become inaccessible and rare.

Fundamentals of defectology

The book includes published in the 20-30-ies. works devoted to theoretical and practical issues of defectology: the monograph "General Issues of Defectology", a number of articles, reports and speeches. Children with visual impairments, hearing impairments, etc. can and should be educated so that they feel full and active members of society - this is the leading idea of ​​the works of L. S. Vygotsky.

Pedagogical psychology

The book contains the main scientific provisions of the largest Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), concerning the connection of psychology with pedagogy, education in children of attention, thinking, emotions.

It deals with the psychological and pedagogical problems of labor and aesthetic education of schoolchildren, taking into account their giftedness and individual characteristics in the process of education and upbringing. Particular attention is paid to the study of the personality of schoolchildren and the role of psychological knowledge in teacher work.

The problem of cultural development of the child

In the process of its development, the child learns not only the content of cultural experience, but the methods and forms of cultural behavior, cultural ways of thinking. In the development of the child's behavior, therefore, two main lines must be distinguished. One is the line of natural development of behavior, closely connected with the processes of general organic growth and maturation of the child. The other is the line of cultural improvement of psychological functions, development of new ways of thinking, mastery of cultural means of behavior.

So, for example, an older child may remember better and more than a younger child for two very different reasons. The processes of memory went through a certain development during this period, they rose to a higher level, but along which of the two lines this development of memory proceeded can be revealed only with the help of psychological analysis.

Psychology

The book contains all the main works of the outstanding Russian scientist, one of the most authoritative and well-known psychologists, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.

The structural construction of the book is made taking into account the program requirements for the courses "General Psychology" and "Age Psychology" of the psychological faculties of universities. For students, teachers and all those interested in psychology.

Psychology of art

The book of the outstanding Soviet scientist L. S. Vygotsky "The Psychology of Art" was published in the first edition in 1965, the second - in 1968 and won universal recognition. In it, the author summarizes his work of 1915-1922 and at the same time prepares those new psychological ideas that constituted Vygotsky's main contribution to science. "Psychology of Art" is one of the fundamental works characterizing the development of Soviet theory and art.

Psychology of human development

The works of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky represent the best pages of Russian psychological science. The ideas of Vygotsky and his school serve as the basis for the scientific worldview of new generations of psychologists throughout Russia. It is for them that this book has been prepared.

Development of higher mental functions. From unpublished works

This volume publishes the works of the prominent Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (“History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions”, “Lectures on Psychology”, “Behavior of Animals and Humans” and a number of reports).

At the center of this book is the work developed by L.S. Vygotsky's theory of the development of higher mental functions, sometimes referred to as the "theory of cultural development". It was the first systematic attempt to rebuild psychology on the basis of a historical approach to the human psyche.

The outstanding scientist Vygotsky Lev Semenovich, whose main works are included in the golden fund of world psychology, managed a lot in his short life. He laid the foundation for many subsequent trends in pedagogy and psychology, some of his ideas are still waiting to be developed. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky belonged to a galaxy of outstanding Russian scientists who combined erudition, brilliant rhetorical abilities and deep scientific knowledge.

Family and childhood

Lev Vygotsky, whose biography began in a prosperous Jewish family in the city of Orsha, was born on November 17, 1896. His surname at birth was Vygodsky, he changed the letter in 1923. The father's name was Simkh, but in the Russian manner they called him Semyon. Leo's parents were educated and wealthy people. Mom worked as a teacher, father was a merchant. In the family, Leo was the second of eight children.

In 1897, the Vygodskys moved to Gomel, where their father became a deputy bank manager. Leo's childhood was quite prosperous, his mother devoted all her time to children. The children of brother Vygodsky Sr. also grew up in the house, in particular brother David, who had a strong influence on Leo. The Vygodsky House was a kind of cultural center where the local intelligentsia gathered, cultural news and world events were discussed. The father was the founder of the first public library in the city, children got used to reading good books from childhood. Subsequently, several prominent philologists left the family, and in order to differ from his cousin, a representative of Russian formalism, Leo will change the letter in his surname.

Studies

For children, a private teacher, Solomon Markovich Ashpiz, was invited to the Vygodsky family, known for his unusual pedagogical method based on Socrates' Dialogues. In addition, he adhered to progressive political views and was a member of the Social Democratic Party.

The lion was formed under the influence of the teacher, as well as brother David. From childhood he was fond of literature and philosophy. His favorite philosopher was Benedict Spinoza, and the scientist carried this hobby through his whole life. Lev Vygotsky studied at home, but later successfully passed the exam for the fifth grade of the gymnasium externally and went to the 6th grade of the Jewish male gymnasium, where he received his secondary education. Leo studied well, but continued to receive private lessons in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English at home.

In 1913, he successfully passed the entrance exams to the Moscow University for the Faculty of Medicine. But pretty soon it is translated into legal. In 1916, he wrote many reviews of books by contemporary writers, articles on culture and history, and reflections on the "Jewish" question. In 1917, he decides to leave law and is transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology of the University. Shanyavsky, who graduates in a year.

Pedagogy

After graduating from university, Lev Vygotsky faced the problem of finding a job. He, with his mother and younger brother, first went to Samara in search of a place, then went to Kyiv, but in 1918 he returned to Gomel. Here he is connected to the construction of a new school, where he begins to teach with his older brother David. From 1919 to 1923 he worked in several educational institutions of Gomel, and also headed the department of public education. This pedagogical experience became the basis for his first scientific research in the field of methods of influencing

He organically enters the pedological direction, progressive for that time, which united Vygotsky, creates an experimental laboratory in the Gomel Technical School, in which his pedagogical psychology is formed. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich actively speaks at conferences and becomes a prominent scientist in a new field. After the death of the scientist, the works devoted to the problems of developing skills and teaching children will be combined in a book called "Pedagogical Psychology". It will contain articles on attention, aesthetic education, forms of studying the personality of the child and the psychology of the teacher.

First steps in science

While still studying at the university, Lev Vygotsky was fond of literary criticism, published several works on poetics. His work on the analysis of "Hamlet" by W. Shakespeare was a new word in literary analysis. However, Vygotsky began to engage in systematic scientific activity in another area - at the junction of pedagogy and psychology. His experimental laboratory carried out work that became a new word in pedology. Even then, Lev Semenovich was occupied with mental processes and questions about the teacher's activity. His works, presented at several scientific conferences, were bright and original, which allowed Vygotsky to become a psychologist.

Path in psychology

The first works of Vygotsky were connected with the problems of teaching abnormal children; these studies not only marked the beginning of the formation of defectology, but also became a serious contribution to the study of higher mental functions and mental patterns. In 1923, at a congress on psychoneurology, a fateful meeting took place with the outstanding psychologist A. R. Luria. He was literally subdued by Vygotsky's report and became the initiator of Lev Semenovich's move to Moscow. In 1924, Vygotsky received an invitation to work at the Moscow Institute of Psychology. Thus began the brightest, but short period of his life.

The interests of the scientist were very diverse. He dealt with the problems of reflexology relevant at that time, made a significant contribution to the study of higher mental functions, and also did not forget about his first affection - about pedagogy. After the death of the scientist, a book will appear that unites his many years of research - "Psychology of Human Development". Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was a methodologist of psychology, and this book contains his fundamental reflections on the methods of psychology and diagnostics. Particularly important is the part devoted to the psychological crisis, of extreme interest are the 6 lectures of the scientist, in which he dwells on the main issues of general psychology. Vygotsky did not have time to deeply reveal his ideas, but became the founder of a number of areas in science.

Cultural-historical theory

A special place in Vygotsky's psychological conception is occupied by the cultural-historical one. In 1928, he makes a statement, bold for those times, that the social environment is the main source of personality development. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich, whose works on pedology were distinguished by a special approach, rightly believed that the child goes through the stages of the formation of the psyche not only as a result of the implementation of biological programs, but also in the process of mastering "psychological tools": culture, language, counting system. Consciousness develops in cooperation and communication, so the role of culture in the formation of personality cannot be overestimated. Man, according to the psychologist, is an absolutely social being, and many mental functions cannot be formed outside of society.

"Psychology of Art"

Another important, milestone book for which Vygotsky Lev became famous is The Psychology of Art. It was published many years after the death of the author, but even then it made a huge impression on the scientific world. Its influence was experienced by researchers from various fields: psychology, linguistics, ethnology, art history, sociology. Vygotsky's main idea was that art is an important area for the development of many mental functions, and its emergence is due to the natural course of human evolution. Art is the most important factor in the survival of the human population, it performs many important functions in society and the lives of individuals.

"Thinking and Speech"

Vygotsky Lev Semenovich, whose books are still extremely popular all over the world, did not have time to publish his main work. The book "Thinking and Speech" was a real revolution in the psychology of its time. In it, the scientist was able to express many ideas that were formulated and developed much later in cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and social psychology. Vygotsky experimentally proved that human thinking is formed and developed exclusively in speech activity. At the same time, language and speech are also means of stimulating mental activity. He discovered the phasic nature of the formation of thinking and introduced the concept of "crisis", which is now used everywhere.

Scientist's contribution to science

Vygotsky Lev Semenovich, whose books today are mandatory reading for every psychologist, in his very short scientific life was able to make a significant contribution to the development of several sciences. His work became, among other studies, the impetus for the formation of psychoneurology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology. His psyche underlies an entire scientific school in psychology, which most actively begins to develop in the 21st century.

It is impossible to underestimate the contribution of Vygotsky to the development of Russian defectology, developmental and educational psychology. Many of his works are only today receiving their true assessment and development; in the history of Russian psychology, such a name as Lev Vygotsky now occupies an honorable place. The scientist's books are constantly reprinted today, his drafts and sketches are published, the analysis of which shows how powerful and original his ideas and plans were.

Vygotsky's students are the pride of Russian psychology, fruitfully developing his and their own ideas. In 2002, the scientist's book "Psychology" was published, which combined his fundamental research in the basic sections of science, such as general, social, clinical, and developmental psychology. Today, this textbook is the base for all universities in the country.

Personal life

Like any scientist, Vygotsky Lev Semenovich, for whom psychology has become a matter of life, devoted most of his time to work. But in Gomel he had a like-minded person, a bride, and later a wife - Roza Noevna Smekhova. The couple lived a short life together - only 10 years, but it was a happy marriage. The couple had two daughters: Gita and Asya. Both became scientists, Gita Lvovna - a psychologist and defectologist, Asya Lvovna - a biologist. The psychological dynasty was continued by the granddaughter of the scientist, Elena Evgenievna Kravtsova, who now heads the Institute of Psychology named after her grandfather.

End of the road

Back in the early 1920s, Lev Vygotsky fell ill with tuberculosis. He caused his death in 1934. The scientist continued to work until the end of his days and on the last day of his life he said: "I am ready." The last years of the psychologist's life were complicated by the gathering clouds around his work. Repressions and persecutions were approaching, so death allowed him to avoid arrest, and saved his relatives from reprisal.

Everyone knows Freud, Jurga - the majority, Carnegie and Maslow - many. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich is a name rather for professionals. The rest have only heard the surname and, at best, can associate it with defectology. And that's it. But it was one of the brightest stars of Russian psychology. It was Vygotsky who created a unique direction that has nothing to do with the interpretation of the formation of the human personality by any of the gurus of science. In the 1930s, in the world of psychology and psychiatry, everyone knew this name - Vygotsky Lev Semenovich. The work of this man made a splash.

Scientist, psychologist, teacher, philosopher

Time does not stand still. New discoveries are being made, science is moving forward, restoring something, rediscovering what was lost in something. And if you arrange a street poll, it is unlikely that many respondents will be able to answer who Vygotsky Lev Semenovich is. 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 vault of domestic 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 work with children suffering from damage to the organs of perception and mental disorders.

Childhood

November 5, 1986 It was on this day that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was born in Orsha, Mogilev province. The biography of this person did not contain bright and amazing 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 engaged in teaching children, a rather remarkable figure in those parts. He practiced not traditional teaching methods, but Socratic dialogues that were almost never used in educational institutions. Perhaps it was this experience that determined Vygotsky's own unusual approach to teaching practice. A cousin, David Isaakovich Vygodsky, a translator and well-known 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 Faculty of Medicine, then transferred to the Faculty of Law. For some time, he comprehended science in parallel at two faculties - legal and historical and philosophical, at the University. Shanyavsky. Later, Vygotsky Lev Semenovich 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 a thesis. This work was highly appreciated by experts, since Vygotsky applied a new, unexpected method of analysis, allowing him to look at a literary work from a different angle. Lev Semenovich at that time was only 19 years old.

When he was a student, Vygotsky did a lot of literary analysis, published works based on the works of Lermontov and Bely.

First steps in science

After the revolution, after graduating from high school, Vygotsky first left for Samara, then looked for work with his family 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 Vygotsky Lev Semenovich chose. A brief biography of those years can fit in a few lines. He worked as a teacher in schools, technical schools, courses. First he was in charge of the theatrical department of education, and then - the art department, wrote and published (critical articles, reviews). For a while, 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 Semyonovich Vygotsky could use in his writings. 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 made a splash, for the first time words were heard about the emergence of a new direction in psychology.

Carier start

It was from this speech that the career of a young scientist began. Vygotsky was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. Outstanding psychologists of that time, Leontiev and Luria, were already working 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 Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was. The main works of this outstanding scientist will be written later, at the same 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 a "guinea pig" in the laboratory of abnormal childhood - it was considered incredible luck.

How did a teacher become a psychologist?

What is so unusual about the theory offered to the world by Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky? After all, psychology was not his profile subject, he was rather a linguist, literary critic, culturologist, and a practicing teacher. Why exactly psychology? Where?

The answer is in the theory itself. Vygotsky was the first who tried to move away from reflexology, he was interested in the conscious formation of personality. Figuratively speaking, if a person is a house, then before Vygotsky, psychologists and psychiatrists were only interested in the foundation. Of course it is necessary. Without it, there will be no home. The foundation largely determines the building - the shape, height, some design features. It can be improved, perfected, strengthened and isolated. But that doesn't 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 Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was interested in. The main works of the researcher: "Psychology of Art", "Thinking and Speech", "Psychology of Child Development", "Pedagogical Psychology". The range of interests of the scientist clearly shaped his approach to psychological research. A person who is passionate about art and linguistics, a gifted teacher who loves and understands children - this is Vygotsky Lev Nikolayevich. 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.

Teacher and psychologist

Vygotsky understood children well. He was a wonderful teacher and a kind, loving father. His daughters said that they had a warm trusting relationship not so much with their mother, a strict and restrained 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 scolded the children, 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, the children have the same right to invite comrades. To ask them not to make noise for some time, as an equal of an equal - this 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 time dedicated to her specifically. But her father took her with him to work, to the institute, and there the girl could freely examine any exhibits and preparations, and her father's colleagues always explained to her what, why and why it was necessary. So, for example, she saw a unique exhibit - Lenin's brain, which was stored in a jar.

Her father did not read children's poems to her - he simply did not like them, he considered it a tasteless primitive. On the other hand, Vygotsky had an excellent memory, and he could recite many classical works by heart. As a result, the girl developed well in art and literature, not at all feeling her age discrepancy.

People around about Vygotsky

The daughter also notes that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was exceptionally attentive to people. When he listened to the interlocutor, he focused 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 moment 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, worked out. No, it was just a trait. Vygotsky was very easy to embarrass, he was extremely critical of himself, while treating people with tolerance and understanding.

Work with children

Perhaps it was his sincere kindness, his ability to deeply feel other people and treat their shortcomings with indulgence, that led Vygotsky to defectology. He always argued that abilities limited in one thing are not a sentence for a child. Flexible children's psyche is actively looking for opportunities for successful socialization. Silence, deafness, blindness are just physical limitations. And the child's consciousness instinctively tries to overcome them. The main duty of doctors and educators is to help, push and support the child, as well as to provide alternative opportunities for communication and information.

Vygotsky paid special attention to the problems of mentally retarded and deaf-blind children as the most difficult to socialize, and achieved great success in organizing their education.

Psychology and culture

Vygotsky was keenly interested in the psychology of art. He believed that it was this branch that was capable of exerting a critical influence on a person, releasing affective emotions that could not be realized in ordinary life. The scientist considered art the most important tool of socialization. Personal experiences form personal experience, but emotions, caused by the impact 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, culture, into the mind-behavior connection that is familiar to psychologists.

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, nevertheless coped with his illness. But the disease progressed slowly. Perhaps the situation was aggravated by the persecution of the scientist that unfolded in the 30s. Later, his family sadly joked that Lev Semenovich died on time. This saved him from arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, and his relatives from repression.

In May 1934, the scientist's condition became so severe that he was prescribed bed rest, and a month later the body's resources were completely exhausted. On June 11, 1934, the outstanding scientist and talented teacher Vygotsky Lev Semenovich died. 1896-1934 - only 38 years of life. Over the years, he has done an incredible amount. His work was not immediately appreciated. But now many practices of working with abnormal children are based precisely on the methods developed by Vygotsky.

Biography

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (in 1917 and 1924 he changed his patronymic and surname) was born on November 5 (17), 1896 in the city of Orsha, the second of eight children in the family of a bank employee, a graduate of the Kharkov Commercial Institute Semyon Yakovlevich Vygotsky and his wife Tsili (Cecilia) Moiseevna Vygotskaya . He was educated by a private teacher, Solomon Aspitz, known for his use of the so-called Socratic dialogue method. A significant influence on the future psychologist in childhood was also exerted by his cousin, later the well-known literary critic David Isaakovich Vygotsky (-, English).

Daughter of L. S. Vygotsky - Gita Lvovna Vygodskaya - Soviet psychologist and defectologist, candidate of psychological sciences, co-author of the biography “L. S. Vygotsky. Strokes for a portrait" (1996).

Chronology of the most important events of life

• 1924 - report at the psycho-neurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
• 1925 - dissertation defense Psychology of art(On November 5, 1925, Vygotsky was awarded the title of senior researcher, equivalent to the modern degree of a candidate of sciences, due to illness without protection, a contract for the publication Psychology of art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published during Vygotsky's lifetime)
• 1925 - the first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectological conference; on the way to England, he traveled through Germany, France, where he met with local psychologists
• 1925 - 1930 - Member of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society (RPSAO)
• November 21, 1925 to May 22, 1926 - tuberculosis, hospitalization in the Zakharyino sanatorium hospital, writes notes in the hospital, later published under the title The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis
• 1927 - employee of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, works with such prominent scientists as Luria, Bernstein, Artemov, Dobrynin, Leontiev
• 1929 - International Psychological Congress at Yale University; Luria presented two reports, one of which was co-authored with Vygotsky; Vygotsky himself did not go to the congress
• 1929, spring - Vygotsky lectures in Tashkent
• 1930 - At the VI International Conference on Psychotechnics in Barcelona (April 23-27, 1930), a report by L. S. Vygotsky on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research was read
• 1930 October - report on psychological systems: the beginning of a new research program
• 1931 - entered the medical faculty at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied in absentia with Luria
• 1932, December - report on consciousness, formal disagreement with Leontiev's group in Kharkov
• 1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow on his way from the USA (through Japan), meetings with Vygotsky
• 1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was transferred to bed rest
• 1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

The formation of Vygotsky as a scientist coincided with the period of restructuring of Soviet psychology based on the methodology of Marxism, in which he took an active part. In search of methods for an objective study of complex forms of mental activity and behavior of the individual, Vygotsky subjected to critical analysis a number of philosophical and most of his contemporary psychological concepts (“The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”, manuscript), showing the futility of attempts to explain human behavior by reducing higher forms of behavior to lower elements.

Exploring verbal thinking, Vygotsky solves the problem of localization of higher mental functions as structural units of brain activity in a new way. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions on the material of child psychology, defectology and psychiatry, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that the structure of consciousness is a dynamic semantic system of affective volitional and intellectual processes that are in unity.

Cultural-historical theory

The book “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (, publ.) gives a detailed presentation of the cultural-historical theory of the development of the psyche: according to Vygotsky, it is necessary to distinguish between lower and higher mental functions, and, accordingly, two plans of behavior - natural, natural (the result of the biological evolution of the animal world ) and cultural, socio-historical (the result of the historical development of society), merged in the development of the psyche.

The hypothesis put forward by Vygotsky offered a new solution to the problem of the relationship between lower (elementary) and higher mental functions. The main difference between them is the level of arbitrariness, that is, natural mental processes cannot be regulated by a person, and people can consciously control higher mental functions. Vygotsky came to the conclusion that conscious regulation is associated with the mediated nature of higher mental functions. Between the influencing stimulus and the human reaction (both behavioral and mental) there is an additional connection through the mediating link - stimulus-means, or sign.

The most convincing model of mediated activity, which characterizes the manifestation and implementation of higher mental functions, is the "situation of Buridan's donkey". This classical situation of uncertainty, or a problematic situation (the choice between two equal possibilities), interests Vygotsky primarily from the point of view of the means that make it possible to transform (solve) the situation that has arisen. By casting lots, a person "artificially introduces into the situation, changing it, new auxiliary stimuli that are not connected with it in any way." Thus, the cast die becomes, according to Vygotsky, a means of transforming and resolving the situation.

Thinking and speech

In the last years of his life, Vygotsky paid most of his attention to the study of the relationship between thought and word in the structure of consciousness. His work "Thinking and Speech" (1934), devoted to the study of this problem, is fundamental for Russian psycholinguistics.

Genetic roots of thinking and speech

According to Vygotsky, the genetic roots of thinking and speech are different.

For example, Köhler's experiments, which discovered the ability of chimpanzees to solve complex problems, showed that human-like intelligence and expressive speech (absent in monkeys) function independently.

The ratio of thinking and speech both in phylogenesis and in ontogenesis is a variable value. There is a pre-speech stage in the development of the intellect and a pre-intellectual stage in the development of speech. Only then thinking and speech intersect and merge.

The speech thinking that arises as a result of such a merger is not a natural, but a socio-historical form of behavior. It has specific (in comparison with natural forms of thinking and speech) properties. With the emergence of speech thinking, the biological type of development is replaced by a socio-historical one.

Research method

An adequate method for studying the relationship between thought and word, says Vygotsky, should be an analysis that dismembers the object under study - speech thinking - not into elements, but into units. A unit is the smallest part of a whole that has all its basic properties. Such a unit of speech thinking is the meaning of the word.

Levels of formation of thought in a word

The relation of thought to word is impermanent; This process, the movement from thought to word and vice versa, the formation of a thought in a word:

1. Thought motivation.
2. Thought.
3. Inner speech.
4. External speech.

Egocentric speech: against Piaget

Vygotsky came to the conclusion that egocentric speech is not an expression of intellectual egocentrism, as Piaget argued, but a transitional stage from external to internal speech. Egocentric speech initially accompanies practical activity.

Vygotsky-Sakharov study

In a classic experimental study, Vygotsky and his collaborator L. S. Sakharov, using their own methodology, which is a modification of N. Akha's methodology, established types (they are also age stages of development) of concepts.

Worldly and scientific concepts

Exploring the development of concepts in childhood, L. S. Vygotsky wrote about worldly (spontaneous) And scientific concepts (“Thinking and speech”, ch. 6).

Everyday concepts are acquired and used in everyday life, in everyday communication, words like “table”, “cat”, “house”. Scientific concepts are words that a child learns in school, terms built into the knowledge system that are related to other terms.

When using spontaneous concepts, a child for a long time (up to 11-12 years old) is aware only of the object they point to, but not the concepts themselves, not their meaning. This is expressed in the lack of the ability "to verbal definition of the concept, to the possibility in other words to give its verbal formulation, to the arbitrary use of this concept when establishing complex logical relationships between concepts."

Vygotsky suggested that the development of spontaneous and scientific concepts goes in opposite directions: spontaneous - towards a gradual realization of their meaning, scientific - in the opposite direction, because "just in the area where the concept of "brother" turns out to be a strong concept, that is, in the sphere of spontaneous use, its application to countless specific situations, the richness of its empirical content and connection with personal experience, the scientific concept of the schoolchild reveals its weakness. An analysis of the child's spontaneous concept convinces us that the child is much more aware of the object than the concept itself. The analysis of a scientific concept convinces us that the child at the very beginning is much better aware of the concept itself than the object represented in it.

The awareness of meanings that comes with age is deeply connected with the emerging systematicity of concepts, that is, with the appearance, with the appearance of logical relations between them. A spontaneous concept is associated only with the object to which it refers. On the contrary, a mature concept is immersed in a hierarchical system, where logical relations connect it (already as a carrier of meaning) with many other concepts of a different level of generalization in relation to the given one. This completely changes the possibilities of the word as a cognitive tool. Outside the system, Vygotsky writes, only empirical connections, that is, relations between objects, can be expressed in concepts (in sentences). “Together with the system, relations of concepts to concepts arise, a mediated relation of concepts to objects through their relation to other concepts, a generally different relation of concepts to an object arises: supra-empirical connections become possible in concepts.” This finds expression, in particular, in the fact that the concept is no longer defined through the connections of the defined object with other objects (“the dog guards the house”), but through the relation of the defined concept to other concepts (“the dog is an animal”).

Well, since scientific concepts that a child learns in the process of learning fundamentally differ from everyday concepts precisely in that, by their very nature, they must be organized into a system, Vygotsky believes that their meanings are recognized first. The awareness of the meanings of scientific concepts is gradually spreading to everyday ones.

Developmental and educational psychology

In the works of Vygotsky, the problem of the relationship between the role of maturation and learning in the development of higher mental functions of the child is considered in detail. Thus, he formulated the most important principle, according to which the preservation and timely maturation of brain structures is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of higher mental functions. The main source for this development is the changing social environment, to describe which Vygotsky introduced the term social development situation, defined as "a peculiar, specific for a given age, exclusive, unique and inimitable relationship between a child and the reality surrounding him, primarily social". It is this attitude that determines the course of development of the child's psyche at a certain age stage.

Vygotsky proposed a new periodization of the human life cycle, which is based on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence neoplasms. The cause of the psychological crisis, according to Vygotsky, lies in the growing discrepancy between the developing psyche of the child and the unchanging social situation of development, and it is precisely at the restructuring of this situation that the normal crisis is directed.

Thus, each stage of life opens with a crisis (accompanied by the appearance of certain neoplasms), followed by a period of stable development, when the neoplasms are mastered.

• Neonatal crisis (0-2 months).

• Infancy (2 months - 1 year).

• Crisis of one year.

• Early childhood (1-3 years).

• Crisis of three years.

• Preschool age (3-7 years).

• Crisis of seven years.

• School age (8-12 years).

• Crisis of thirteen years.

• Adolescence (pubertal) period (14-17 years).

• The crisis of seventeen years.

• Youth period (17-21 years).

Later, a slightly different version of this periodization appeared, developed within the framework of the activity approach by Vygotsky's student D. B. Elkonin. It was based on the concept of leading activity and the idea of ​​a change in leading activity during the transition to a new age stage. At the same time, Elkonin singled out the same periods and crises as in Vygotsky's periodization, but with a more detailed consideration of the mechanisms operating at each stage.

Vygotsky, apparently, was the first in psychology to approach the consideration of a psychological crisis as a necessary stage in the development of the human psyche, revealing its positive meaning.

In the 1970s, Vygotsky's theories began to generate interest in American psychology. In the following decade, all the main works of Vygotsky were translated and formed, along with Piaget, the basis of modern educational psychology in the United States.

Notes

Bibliography L.S. Vygotsky

• Psychology of Art ( idem) (1922)
• Tool and sign in child development
• (1930) (co-authored with A. R. Luria)
• Lectures on Psychology (1. Perception; 2. Memory; 3. Thinking; 4. Emotions; 5. Imagination; 6. The Problem of Will) (1932)
• The Problem of Development and Decay of Higher Mental Functions (1934)
• Thinking and speech idem) (1934)
  • The bibliographic index of the works of L. S. Vygotsky includes 275 titles

Publications on the Internet

• Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria Etudes on the History of Behavior: Monkey. Primitive. Child (monograph)
• Course of lectures on psychology; Thinking and speech; Works of different years
• Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich(1896-1934) - an outstanding Russian psychologist

About Vygotsky

• Book section Lauren Graham"Natural science, philosophy and the sciences of human behavior in the Soviet Union", dedicated to L. S. Vygotsky
• Etkind A. M. More about L. S. Vygotsky: Forgotten texts and unfound contexts // Issues of Psychology. 1993. No. 4. S. 37-55.
• Garai L., Kechki M. Another crisis in psychology! A possible reason for the noisy success of the ideas of L. S. Vygotsky // Questions of Philosophy. 1997. No. 4. S. 86-96.
• Garay L. On Meaning and the Brain: Is Vygotsky Compatible with Vygotsky? // Subject, cognition, activity: To the seventieth birthday of V. A. Lektorsky. M.: Kanon+, 2002. C. 590-612.
• Tulviste P. E.-J. Discussion of the works of L. S. Vygotsky in the USA // Questions of Philosophy. 1986. No. 6.

Translations

• Vygotsky @ http://www.marxists.org
• Some German translations: @ http://th-hoffmann.eu
• Denken und Sprechen: psychologische Untersuchungen / Lev Semënovic Vygotskij. Hrsg. und aus dem Russ. übers. vom Joachim Lompscher und Georg Rückriem. Mit einem Nachw. von Alexandre Métraux (German)

Psychology
Sections	General psychology Acmeology Differential psychology Psychogenetics Psychodiagnostics Psycholinguistics Psychology of perception (smell, color) Personality psychology Developmental psychology Psychophysiology Social psychology Special psychology Comparative psychology Evolutionary psychology Experimental psychology

1896-1934) - famous in the world psychology of owls. psychologist. V. created the most famous cultural and historical concept of the development of higher mental functions, the theoretical and empirical potential of which has not yet been exhausted (which can be said about almost all other aspects of V.'s work). In his early period of creativity (before 1925), V. developed problems in the psychology of art, believing that the objective structure of a work of art evokes in the subject at least 2 against, affect, the contradiction between which is resolved in the catharsis underlying aesthetic reactions. A little later, V. develops problems in the methodology and theory of psychology ("The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis") and outlines a program for constructing a concrete scientific methodology of psychology based on the philosophy of Marxism (see Causal Dynamic Analysis). For 10 years, V. was engaged in defectology, creating in Moscow a laboratory for the psychology of abnormal childhood (1925-1926), which later became an integral part of the Experimental Defectological Institute (EDI), and developed a qualitatively new theory of the development of an abnormal child. In the last stage of his work, he took up the problems of the relationship between thinking and speech, the development of meanings in ontogenesis, the problems of egocentric speech, etc. ("Thinking and speech", 1934). In addition, he developed problems of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and self-consciousness, the unity of affect and intellect, various problems of child psychology (see Zone of Proximal Development, Education and Development), problems of the development of the psyche in phylo- and sociogenesis, the problem of cerebral localization of higher mental functions, and many others

He had a significant impact on domestic and world psychology and other sciences related to psychology (pedology, pedagogy, defectology, linguistics, art history, philosophy, semiotics, neuroscience, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, a systematic approach, etc.). The first and closest students of V. were A. R. Luria and A. N. Leontiev (“troika”), later they were joined by L. I. Bozhovich, A. V. Zaporozhets, R. E. Levina, N. G. Morozov, L. S. Slavina ("five"), who created their original psychological concepts. V.'s ideas are developed by his followers in many countries of the world. (E. E. Sokolova.)

Addendum ed.: The main works of V.: Sobr. op. in 6 vols. (1982-1984); "Pedagogical Psychology" (1926); "Etudes on the History of Behavior" (1930; co-authored with Luria); "Psychology of Art" (1965). The best biographical book about V.: G. L. Vygodskaya, T. M. Lifanova. "Lev Semenovich Vygotsky" (1996). See also Instrumentalism, Intellectualization, Internalization, Cultural-Historical Psychology, Double Stimulation Method, Functionalism, Experimental-Genetic Method for Studying Mental Development.

VYGOTSKY Lev Semyonovich

Lev Semenovich (1896-1934) - Russian psychologist who made a great scientific contribution to the field of general and pedagogical psychology, philosophy and theory of psychology, developmental psychology, art psychology, defectology. Author of the cultural-historical theory of behavior and development of the human psyche. Professor (1928). After graduating from the Faculty of Law of the First State Moscow University and at the same time the Faculty of History and Philology of the People's University A.L. Shanyavsky (1913-1917), taught from 1918 to 1924 at several institutes in Gomel (Belarus). He played an important role in the literary and cultural life of this city. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, V. wrote a treatise on Hamlet, where existential motifs about the eternal sorrow of being sound. He organized a psychological laboratory at the Pedagogical College of Gomel and began work on the manuscript of a textbook on psychology for secondary school teachers (Pedagogical psychology. A short course, 1926). He was an uncompromising supporter of natural science psychology, focused on the teachings of I.M. Sechenov and I.P. Pavlov, which he considered the foundation for building a new system of ideas about the determination of human behavior, including the perception of works of art. In 1924, Mr.. V. moved to Moscow, became a member of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, whose director was appointed K.I. Kornilov and who was given the task of restructuring psychology on the basis of the philosophy of Marxism. In 1925, Mr.. V. publishes an article Consciousness as a problem of the psychology of behavior (Sb. Psychology and Marxism, L.-M., 1925) and writes a book Psychology of Art, in which he summarizes his work of 1915-1922. (published in 1965 and 1968). He subsequently returned to the theme of art only in 1932 in a single article devoted to the work of the actor (and already from the standpoint of a socio-historical understanding of the human psyche). From 1928 to 1932 V. worked at the Academy of Communist Education. N.K. Krupskaya, where he created a psychological laboratory at the fact, the dean of which was A.R. Luria. During this period, V.'s interests were concentrated around pedology, to which he tried to give the status of a separate discipline and conducted research in this direction (Pedology of a teenager, 1929-1931). Together with B.E. Warsaw published the first Russian Psychological Dictionary (M., 1931). However, the political pressure on Soviet psychology was ever increasing. The works of V. and other psychologists were sharply criticized in the press and at conferences from an ideological position, which made it very difficult to further develop research and introduce them into the practice of pedagogy. In 1930, the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy was founded in Kharkov, where A.N. Leontiev and A.R. Luria. V. often visited them, but did not leave Moscow, because. during this period, he was establishing relations with the Leningrad State University. In the last 2-3 years of his life, he took up the formulation of the theory of child development, creating the theory of the zone of proximal development. For ten years in the psychological science V. created a new scientific direction, the basis of which is the doctrine of the socio-historical nature of human consciousness. At the beginning of his scientific path, he believed that the new psychology was called upon to integrate with reflexology into a single science. Later, V. condemns reflexology for dualism, because, ignoring consciousness, she carried it beyond the bodily mechanism of behavior. In the article Consciousness as a problem of behavior (1925), he outlined a plan for the study of mental functions, based on their role as indispensable regulators of behavior, which in humans includes speech components. Based on the position of K. Marx on the difference between instinct and consciousness, V. proves that thanks to work, experience is doubled and a person acquires the ability to build twice: first in thoughts, then in deed. Understanding the word as an action (first a speech complex, then a speech reaction), V. sees in the word a special socio-cultural mediator between the individual and the world. He attaches special importance to its symbolic nature, due to which the structure of a person’s mental life changes qualitatively and his mental functions (perception, memory, attention, thinking) become higher from elementary ones. Interpreting the signs of the language as mental tools, which, unlike the tools of labor, do not change the physical world, but the consciousness of the subject operating with them, V. proposed an experimental program for studying how, thanks to these structures, the system of higher mental functions develops. This program was successfully carried out by him together with a team of employees who formed the school B. The center of the interests of this school was the cultural development of the child. Along with normal children, V. paid great attention to abnormal children (suffering from defects in vision, hearing, mental retardation), becoming the founder of a special science - defectology, in the development of which he defended humanistic ideals. The first version of his theoretical generalizations concerning the patterns of development of the psyche in ontogenesis, V. outlined in the work The development of higher mental functions, written by him in 1931. In this work, a scheme was presented for the formation of the human psyche in the process of using signs as a means of regulating mental activity - first in the external interaction of an individual with other people, and then the transition of this process from outside to inside, as a result of which the subject acquires the ability to control his own behavior (this process was called interiorization). Thanks to this new approach, he, together with his students, developed an experimentally based theory of the mental development of the child, captured in his main work Thinking and Speech (1934). He closely associated these studies with the problem of learning and its impact on mental development, covering a wide range of problems of great practical importance. Among the ideas put forward by him in this regard, the position on the zone of proximal development has gained particular popularity, according to which only that training is effective, which runs ahead of development, as if pulling it along, revealing the child's ability to solve, with the participation of the teacher, those tasks with which he independently can't cope. V. attached great importance in the development of the child to the crises that the child experiences during the transition from one age stage to another. Mental development was interpreted by V. as inseparably associated with motivational (affective in his terminology), therefore, in his studies, he asserted the principle of the unity of affect and intellect, however, early death prevented him from implementing a research program analyzing this principle of development. Only preparatory works have survived in the form of a large manuscript of The Teaching on Emotions. Historical and psychological research, the main content of which is the analysis of the Passions of the Soul by R. Descartes - a work that, according to V., determines the ideological shape of modern psychology of feelings with its dualism of lower and higher emotions. V. believed that the prospect of overcoming dualism is inherent in the Ethics of V. Spinoza, but how it will be possible to rebuild psychology, based on the philosophy of Spinoza, V. did not show. V.'s works were distinguished by a high methodological culture. The presentation of specific experimental and theoretical problems was invariably accompanied by philosophical reflection. This was most clearly reflected both in works on thinking, speech, emotions, and in the analysis of the development of psychology and the causes of its crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. V. believed that the crisis has a historical meaning. His manuscript, which was first published only in 1982, although the work was written in 1927, was called The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis. This meaning, as V. believed, consisted in the fact that the disintegration of psychology into separate areas, each of which presupposes its own understanding of the subject and methods of psychology, incompatible with others, is natural. Overcoming this trend towards the disintegration of science into many separate sciences requires the creation of a special discipline of general psychology as a doctrine of basic general concepts and explanatory principles that allow this science to maintain its unity. To this end, the philosophical principles of psychology must be restructured and this science must be freed from spiritualistic influences, from the version according to which the main method in it should be an intuitive understanding of spiritual values, and not an objective analysis of the nature of the individual and his experiences. In this regard, V. outlines (also unrealized, like many of his other ideas) a project to develop psychology in terms of drama. He writes that personality dynamics is a drama. Drama is expressed in external behavior in the case when there is a clash of people who play different roles on the stage of life. In the inner plan, drama is associated, for example, with the conflict between reason and feeling, when the mind and heart are not in harmony. Although early death did not allow V. to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the personality, the development of its mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of the formation of this personality. This significantly enriched the practice of teaching and educating normal and abnormal children. V.'s ideas received wide resonance in all sciences that study man, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, sociology, and others. They determined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and still retain their heuristic potential. Proceedings. In published in the Collected Works in 6 volumes - M, Pedagogy, 1982 - 1984, as well as in the books: Structural Psychology, M., Moscow State University, 1972; Problems of defectology, M., Education, 1995; Lectures on pedology, 1933-1934, Izhevsk, 1996; Psychology, M., 2000. L.A. Karpenko, M.G. Yaroshevsky