Lev Semenovich Vygotsky biography. Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky

1896-1934) - famous in world psychology of owls. psychologist. The greatest fame was brought to V. by the cultural and historical concept of the development of higher education that he created. 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 creativity). IN early period creativity (until 1925) V. developed the problems of the psychology of art, believing that the objective structure of a work of art evokes in the subject at least two opposing affects, the contradiction between which is resolved in catharsis, which underlies aesthetic reactions. A little later, V. develops problems of methodology and theory of psychology (“ Historical meaning psychological crisis"), outlines a program for constructing a specific 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 integral part 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 problems of the relationship between thinking and speech, the development of meanings in ontogenesis, problems of egocentric speech, etc. (“Thinking and Speech”, 1934). In addition, he developed problems of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and self-awareness, the unity of affect and intellect, various problems child psychology (see Zone of proximal development, Learning and development), problems of mental development in phylo- and sociogenesis, the problem of cerebral localization of higher mental functions, and many others.

He had a significant influence on domestic and world psychology and other sciences related to psychology (pedology, pedagogy, defectology, linguistics, art history, philosophy, semiotics, neuroscience, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, systems approach, etc.). V.’s first and closest students 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. Morozova, 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.)

Added ed.: Main works of V.: Collection. op. in 6 vols. (1982-1984); "Educational Psychology" (1926); "Sketches on the History of Behavior" (1930; co-authored with Luria); "The Psychology of Art" (1965). The best biographical book about V.: G. L. Vygodskaya, T. M. Lifanova. "Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky" (1996). See also Instrumentalism, Intellectualization, Interiorization, Cultural-historical psychology, Double stimulation method, Functionalism, Experimental genetic method for studying mental development.

VYGOTSKY Lev Semenovich

Lev Semenovich (1896-1934) - Russian psychologist who made a great scientific contribution to the field of general and educational psychology, philosophy and theory of psychology, developmental psychology, psychology of art, and defectology. Author of the cultural-historical theory of behavior and development of the human psyche. Professor (1928). Having graduated from the Faculty of Law of the First State Moscow University and at the same time from 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). Played important role in literary and cultural life of this city. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, V. wrote a treatise about Hamlet, where they sound existential motives about the eternal sorrow of existence. Organized psychological laboratory V Pedagogical College Gomel and began work on the manuscript of a textbook on psychology for secondary school teachers (Pedagogical Psychology. 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 in the perception of works of art. In 1924, V. moved to Moscow and became an employee of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, of which K.I. was appointed director. Kornilov and who was given the task of restructuring psychology on the basis of the philosophy of Marxism. In 1925, V. published the article Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior (Collected Psychology and Marxism, L.-M., 1925) and wrote the book Psychology of Art, in which he summarizes his work of 1915-1922. (published in 1965 and 1968). He subsequently returned to the topic of art only in 1932 in a single article, dedicated to creativity actor (and from the standpoint of socio-historical understanding of the human psyche). From 1928 to 1932 V. worked at the Academy of Communist Education named after. N.K. Krupskaya, where he created a psychological laboratory at the faculty, the dean of which was A.R. Luria. During this period, V.'s interests concentrated around pedology, which he tried to give the status of a separate discipline and conducted research in this direction (Pedology of the Adolescent, 1929-1931). Together with B.E. Warsaw published the first domestic Psychological Dictionary (M., 1931). However, political pressure on Soviet psychology was increasing. The works of V. and other psychologists were subjected to sharp criticism in the press and at conferences from an ideological position, which made it very difficult to further develop research and introduce it into pedagogical practice. In 1930, the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy was founded in Kharkov, where A.N. Leontyev and A.R. Luria. V. often visited them, but did not leave Moscow, because During this period, he established relations with the Leningrad State University. In the last 2-3 years of his life, he began to formulate the theory child development, creating the theory of the zone of proximal development. Over ten years of his journey in 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 career, he believed that new psychology designed to integrate with reflexology in unified science. Later, V. condemns reflexology for dualism, since, ignoring consciousness, it took it beyond the limits of 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 K. Marx’s position 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 deeds. Understanding the word as an action (first speech complex, then - a speech reaction) V. sees in the word a special sociocultural mediator between the individual and the world. He gives special meaning its iconic nature, due to which the structure qualitatively changes mental life a person and his mental functions (perception, memory, attention, thinking) from elementary become higher. Interpreting the signs of language as mental tools, which, unlike tools of labor, do not change physical world, and the consciousness of the subject operating them, V. suggested pilot program studying how, thanks to these structures, the system of higher mental functions develops. This program was successfully carried out by him together with the team of employees who formed School B. The center of interests of this school was the cultural development of the child. Along with normal children V. great attention paid to abnormal (suffering from defects of 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 their theoretical generalizations concerning the patterns of mental development in ontogenesis, V. outlined in the work Development of Higher Mental Functions, written by him in 1931. This work presented a scheme for the formation human psyche in the process of using signs as means of regulation mental activity- first in the external interaction of the individual with other people, and then the transition of this process from the outside to the inside, as a result of which the subject gains the ability to manage own behavior(this process was called interiorization). In subsequent works, V. focuses on the study of the meaning of a sign, that is, on the (mainly intellectual) content associated with it. Thanks to this new approach, he, together with his students, developed an experimentally substantiated theory of child mental development, embodied in his main work Thinking and Speech (1934). He closely connected these studies with the problem of learning and its impact on mental development, covering a wide range of problems of great importance. practical significance. Among the ideas he put forward in this regard, the position on the zone of proximal development gained particular popularity, according to which only that learning is effective that runs ahead of development, as if pulling it along with it, revealing the child’s ability to solve, with the participation of the teacher, those tasks that he can independently solve. can't cope. V. attached great importance in the development of a child to the crises that a child experiences during the transition from one age level to another. Mental development was interpreted by V. as inseparably linked with motivational (in his terminology, affective), therefore, in his research, he affirmed the principle of the unity of affect and intelligence, but he was prevented from implementing a research program analyzing this principle of development early death. Only the preparatory work has survived in the form of a large manuscript, The Doctrine of Emotions. A historical and psychological study, 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 appearance of modern psychology of feelings with its dualism of lower and higher emotions. V. believed that the prospect of overcoming dualism was contained in the Ethics of V. Spinoza, but V. did not show how it would be possible to rebuild psychology based on Spinoza’s philosophy. V.'s works were distinguished by 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 ways of 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, and called - Historical the meaning of a psychological crisis. This meaning, as V. believed, was that the disintegration of psychology into separate directions, each of which presupposes its own, incompatible with the other, understanding of the subject and methods of psychology, is natural. Overcoming this tendency towards the disintegration of science into many separate sciences requires the creation of a special discipline general psychology as teachings about basic general concepts and explanatory principles that allow this science to maintain its unity. For these purposes, the philosophical principles of psychology must be rebuilt 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 plans) a project for developing psychology in terms of drama. He writes that personality dynamics are drama. Drama is expressed in external behavior when there is a collision between people performing various roles on the stage of life. In internally drama is associated, for example, with a conflict between reason and feeling, when the mind and heart are not in harmony. Although V.’s early death did not allow him to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws cultural development personality, the development of its mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined in principle new approach to the fundamental issues of the formation of this personality. This has significantly enriched the practice of teaching and raising normal and abnormal children. V.'s ideas received wide resonance in all sciences that study man, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, sociology, etc. They determined whole stage in development humanitarian knowledge in Russia to this day retain their heuristic potential. Proceedings.V published in 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

Psychologist, professor (1928). Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1917) and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philology People's University A. L. Shanyavsky. In 1918-1924. worked in Gomel. Since 1924 in psychological scientific and educational institutions Moscow (Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, Academy of Communist Education named after N.K. Krupskaya, Faculty of Education 2nd Moscow State University, Experimental Defectology Institute, etc.); also worked at the Leningrad State pedagogical institute and the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov.

He began his scientific career by studying the psychology of art - researched psychological patterns 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). Gave a deep critical analysis of world psychology of the 1920s-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 prefaces to the Russian translation of the works of W. Köhler, K. Koffka, K. Bühler, J. Piaget, E. Thorndike, A. Gesell and 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 social life And social activities person and therefore the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already introduces us directly into the social plan of development" (Collected Works, vol. 3, Moscow, 1983, pp. 145-146). The main provisions of this theory: 1) the basis of human mental development - qualitative change social situation his life activity; 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 inside the child, as an intrapsychic category... The transition from outside to inside transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. higher functions, their relationship is genetically worth social relations, 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 social interaction child with other people (primarily adults). In the course of communication and joint activities, patterns are not simply learned social behavior, but also the 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 you take it real origin, there is a means of communication, and we could say more broadly - a means of communication of known mental functions social nature. Transferred to itself, it is the same means of combining 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 educational activity 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 personal activities student, and the whole art of the teacher should be reduced only to directing and regulating this activity... The teacher appears, with psychological point vision, organizer of the educational environment, regulator and controller of its interaction with the student... 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). Home psychological goal education and training - 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, “correctly organized training The child is led by children's mental development and brings to life a whole series of development processes that would otherwise become impossible without education. Learning is... an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development in a child, not natural, but historical features person" (Selected psychological research, 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 their development 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). Studied the problems of the connection between affect and intellect ("The Teaching of Emotions", 1934, partially published in 1968, fully in 1984), problems historical development behavior and consciousness (“Studies on the history of behavior”, 1930, together 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 real reasons there was no 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 great 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 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.

Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich (1896-1934), Russian psychologist.

Born on November 17, 1896 in Orsha. The second son in a large family (eight brothers and sisters). His father, a bank employee, a year after Lev’s birth, moved his relatives to Gomel, where he founded public library. The Vygodsky family (the original spelling of the surname) produced famous philologists, cousin psychologist - David Vygodsky was one of the prominent representatives of “Russian formalism”.

In 1914 Lev entered Moscow University to study Faculty of Medicine, from which he later switched to legal; At the same time, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the People's University named after A. L. Shanyavsky. IN student years published reviews of books by symbolist writers - A. Bely, V. I. Ivanov, D. S. Merezhkovsky. Then I wrote my first great job“The Tragedy of Danish Hamlet by W. Shakespeare” (it was published only 50 years later in Vygotsky’s collection of articles “Psychology of Art”).

In 1917 he returned to Gomel; took an active part in the creation of a new type of school, began conducting research in the psychological office he organized at the pedagogical college. Became a delegate to the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology in Petrograd (1924). where he spoke about the reflexological techniques he used to study the mechanisms of consciousness. After speaking at the congress, Vygotsky, at the insistence of the famous psychologist A. R. Luria, was invited to work by the director of the Moscow Institute experimental psychology N.K. Kornilov. Two years later, under the leadership of Vygotsky, an experimental defectological institute was created (now the Institute correctional pedagogy Russian Academy education) and thus laid the foundations of defectology in the USSR.

In 1926, Vygotsky’s “Pedagogical Psychology” was published, defending the individuality of the child.

Since 1927, the scientist published articles analyzing trends in world psychology, and at the same time developed a new psychological concept, called cultural-historical. In it, human behavior regulated by consciousness is correlated with forms of culture, in particular with language and art. This comparison is made on the basis of the concept developed by the author about a sign (symbol) as a special psychological tool that serves as a means of transforming the psyche from natural (biological) to cultural (historical). The work “History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (1930-1931) was published only in 1960.

Vygotsky’s last monograph, “Thinking and Speech” (1936), is devoted to problems of the structure of consciousness. In the early 30s. Attacks against Vygotsky became more frequent; he was accused of retreating from Marxism. Persecution, along with incessant exhaustion work, exhausted the scientist’s strength. He did not survive another exacerbation of tuberculosis and died on the night of June 11, 1934.

Biography

Daughter of L. S. Vygotsky - Gita Lvovna Vygotskaya- famous Soviet psychologist and speech pathologist.

Chronology of the most important life events

1924 - report at a psychoneurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
1925 - dissertation defense Psychology of art(On November 5, 1925, due to illness and without protection, Vygotsky was given the rank of senior research fellow, equivalent to a modern PhD degree, publishing contract Psychology of art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published during Vygotsky’s lifetime)
1925 - first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectology conference; On the way to England, I passed through Germany and France, where I met with local psychologists
November 21, 1925 to May 22, 1926 - tuberculosis, hospitalization in the sanatorium-type hospital "Zakharyino", in the hospital writes notes, later published under the title 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, Leontyev
1929 - International Psychological Congress in 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 - report by L. S. Vygotsky on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research at VI International conference in psychotechnics in Barcelona (April 23-27, 1930)
1930, October - report on psychological systems: the beginning of a new research program
1931 - entered the Faculty of Medicine at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied by correspondence with Luria
1932, December - report on consciousness, formal divergence from Leontiev’s group in Kharkov
1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow while passing from the USA (via Japan), meeting with Vygotsky
1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was placed on bed rest
1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

Vygotsky's emergence 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 objective study of complex forms of mental activity and personality behavior, Vygotsky subjected critical analysis a number of philosophical and most contemporary psychological concepts (“The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”, manuscript), showing the futility of attempts to explain human behavior by reducing higher forms behavior towards lower elements.

Exploring speech thinking, Vygotsky solves in a new way the problem of localizing higher mental functions as structural units brain activity. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions using 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.) provides a detailed presentation of the cultural-historical theory of mental development: 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, i.e. natural mental processes cannot be regulated by humans, but people can consciously control higher mental functions. Vygotsky came to the conclusion that conscious regulation is associated with the indirect nature of higher mental functions. An additional connection arises between the influencing stimulus and a person’s reaction (both behavioral and mental) through a mediating link - a stimulus-means, or sign.

The most convincing model of indirect activity, characterizing the manifestation and implementation of higher mental functions, is the “Buridan's donkey situation”. This classic situation of uncertainty, or problematic situation(the choice between two equal opportunities), 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 of lots becomes, according to Vygotsky, a means of transforming and resolving the situation.

Thinking and speech

IN last years Vygotsky's life focused on studying the relationship between thought and words in the structure of consciousness. His work “Thinking and Speech” (1934), dedicated to research 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 relationship between thinking and speech, both in phylo- and ontogenesis, is a variable value. There is a pre-speech stage in the development of intelligence and a pre-intellectual stage in the development of speech. Only then do thinking and speech intersect and merge.

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 (compared to natural forms of thinking and speech) properties. With the emergence of verbal 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 divides the object under study - verbal thinking - not into elements, but into units. A unit is a minimal part of a whole that has all its basic properties. Such a unit of speech thinking is the meaning of a word.

Levels of formation of thought in a word

The relation of thought to word is not constant; This process, movement from thought to word and back, formation of thought in the word:

Motivation of thought.
Thought.
Inner speech.
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 inner speech. Egocentric speech initially accompanies practical activity.

Vygotsky-Sakharov study

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

Everyday and scientific concepts

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

Everyday concepts - acquired and used in everyday life, in everyday communication words like “table”, “cat”, “house”. Scientific concepts are words that a child learns at school, terms built into a system of knowledge, associated with other terms.

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

Vygotsky suggested that the development of spontaneous and scientific concepts goes in opposite directions: spontaneous - to a gradual awareness of their significance, scientific - in reverse direction, for “it is precisely in the sphere 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 schoolchild's scientific concept reveals its weakness. Analysis of the child’s spontaneous concept convinces us that the child is much more to a greater extent realized the subject than the concept itself. 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 emergence, with the emergence of logical relationships between them. A spontaneous concept is associated only with the object to which it points. On the contrary, a mature concept is immersed in hierarchical system, where logical relations connect it (already as a carrier of meaning) with many other concepts of different - in relation to this - level of generality. This completely changes the possibilities of the word as a cognitive tool. Outside the system, Vygotsky writes, only empirical connections, that is, relationships between objects, can be expressed in concepts (in sentences). “Together with the system, relations of concepts to concepts arise, an indirect relation of concepts to objects through their relation to other concepts, a completely different relation of concepts to an object arises: supra-empirical connections become possible in concepts.” This is expressed, 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 relationship of the defined concept to other concepts (“a dog is an animal”).

Well, since the scientific concepts that a child learns during the learning process are fundamentally different from everyday concepts It is precisely because by their very nature they must be organized into a system that, Vygotsky believes, their meanings are the first to be realized. Awareness of the meanings of scientific concepts gradually extends to everyday ones.

Developmental and educational psychology

The basis of periodization life cycle human being, Vygotsky laid down the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence neoplasms. 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 development of new formations occurs.

Newborn 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).

Thirteen Years Crisis.

Adolescence (puberty) period (14-17 years).

Seventeen year crisis.

Youth period (17-21 years).

Vygotsky's influence

Notes

Main works

Psychology of Art ( idem) (1922)
Tool and sign in the development of the child (1930) (co-authored with A. R. Luria)
(idem) (1930) (co-authored with A. R. Luria)
Lectures on psychology (1. Perception; 2. Memory; 3. Thinking; 4. Emotions; 5. Imagination; 6. Problem of will) (1932)
The problem of development and decay of higher mental functions (1934)
Thinking and speech ( idem) (1934)
- The bibliographic index of works by L. S. Vygotsky includes 275 titles

Publications on the Internet

Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria Sketches on the history of behavior: Monkey. Primitive. Child (monograph)
Course of lectures on psychology; Thinking and speech; Works from different years
Vygotsky Lev Semenovich(1896-1934) - outstanding Russian psychologist

About Vygotsky

Section of Loren Graham’s book “Natural science, philosophy and the sciences of human behavior in the Soviet Union” dedicated to L. S. Vygotsky
A. M. Etkind. More about L. S. Vygotsky: Forgotten texts and unfound contexts
Tulviste P. E.-J. Discussion of the works of L. S. Vygotsky in the USA // Questions of Philosophy. No. 6. 1986.

Years of life: 1896 - 1934

Homeland: Orsha ( Russian empire)

Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was born in 1896. He was an outstanding domestic psychologist, creator of the concept of the development of higher mental functions. Lev Semenovich was born in the Belarusian town of Orsha, but a year later the Vygodskys moved to Gomel and settled there for a long time. His father, Semyon Lvovich Vygodsky graduated from the Commercial Institute in Kharkov and was a bank employee and insurance agent. Mother, Cecilia Moiseevna, devoted almost her entire life to raising her eight children (Lev was the second child). The family was considered peculiar cultural center cities. For example, there is information that Vygodsky the father founded a public library in the city. Literature was loved and known in the house; it is no coincidence that so many came from the Vygodsky family famous philologists. In addition to Lev Semenovich, these are his sisters Zinaida and Claudia; cousin David Isaakovich, one of the prominent representatives of “Russian formalism” (somewhere in the early 20s he began to publish, and since both of them were engaged in poetics, it was natural to want to “distinguish themselves” so that they would not be confused, and therefore Lev Semenovich Vygodsky replaced the letter “d” in his last name with “t”). Young Lev Semenovich was interested in literature and philosophy. Benedict Spinoza became his favorite philosopher and remained until the end of his life. Young Vygotsky studied mainly at home. He studied only the last two classes at the private Gomel Ratner gymnasium. He showed extraordinary ability in all subjects. At the gymnasium he studied German, French, Latin languages, at home, in addition, English, Ancient Greek and Hebrew. After graduating from high school, L.S. Vygotsky entered Moscow University, where he studied at the Faculty of Law during the First World War (1914-1917). At the same time, he became interested in literary criticism, and his reviews of books by symbolist writers - rulers of the souls of the then intelligentsia: A. Bely, V. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky appeared in several magazines. During these student years, he wrote his first work - the treatise "The Tragedy of William Shakespeare's Danish Hamlet." After the victory of the revolution, Vygotsky returned to Gomel and took an active part in the construction of a new school. The beginning of it falls during this period scientific career as a psychologist, since in 1917 he began to engage in research work and organized a psychological office at the pedagogical college, where he conducted research. In 1922-1923 he conducted five studies, three of which he later reported at the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology. These were: “Methodology of reflexological research as applied to the study of the psyche”, “How psychology should be taught now” and “Results of a questionnaire about the mood of students in graduating classes Gomel schools in 1923." During the Gomel period, Vygotsky imagined that the future of psychology lay in the application of reflexological techniques to the causal explanation of the phenomena of consciousness, the advantage of which was their objectivity and natural scientific rigor. The content and style of Vygotsky's speeches, as well as his personality, literally shocked one of the congress participants - A.R. Luria. New director Moscow Institute of Psychology N.K. Kornilov accepted Luria’s proposal to invite Vygotsky to Moscow. Thus, in 1924, the ten-year Moscow stage of Vygotsky’s work began. This decade can be divided into three periods. First period (1924-1927). Having just arrived in Moscow and having passed the exams for the title of 2nd category researcher, Vygotsky gave three reports in six months. In respect of further development a new one conceived in Gomel psychological concept he builds a model of behavior based on the concept of speech reaction. The term “reaction” was introduced to distinguish the psychological approach from the physiological one. He introduces into it features that make it possible to correlate the behavior of an organism, regulated by consciousness, with forms of culture - language and art. After moving to Moscow, he was attracted to a special area of practice - working with children suffering from various mental and physical defects. Essentially, his entire first year in Moscow can be called “defectological.” He combines classes at the Institute of Psychology with active work in People's Commissariat enlightenment. Showing brilliant organizational skills, he laid the foundations of the defectological service, and later became scientific supervisor a special scientific and practical institute that still exists today. The most important direction of Vygotsky’s research in the first years of the Moscow period was the analysis of the situation in world psychology. He writes a preface to Russian translations of the works of the leaders of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, gestaltism, trying to determine the significance of each of the directions for the development new painting mental regulation. Back in 1920, Vygotsky fell ill with tuberculosis, and since then, outbreaks of the disease more than once plunged him into " borderline situation"between life and death. One of the most severe outbreaks befell him at the end of 1926. Then, having ended up in the hospital, he began one of his main studies, to which he gave the name “The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis.” The epigraph to the treatise was the biblical words: “The stone that the builders despised became the cornerstone.” He called practice and philosophy the second period of Vygotsky’s work (1927-1931) in his Moscow decade - instrumental psychology. He introduces the concept of a sign, which is a special psychological tool, application. which, without changing anything in the substance of nature, serves as a powerful means of transforming the psyche from natural (biological) into cultural (historical). Thus, the didactic scheme “stimulus-response” accepted by both subjective and objective psychology was rejected. It was replaced by a triadic one - “stimulus”. - stimulus - reaction", where a special stimulus - a sign - acts as an intermediary between an external object (stimulus) and the response of the body (mental reaction). This sign is a kind of instrument, when operated by an individual, from his primary natural mental processes (memory, attention, associated thinking) a special system of functions of the second sociocultural order, inherent only to man, arises. Vygotsky called them higher mental functions. The most significant achievements of Vygotsky and his group during this period were compiled into a lengthy manuscript, “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions.” Among the publications that preceded this generalizing manuscript, we note “Instrumental method in pedology” (1928), “The problem of the cultural development of the child” (1928), “Instrumental method in psychology” (1930), “Tool and sign in the development of the child” ( 1931). In all cases, the center was the problem of the development of the child’s psyche, interpreted from the same angle: the creation of new ones from its biopsychic natural “material” cultural forms. Vygotsky becomes one of the country's main pedologists. "Pedology" is published school age"(1928), "Pedology adolescence"(1929), "Pedology of the Adolescent" (1930-1931). Vygotsky strives to recreate the general picture of the development of the mental world. He moved from the study of signs as determinants of instrumental acts to the study of the evolution of the meanings of these signs, primarily speech, in the mental life of the child. New research program became the main one in his third, last Moscow period (1931-1934). The results of its development were captured in the monograph “Thinking and Speech.” Having taken up global questions about the relationship between training and education, Vygotsky gave it an innovative interpretation in the concept he introduced of the “zone of proximal development,” according to which only that training is effective that “runs ahead” of development. In the last period of his creative work, the leitmotif of Vygotsky’s quests, connecting into a common knot the various branches of his work (the history of the doctrine of affects, the study of the age-related dynamics of consciousness, the semantic connotation of words), became the problem of the relationship between motivation and cognitive processes. Vygotsky worked to the limit human capabilities. From dawn until late, his days were filled with countless lectures, clinical and laboratory work. He made many reports at various meetings and conferences, wrote theses, articles, and introductions to materials collected by his collaborators. When Vygotsky was taken to the hospital, he took his beloved Hamlet with him. In one of the entries about the Shakespearean tragedy, it was noted that Hamlet’s main state is readiness. “I’m ready” - these were the words, according to the nurse’s testimony. last words Vygotsky. Although his early death did not allow Vygotsky to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the individual, the development of his mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of personality formation. Bibliography of works by L.S. Vygotsky has 191 works. Vygotsky's ideas have received wide resonance in all sciences that study humans, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, and sociology. They defined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and to this day retain their heuristic potential.

_________________________

http://www.nsk.vspu.ac.ru/person/vygot.html
http://www.psiheya-rsvpu.ru/index.php?razdel=3&podrazdels=20&id_p=67