Years of life: 1896 - 1934
Homeland: Orsha (Russian Empire)
Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was born in 1896. He was an outstanding Russian psychologist, the 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 a kind of cultural center of the city. 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 famous philologists came from the Vygodsky family. 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 abilities in all subjects. At the gymnasium he studied German, French, Latin, and 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 his scientific career as a psychologist falls during this period, 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 the graduating classes of Gomel schools in 1923.” "In 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. The new director of the 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. The first period (1924-1927). Having just arrived in Moscow and having passed the exams for the title of research assistant of the 2nd category, Vygotsky made three reports in six months. In terms of further development of the new psychological concept conceived in Gomel, he built a model of behavior, which was based on the concept of speech. reactions. 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 at the People's Commissariat of Education. Showing brilliant organizational skills, he laid the foundations of the defectology service, and later became the scientific director of the 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, and gestaltism, trying to determine the significance of each of the directions for the development of a new picture of mental regulation. Back in 1920, Vygotsky fell ill with tuberculosis, and since then, outbreaks of the disease more than once plunged him into a “borderline situation” between life and death. One of the most severe outbreaks hit 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 has become the cornerstone.” He called this stone practice and philosophy. The second period of Vygotsky's work (1927-1931) in his Moscow decade was instrumental psychology. He introduces the concept of a sign, which acts as a special psychological tool, the use of which, without changing anything in the substance of nature, serves as a powerful means of transforming the psyche from natural (biological) to cultural (historical). Thus, the didactic “stimulus-response” scheme 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 cultural forms from its biopsychic natural “material”. Vygotsky becomes one of the country's main pedologists. "Pedology of School Age" (1928), "Pedology of Adolescence" (1929), "Pedology of Adolescents" (1930-1931) are published. 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 ones, in the mental life of a child. The new research program became the main one in his third and 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 at the limit of 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, according to the nurse, were Vygotsky’s last words. 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.
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Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich (1896-1934) - Soviet psychologist, creator of the cultural-historical theory of the development of higher mental functions. Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born on November 5, 1896 in the city of Orsha. A year later, the Vygotsky family moved to Gomel. It was in this city that Lev graduated from school. After graduating from high school, L.S. Vygotsky entered Moscow University, where he studied at the Faculty of Law.
He worked at the Moscow State Institute of Experimental Psychology (1924-1928), at the State Institute of Scientific Pedagogy (GINP) at LGPI and at LGPI named after. A. I. Herzen (both in 1927-1934), the Academy of Communist Education (AKV) (1929-1931), the 2nd Moscow State University (1927-1930), and after the reorganization of the 2nd Moscow State University - into the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. A. S. Bubnov (1930-1934), as well as at the Experimental Defectology Institute founded by him (1929-1934); also gave courses of lectures at a number of educational institutions and research organizations in Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent and Kharkov, for example, at the Central Asian State University (SASU) (in 1929).
Vygotsky was widely involved in pedagogy, consulting and research activities. He was a member of many editorial boards and wrote a lot himself. Despite the materialist form of his theory, Vygotsky adhered to an empirical evolutionist direction in the study of cultural differences in thinking, creating an approach to psychology. By exploring verbal thinking, Vygotsky solves in a new way the problem of localizing higher mental functions as structural units of brain activity. Studying the development and disintegration 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.
In 1928-32, Vygotsky, together with his colleagues Luria and Leontiev, participated in experimental research at the Academy of Communist Education. Vygotsky headed the psychological laboratory, and Luria headed the entire department. The greatest fame was brought to Vygotsky by the psychological theory he created, which became widely known as the Cultural-Historical Concept of the Development of Higher Mental Functions, the theoretical and empirical potential of which has not yet been exhausted. The essence of this concept is the synthesis of the doctrine of nature and the doctrine of culture. The theory represents an alternative to existing behavioral theories, and above all behaviorism. According to the author himself, the study of the basic patterns of cultural development can give an idea of the laws of personality formation. Lev Semenovich considered this problem in the light of child psychology. The spiritual development of the child was made somewhat dependent on the organized influence of adults on him. Lev Semenovich’s many works are devoted to the study of mental development and patterns of personality formation in childhood, problems of learning and teaching children at school. It was Vygotsky who played the most outstanding role in the development of the science of defectology. He created a laboratory for the psychology of abnormal childhood in Moscow, which later became an integral part of the Experimental Defectology Institute. When studying the psychological characteristics of abnormal children, Vygotsky placed the main emphasis on the mentally retarded and deaf-blind.
Vygotsky’s works examined in detail the problem of the relationship between the roles of maturation and learning in the development of a child’s higher mental functions. 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 situation of development, defined as “a peculiar, age-specific, exclusive, unique and inimitable relationship between the child and the reality around him, primarily social.” It is this relationship that determines the course of development of the child’s psyche at a certain age stage.
A significant contribution to educational psychology is the concept of the zone of proximal development introduced by Vygotsky. The zone of proximal development is “an area of unripe but maturing processes”, encompassing tasks that a child at a given level of development cannot cope with on his own, but which he can solve with the help of an adult; This is a level reached by a child only through joint activities with an adult.
At the last stage of his scientific activity, Vygotsky became interested in the problems of thinking and speech and wrote his scientific work Thinking and Speech. In this fundamental scientific work, the main idea is the inextricable connection that exists between thinking and speech. Vygotsky first made the assumption, which he himself soon confirmed, that the level of development of thinking depends on the formation and development of speech. He revealed the interdependence of these two processes.
During Lev Semenovich's lifetime, his works were not allowed for publication in the USSR. Since the early 1930s. Real persecution began against him, the authorities accused him of ideological perversions. On June 11, 1934, after a long illness, at the age of 37, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky died.
Everyone knows Freud, Jurg - the majority, Carnegie and Maslow - many. Vygotsky Lev Semenovich is a name more likely for professionals. The rest have only heard the name and, at best, can associate it with defectology. That's all. But this was one of the brightest stars of Russian psychology. It was Vygotsky who created a unique direction that has nothing in common with the interpretation of the formation of the human personality of any of the science gurus. In the 30s, everyone in the world of psychology and psychiatry knew this name - Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. The works of this man created a sensation.
Scientist, psychologist, teacher, philosopher
Time does not stand still. New discoveries are being made, science is moving forward, restoring in some ways and rediscovering in others what was lost. And if you conduct a street survey, it is unlikely that many respondents will be able to answer who Lev Semenovich Vygotsky is. The photos - old, black and white, blurry - will show us a young, handsome man with a thoroughbred, elongated face. However, Vygotsky never became old. Perhaps fortunately. His life flashed like a bright comet on the arch of Russian science, flashed and went out. The name was consigned to oblivion, the theory was declared erroneous and harmful. Meanwhile, even if we discard the originality and subtlety of Vygotsky’s general theory, the fact that his contribution to defectology, especially children’s, is invaluable is beyond doubt. He created a theory of working with children suffering from damage to the sensory organs and mental disorders.
Childhood
November 5, 1986 It was on this day that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born in Orsha, Mogilev province. The biography of this man did not contain any bright and surprising events. Wealthy Jews: father is a merchant and banker, mother is a teacher. The family moved to Gomel, and there a private teacher, Solomon Markovich Ashpiz, was involved in teaching the children, a rather remarkable figure in those parts. He did not practice traditional teaching methods, but Socratic dialogues, which were almost never used in educational institutions. Perhaps it was this experience that determined Vygotsky’s own unusual approach to teaching practice. His cousin, David Isaakovich Vygodsky, a translator and famous literary critic, also influenced the formation of the worldview of the future scientist.
Student years
Vygotsky knew several languages: Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Latin, English and Esperanto. He studied at Moscow University, first at the medical faculty, then transferred to law. For some time he studied science in parallel at two faculties - law and history and philosophy, at the University. Shanyavsky. Later, 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 his thesis. This work was highly appreciated by experts, since Vygotsky used a new, unexpected method of analysis, which allows one to look at a literary work from a different angle. Lev Semenovich was only 19 years old at that time.
When he was a student, Vygotsky did a lot of literary analysis and published works on the works of Lermontov and Bely.
First steps into science
After the revolution, having graduated from university, Vygotsky first left for Samara, then with his family looked for work in Kyiv and, in the end, returned to his native Gomel, where he lived until 1924. Not a psychotherapist, not a psychologist, but a teacher - this is precisely the profession that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky chose. A brief biography of those years can fit in a few lines. He worked as a teacher in schools, technical schools, and courses. First he headed the theater department of education, and then the art department, wrote and published (critical articles, reviews). For some time, Vygotsky even worked as an editor for a local publication.
In 1923, he was the leader of a group of students at the Moscow Pedological Institute. The experimental work of this group provided material for study and analysis that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky could use in his works. His activity as a serious scientist began precisely in those years. At the All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurologists in Petrograd, Vygotsky made a report based on the data obtained as a result of these experimental studies. The work of the young scientist created a sensation; for the first time words were heard about the emergence of a new direction in psychology.
Carier start
It was with this speech that the career of the young scientist began. Vygotsky was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. Outstanding psychologists of that time - Leontyev and Luria - already worked there. Vygotsky not only organically fit into this scientific team, but also became an ideological leader, as well as an initiator of research.
Soon, practically every practicing psychotherapist and defectologist knew who Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was. The main works of this outstanding scientist will be written later, but at that time he was a brilliant practitioner for everyone, personally engaged in pedagogical and therapeutic activities. Parents of sick children made incredible efforts to get an appointment with Vygotsky. And if you managed to become an “experimental sample” in the laboratory of anomalous childhood, it was considered an incredible success.
How did a teacher become a psychologist?
What is so unusual about the theory that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky proposed to the world? Psychology was not his core subject; he was, rather, a linguist, literary critic, cultural critic, and practicing teacher. Why exactly psychology? Where?
The answer lies in the theory itself. Vygotsky was the first to try to move away from reflexology; he was interested in the conscious formation of personality. Figuratively speaking, if personality is a house, then before Vygotsky, psychologists and psychiatrists were exclusively interested in the foundation. Of course it is necessary. Without this there will be no home. The foundation largely determines the building - shape, height, some design features. It can be improved, improved, strengthened and isolated. But this does not change the fact. The foundation is just the foundation. But what will be built on it is the result of the interaction of many factors.
Culture determines the psyche
If we continue the analogy, it was precisely these factors that determine the final appearance of the house that Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was interested in. The main works of the researcher: “Psychology of Art”, “Thinking and Speech”, “Psychology of Child Development”, “Pedagogical Psychology”. The scientist's range of interests clearly shaped his approach to psychological research. A person passionate about art and linguistics, a gifted teacher who loves and understands children - this is Lev Nikolaevich Vygotsky. He clearly saw that it was impossible to separate the psyche and the products it produced. Art and language are products of the activity of human consciousness. But they also determine the emerging consciousness. Children do not grow up in a vacuum, but in the context of a certain culture, in a linguistic environment that has a great influence on the psyche.
Educator and psychologist
Vygotsky understood children well. He was a wonderful teacher and a sensitive, loving father. His daughters said that they had a warm, trusting relationship not so much with their mother, a strict and reserved woman, but with their father. And they noted that the main feature of Vygotsky’s attitude towards children was a feeling of deep, sincere respect. The family lived in a small apartment, and Lev Semenovich did not have a separate place to work. But he never pulled the children back, did not forbid them to play or invite friends to visit. After all, this was a violation of the equality accepted in the family. If guests come to their parents, children have the same right to invite friends. To ask not to make noise for a while, as an equal to an equal, is the maximum that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich allowed himself. Quotes from the memoirs of the scientist’s daughter, Gita Lvovna, will allow you to look “behind the scenes” of the life of an outstanding Russian psychologist.
Vygotsky's daughter about her father
The scientist’s daughter says that there was not much separate time dedicated to her. But her father took her with him to work, to college, and there the girl could freely look at any exhibits and preparations, and her father’s colleagues always explained to her what, why and why she needed it. So, for example, she saw a unique exhibit - Lenin’s brain, stored in a jar.
Her father did not read children's poems to her - he simply did not like them, he considered them tasteless and primitive. But Vygotsky had an excellent memory, and he could recite many classical works by heart. As a result, the girl developed excellently in art and literature, without at all feeling her age inadequacy.
People around about Vygotsky
The daughter also notes that Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was extremely attentive to people. When he listened to the interlocutor, he concentrated on the conversation completely. During the dialogue with the student, it was impossible to immediately make out who was the student and who was the teacher. The same point is noted by other people who knew the scientist: janitors, servants, cleaners. They all said that Vygotsky was an exceptionally sincere and benevolent person. Moreover, this quality was not demonstrative, developed. No, it was just a character trait. Vygotsky was very easily embarrassed; he was extremely critical of himself, but at the same time he treated people with tolerance and understanding.
Work with children
Perhaps it was sincere kindness, the ability to deeply feel other people and treat their shortcomings with condescension that led Vygotsky to defectology. He always maintained that limited abilities in one thing are not a death sentence for a child. The flexible child's psyche actively seeks opportunities for successful socialization. Dumbness, deafness, blindness are just physical limitations. And the child’s consciousness instinctively tries to overcome them. The main responsibility of doctors and teachers is to help the child, push him and support him, and also provide alternative opportunities for communication and obtaining information.
Vygotsky paid special attention to the problems of mentally retarded and deaf-blind children as the most problematic socialized children, and achieved great success in organizing their education.
Psychology and culture
Vygotsky was keenly interested in the psychology of art. He believed that this particular industry is capable of exerting a critical influence on the individual, releasing affective emotions that cannot be realized in ordinary life. The scientist considered art to be the most important tool of socialization. Personal experiences form personal experience, but emotions caused by the influence of a work of art form external, public, social experience.
Vygotsky was also convinced that thinking and speech are interconnected. If developed thinking allows you to speak a rich, complex language, then there is an inverse relationship. The development of speech will lead to a qualitative leap in intelligence.
He introduced a third element into the consciousness-behavior connection familiar to psychologists - culture.
Death of a Scientist
Alas, Lev Semenovich was not a very healthy person. At the age of 19, he contracted tuberculosis. For many years the disease lay dormant. Vygotsky, although he was not healthy, still coped with his illness. But the disease progressed slowly. Perhaps the situation was aggravated by the persecution of the scientist that unfolded in the 1930s. Later, his family sadly joked that Lev Semenovich died on time. This saved him from arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, and his relatives from reprisals.
In May 1934, the scientist’s condition became so severe that he was prescribed bed rest, and within a month the body’s resources were completely exhausted. On June 11, 1934, the outstanding scientist and talented teacher Lev Semenovich Vygotsky died. 1896-1934 - only 38 years of life. Over the years, he has accomplished an incredible amount. His works were not immediately appreciated. But now many practices of working with abnormal children are based precisely on the methods developed by Vygotsky.
Psychologist, professor (1928). He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1917) and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philology of the A. L. Shanyavsky People's University. In 1918-1924. worked in Gomel. Since 1924, in psychological scientific and educational institutions of Moscow (Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, Academy of Communist Education named after N.K. Krupskaya, Faculty of Pedagogy of the 2nd Moscow State University, Experimental Defectology Institute, etc.); He also worked at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov.
He began his scientific activity by studying the psychology of art - he explored the psychological patterns of perception of literary works ("The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", 1916; "Psychology of Art", 1925, published in 1965). He studied the theory of reflexological and psychological research (articles of 1925-1926), as well as the problems of educational psychology ("Educational Psychology. Short Course", 1926). He gave a deep critical analysis of world psychology of the 1920-1930s, which played an important role in the development of Soviet psychological science ("The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis", 1927, published 1982; see also Vygotsky's preface to the Russian translation of V. Köhler, K. Koffka, K. Bühler, J. Piaget, E. Thorndike, A. Gesell, etc.).
He created a cultural-historical theory of the development of human behavior and psyche, in which, based on the Marxist understanding of the socio-historical nature of human activity and consciousness, he examined the process of ontogenetic development of the psyche. According to this theory, the sources and determinants of human mental development lie in the historically developed culture. “Culture is the product of social life and social activity of a person, and therefore the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already introduces us directly to the social plan of development” (Collected Works, vol. 3, M., 1983, pp. 145-146). The main provisions of this theory: 1) the basis of a person’s mental development is a qualitative change in the social situation of his life; 2) the universal moments of a person’s mental development are his training and upbringing; 3) the initial form of life activity - its detailed implementation by a person in the external (social) plan; 4) psychological new formations that have arisen in a person are derived from the internalization of the original form of his life activity; 5) a significant role in the process of internalization belongs to various sign systems; 6) important in a person’s life and consciousness are his intellect and emotions, which are in internal unity.
In relation to human mental development, Vygotsky formulated a general genetic law: “Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then within the child, as an intrapsychic category.” ... The transition from outside to inside transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Behind all higher functions and their relationships there are genetically social relationships, real relationships between people” (ibid., p. 145).
Thus, according to Vygotsky, the determinants of mental development are not located inside the child’s body and personality, but outside it - in the situation of the child’s social interaction with other people (primarily with adults). In the course of communication and joint activity, patterns of social behavior are not only learned, but also basic psychological structures are formed, which subsequently determine the entire course of mental processes. When such structures are formed, we can talk about the presence in a person of the corresponding conscious and voluntary mental functions, consciousness itself.
The content of a person’s consciousness, arising in the process of internalization of his social (external) activity, always has a symbolic form. To realize something means to attribute meaning to an object, to designate it with a sign (for example, a word). Thanks to consciousness, the world appears before a person in a symbolic form, which Vygotsky called a kind of “psychological tool.” “A sign located outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the personality and serves, in essence, as a social organ or social means” (ibid., p. 146). In addition, a sign is a means of communication between people: “Every sign, if we take its real origin, is a means of communication, and we could say more broadly - a means of connecting certain mental functions of a social nature. Transferred to oneself, it is the same means of connection functions in itself" (ibid., vol. 1, p. 116).
Vygotsky's views were important for the psychology and pedagogy of education and training. Vygotsky substantiated the ideas of activity in the educational process, in which the student is active, the teacher is active, and the social environment is active. At the same time, Vygotsky constantly emphasized the dynamic social environment that connects teacher and student. “Education should be based on the personal activity of the student, and the entire art of the educator should be reduced only to directing and regulating this activity... The teacher is, from a psychological point of view, the organizer of the educational environment, the regulator and controller of its interaction with the student. .. The social environment is the true lever of the educational process, and the entire role of the teacher comes down to controlling this lever" (Pedagogical psychology. Short course, M., 1926, pp. 57-58). The main psychological goal of education and training is the purposeful and deliberate development in children of new forms of behavior and activity, i.e. systematic organization of their development (see ibid., pp. 9, 55, 57). Vygotsky developed the concept of the zone of proximal development. In Vygotsky’s view, “properly organized education of a child leads to the child’s mental development, brings to life a whole series of development processes that would otherwise be impossible without education. Education is... an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development of a child’s non-natural , but the historical characteristics of man" (Selected psychological studies, M., 1956, p. 450).
Analyzing the stages of mental development, Vygotsky formulated the problem of age in psychology and proposed a variant of periodization of child development based on the alternation of “stable” and “critical” ages, taking into account the mental neoplasms characteristic of each age. He studied the stages of development of children's thinking - from syncretic through complex, through thinking with pseudo-concepts to the formation of true concepts. Vygotsky highly valued the role of play in the mental development of children and especially in the development of their creative imagination. In a polemic with J. Piaget about the nature and function of speech, he methodologically, theoretically and experimentally showed that speech is social both in origin and in function.
Vygotsky made major contributions to many areas of psychological science. He created a new direction in defectology, showing the possibility of compensating for mental and sensory defects not through training of elementary, directly affected functions, but through the development of higher mental functions (“Main problems of modern defectology”, 1929). He developed a new doctrine about the localization of mental functions in the cerebral cortex, which marked the beginning of modern neuropsychology (“Psychology and the doctrine of the localization of mental functions”, 1934). He studied the problems of the connection between affect and intellect ("The Teaching of Emotions", 1934, partially published in 1968, fully in 1984), problems of the historical development of behavior and consciousness ("Studies on the History of Behavior", 1930, jointly with A.R. Luria).
Some of Vygotsky’s studies, psychological in essence, were carried out using pedological terminology in the spirit of the times (for example, “Pedology of the Adolescent,” 1929-1931). This led to the mid-30s. sharp criticism of Vygotsky’s ideas, dictated mainly by extra-scientific reasons, since there were no real grounds for such criticism. For many years, Vygotsky's theory was excluded from the arsenal of Soviet psychological thought. Since the mid-50s. the assessment of Vygotsky’s scientific creativity is freed from opportunistic bias.
Vygotsky created a large scientific school. Among his students are L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, D. B. Elkonin and others. Vygotsky’s theory causes a wide resonance in world psychological science, including in the works of J. Bruner, Koffka, Piaget, S. Toulmin and others.
Literature: Scientific creativity of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1981; Bubbles A. A., Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1986; Davydov V.V., Zinchenko V.P., L.S. Vygotsky’s contribution to the development of psychological science, Soviet Pedagogy, 1986, No. 11; Yaroshevsky M. G., L. S. Vygotsky: search for principles of constructing general psychology, Questions of Psychology, 1986, No. 6; Leontiev A. A., L. S. Vygotsky. Book for students, M., 1990; Wertsch J. V., Vygotsky and the social Formation of mind, Camb. (Mass.) - L., 1985; Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives, ed. by J. V. Wertsch, Camb. - , 1985.