Vicissitudes of history in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory

Introduction

Vygotsky’s theory has usually been described as a cultural-historical theory. These attributes refer primarily to his approach to psychic development, which claims that cultural and historical conditions are formative in the structuring and functioning of psychic processes. In a book on Vygotsky, Soviet historian of psychology Yaroshevsky pointed out that such was Vygotsky’s own understanding of his theory: ‘Vygotsky referred to his theory as cultural-historical. This term stressed that the factors determining the individual’s life activity and the wealth of his psychical world were produced by the historical development of culture’ (Yaroshevsky, 1989: 19). Such a descriptive tradition has been used in Vygotsky’s home country for a long time (the former Soviet Union, now Russia – e.g. Davydov and Radzikhovskii, 1985; Leontiev, 1997 [1982]; V. Zinchenko, 2009; Y. Zinchenko and Pervichko, 2013), although over time it has had different functions, one being to differentiate, and for some time, surprisingly, also to discredit, Vygotsky’s theory as idealistic when compared with the later activity theory promoted by A. N. Leontiev. Recently there have also been denials that Vygotsky described his theory as cultural-historical (Keiler, 2012). However, it cannot be denied that the content and argumentation in Vygotsky’s theory are fundamentally social, cultural and historical, which is certainly much more important than the label itself. Vygotsky explicitly stated: ‘[I]n the process of historical development the social man [obshchestvenny chelovek] changes the methods and devices of his behavior, transforms natural instincts and functions, and develops and creates new forms of behavior – specifically cultural’ (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 18).

The cultural-historical label has been accepted in the new independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union (for example, Koshmanova [2007], who used to live in Ukraine), as well as in different locations of a multifaceted reception of Vygotsky’s ideas worldwide (for example, Chaiklin, 2001; Cole, 1995; Cornejo, 2012; Daniels, 1996; Elhammoumi, 2002; Ferrari, Robinson and Yasnitsky, 2010; Ratner, 2012; Van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991; Van der Veer, 2012; Wertsch, 1985; Yasnitsky, Van der Veer and Ferrari, 2014). These attributes have been also preserved in contemporary approaches based on but not restricted to Vygotsky’s theory – as in the well-known acronym CHAT – cultural-historical activity theory.

And yet, the components of the compound signifier ‘cultural-historical’ of Yygotsky’s theory have had quite uneven histories so far. ‘The cultural’ has been privileged in theorizations and research, while ‘the historical’ is left either self-evident or marginalized, if not completely ‘unattended’ – except, of course, in discussions of the ‘history of the higher psychic functions’. Neither the historical itself nor its relative marginalization compared with the status of the cultural have been subjected to a systematic reflection in Vygotskian scholarship. To my knowledge, there are rather few exceptions which address the historical itself in Vygotsky’s theory – for example, A. N. Leontiev (1982) when introducing Vygotsky’s Sobranie sochinenij [Collected Works], Sylvia Scribner (1985) analysing Vygotsky’s use of history, or Eduardo Vianna and Anna Stetsenko (2006), when contrasting Piagetian and Vygotskian theories, under the quite appealing title ‘Embracing History through Transforming it’.

This historical and cultural fact of a relatively weak or missing link of the historical in an examination of Vygotsky’s theory certainly deserves per se an analysis, even more so on an occasion which is historically laden – as anniversaries by definition are. How can we understand that neglect or omission? I think that it is time to address this issue and in this way, hopefully, open new vistas for scholarship inspired by Vygotsky. I believe this could be fruitful also for psychological scholarship more generally as ahistorical approaches to its subject matter as well as to its concepts and methodologies still prevail in psychology (for critical analyses see Danziger, 1990, 1997). Vygotsky has also demonstrated the theoretical fruitfulness of Marxism in developing a socio-cultural historical psychological theory. In that way he enriched Marxism with more differentiated and psychologically founded argumentations and psychology with an historically and socio-culturally founded theorizing.

The main task of this article will therefore be to address and examine the different aspects and forms of the historical itself in Vygotsky’s theory. The first domain will be the status of history and the historical in general. In the constitution and reproduction of history two kinds of processes are necessary – while Vygotky was concentrated on the internalization of social relations and cultural tools into individual mental functioning, it will be pointed out here that the complementary process, necessary for social functioning – the externalization of the mental – is missing from Vygotsky’s theory. Though Vygotsky is in general theoretically oriented toward processes of development and not just results, as far as the processes of production of tools and shaping of relations are concerned they are hardly discussed in Vygotsky’s theory. As these processes necessarily include externalization of mental states, in consequence there is no proper theoretical place for externalization in Vygotsky’s theory either. In my view, this omission has consequences beyond the specific aspect of externalization. It affects more general features of Vygotsky’s approach as it shows that Vygotsky was not consistent in developing his processual historical approach. Thus, I would claim that the lack of externalization in Vygotsky’s theory is relevant both for his understanding of the historical and for understanding of his own theorization.

The second domain of the examination and evaluation of the historical will be Vygotsky’s epistemological and methodological views on the historical approach. More general epistemological questions which emerge in attempts to conceptualize historical change, i.e. structural changes over a large time scale, will be also raised. Thus, the question ‘How is the historical present and represented in Vygotsky’s theory and methodology?’ should lead our analysis at the theoretical level.

Additionally to that level the historical will be analysed within the framework of the socio-historical conditions under which Vygotsky lived while developing his theoretical views. The next question closely related to the anniversary could be phrased in the following way: ‘What has the time unit which stands approximately for life expectancy nowadays brought to Vygotsky’s concept of psychology?’ Or, to express it in a more metaphoric manner: ‘How has Vygotsky’s legacy grown up during a time period which is approximately at the disposal of one human life nowadays?’

These questions necessarily require reference to developments within psychology or the psychologies, but also to related disciplines. When developing his theory Vygotsky relied on then existing psychological theories – for example, associationism, gestalt psychology, behaviorism, psychoanalysis – but also on authors who did not belong to such major psychological schools – for example, Wilhelm Dilthey, Hugo Münsterberg, Karl Bühler, or Ludwig Binswanger. However, Vygotsky developed his theory out of a critical attitude toward then existing psychology which was in a state of crisis, as seen by several authors – e.g. Bühler (1927), Politzer (1994[1928]). As is well known, Vygotsky (1997a[1927/1982]) himself devoted a whole study to The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology.

Would Vygotsky repeat his diagnosis of the crisis of psychology if he could look at contemporary psychological theorizings and methodological models? Has a worldwide reception of Vygotsky’s ideas appropriated the foundations of a new psychology as projected by Vygotsky or just some concepts which were congenial to established psychological programmes? As has been already noted:

Interestingly, whilst attempts to develop Vygotsky’s work in Russia have not foregrounded semiotic mediation but have foregrounded the analysis of social transmission in activity settings, much of the work in the West has tended to ignore the social beyond the interactional and to celebrate individual and mediational processes at the expense of a consideration of socio-institutional, cultural and historical factors. Ideological differences between the West and the East have given rise to differences in theoretical development and of course pedagogical application. (Daniels, 1996: 9)

Beyond these intellectual developments in psychology it is important to reflect on broader social, political and cultural changes which have characterized the last 80 years. In these changes are included also new understandings of history both as a subject matter and as an historiographical discourse. Indeed, as pointed out by Harry Daniels, ‘the modernizing force of his [Vygotsky’s (G. J.)] writings rests a little uneasily with the post-modern confusion of the late twentieth century’ (Daniels, 1996: 23).

It is certainly challenging to reflect on a theory with a strong modernist progressive agenda as Vygotsky’s theory is understood in this article from a contemporary standpoint shaped by postmodern questionings, cross-cultural relativizations, postcolonial critical theorizing, or evolutionary psychology.

It is within these semantic frameworks that the historical in and around Vygotsky’s theory will be addressed in this article. It is expected that the understanding of the multifaceted meanings of the historical in Vygotsky’s psychology and insights into the potentials of historical approach could enrich Vygotskian and broader psychological scholarship.

An historical approach to psychic development

In a general sense history consists of socio-temporal patterns which have followed the biological evolution of Homo sapiens and which introduced a new principle of development compared with evolutionary biological mechanisms: ‘The laws of historical evolution of man differ fundamentally from the laws of biological evolution and the basic difference between these two processes consists of the fact that a human being evolves and develops as a historical, social being’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 182).

Neither such a time perspective nor the new developmental principle are self-understood standpoints in psychological theorizing – thus, in my view, their very recognition is already a valuable achievement. Historical approaches offered by psychoanalysis or Dilthey’s ‘understanding psychology’ [verstehende Psychologie] are not satisfactory in Vygotsky’ view. Accordingly Vygotsky even claimed: ‘The history of the development of the higher mental functions is a field in psychology that has never been explored’ (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 1).

This fact is linked to the relatively weak explanatory power of psychology. In other words, Vygotsky was aware of the importance of the historical approach for epistemological reasons – to him, historical explanations have the greatest epistemological value: ‘using the expression of S. Hall, psychology places genetic explanation above logical explanation… The historical explanation seems to the psychologist-geneticist to be higher than any other possible form’ (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 97). In that respect Vygotsky agrees with Jean Piaget, another important developmental psychologist, who argued for ‘fruitfulness of a method which attempts to arrive at an understanding of mechanisms of knowledge through studying their origins and development’ (Piaget, 1972a: 15). This approach applies also to scientific knowledge: ‘historical and psychological factors…are of interest in our attempt to understand the nature of scientific knowledge’ (Piaget, 1970: 4).

In spite of the necessity for developmental-historical explanations, not any developmental or historical explanation is satisfactory, in Vygotsky’s view. Pre-formism, which believes in the evolvement of innate structures, and cryptic, hidden evolutionism, which dominantly shaped the psychological concept of development, are not adequate to approach the history of the development of higher mental functions. This critical diagnosis is based on a very strong concept of development which poses additional epistemological challenges as it should grasp the critical and revolutionary changes which characterize the history of cultural development.

Of Vygotsky’s many contributions to psychological theory, he has perhaps been most widely acclaimed for introducing the historical approach to the development of higher mental processes…Soviet historians of science who hold different assessments of Vygotsky’s work, agree in honoring him as the first to explicate the historical formation of the mind. (Scribner, 1985: 120–1)

Vygotsky does not hesitate to use the expression ‘revolutionary changes’ to describe features of child development – an expression once widely used to describe socio-political changes in socialist societies. One could assume that the availability of such an interpretive repertoire might make Vygotsky more open and sensitive to a different concept of development than that offered by pre-formism and crypto-evolutionism. But even more, such an interpretation could be derived from Vygotsky’s main explanatory thesis, or law, as he considered it – the law of internalization of the external social into the individual mental. There are no logical reasons why that thesis could not be applied also metatheoretically, to understanding scientific theoretical concepts, including Vygotsky’s own theory, though in Vygotsky’s original formulation it referred to mental functioning of individuals in general:

We might say that all higher functions were formed not in biology, not in the history of pure phylogenesis, but that the mechanism itself that is the basis of higher mental functions is a copy from the social. All higher mental functions are the essence of internalized relations of a social order…(Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 106)

In this context, additionally to the idea of a revolutionary change, another symbolic tool, from the then dominant interpretive repertoire, was useful to strengthen Vygotsky’s position and he widely uses it – understanding the essence of human being as an ensemble of social relations. However, Vygotsky expanded its meaning, beyond Marx’s thesis, to psychic nature:

Changing the well-known thesis of Marx, we could say that the mental nature of man represents the totality of social relations internalized and made into functions of the individual and forms of his structure. We do not want to say that this is specifically the meaning of the thesis of Marx, but we see in this thesis the most complete expression of everything to which our history of cultural development leads. (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 106)

Evidently, Vygotsky’s focus is on explanation of the development, structure and functions of higher mental functions, i.e. the ‘mental nature of man’ whose genesis is explained through the internalization of social relations. This is the core issue in the explanation of development. Therefore it is necessary to analyse in detail Vygotsky’s theoretical argumentation, to point out both his achievements and his shortcomings.

Through others we become ourselves, and this rule refers not only to the individual as a whole, but also to the history of each separate function. This also comprises the essence of the process of cultural development expressed in a purely logical form…In psychology, the problem of the relation of external and internal mental functions is posed here for the first time in all its significance…For us to call a process ‘external’ means to call it ‘social’. Every higher mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal, strictly mental function; it was formerly a social relation of two people. The means of action on oneself is initially a means of action on others or a means of action of others on the individual. (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 105)

Vygotsky explicitly states the importance of the relation of external and internal, but it seems that he is more oriented toward the ‘internal’ perspective, as he is mostly interested in explaining how that internal has become what it is. His focus on the direction from external to internal is understandable when the explanation of child development is on the agenda.

But Vygotsky also expresses general statements on the ‘mental nature of man’ or ‘the essence of cultural development’, even more – he establishes a connection from the ontogenetic level to the general cultural or anthropological one. As Vygotsky himself introduced that broad link and framework, it is legitimate to ask whether he has sufficient and adequate theoretical means to reconstruct the general cultural framework. This is especially important for Vygotsky’s approach, as his concepts transgress usual meanings and Vygotsky justifies such transgressions.

A good example is in his concepts of external and social. In contrast to other authors who also pointed to the problem of interiorization (he mentions Kretschmer and Bühler) Vygotsky stressed that ‘we have something else in mind when we speak of the external stage in the history of the cultural development of child. For us to call a process “external” means to call it “social”’ (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 105). Needless to repeat how important it is for Vygotsky’s theory to define the external as social, against the prevailing tendency in psychology to populate the external with the physical only or at least predominantly. Even more important to Vygotsky is to define the meaning of the social. In that regard he also differs substantially from the then and now prevailing identification of the social with the pressure and constraints imposed on supposedly autonomous individuals:

The word ‘social’, as applied to our subject, has a broad meaning. First of all, in the broadest sense, it means that everything cultural is social. Culture is both a product of social life and of the social activity of man and for this reason, the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already leads us directly to the social plane of development. Further we could indicate the fact that the sign found outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the individual and serves essentially as a social organ or social means. (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 106)

According to this understanding, there are two forms of the social – social activity and social tools. They are at the same time constituents of the cultural. What is striking in this context, however, is the fact that Vygotsky assumes a synchronic standpoint, as far as the social and cultural are concerned, even within a framework of the examination of the history of the development of higher mental functions. There is no reference to historical production of signs – they are just ‘found outside the organism’. In describing culture as a ‘product of social life and of the social activity of man’ a historical dimension could be logically assumed, but again it is not explicated. History is somehow withdrawn from the conceptualization of the social and cultural and moved to the conceptualization of higher mental functions.

The history of history

I would claim that, paradoxically enough, history is at the same time present and absent in Vygotsky’s theory. Though there are different levels of history in Vygotsky – general history, history of individual societies, life-history of the individual in society, and history of particular psychological systems, as stressed by Sylvia Scribner (1985: 141) – there are differences in their theoretical status. Vygotsky mostly refers to history in the context of the development of higher mental functions.

The most challenging task, however, is the conceptualization of general history, i.e. the development of an historical approach to general history, or the history of humankind. This is not a task external to Vygotsky’s theory – on the contrary, there are theoretical links between general historical development and ontogenetic development. In assuming a general historical approach Vygotsky relied on Marx and Engels and their understanding of human beings as constituted by their tool-mediated activity, which transforms external nature as well as human nature. Beyond that there is hardly any conceptualization of history in general in Vygotsky. History is populated in Vygotsky’s view with available tools that mediate human labour and with signs that mediate human mental processes. The second type of constituents are social relations, represented in Vygotsky by relations whose prototype are intergenerational relations within the family (adults–children). Regardless of their doubtless importance, they obviously cannot be taken as representative of all other types of social relations. I would therefore argue that there are theoretical deficiences with Vygotsky’s transfer of both concepts, tools and relations, from the ontogenetic to a general historical plane. The second problem is related to a quite ahistorical understanding of both constituents – tools and relations.

Contrary to Vygotsky’s insistence on processes of becoming in the domain of the mental, tools and signs are theoretically assumed as just existing over there, ready to fulfil their mediating function. In Vygotsky’s theory they are taken-for-granted entities, which are introduced in interaction with children by more competent adults. In the further development they become internalized and integrated into the mental functioning of children. More precisely they become structural elements of higher mental functions – verbal thinking, logical memory, self-regulated activity. But the point neglected in Vygotsky is that there are quite complex, multidimensional, histories behind tools. And it is not a tool per se but a tool replete with history, or rather loaded with complex histories that mediate human activities. Thus a thing-ontology is not appropriate for conceptualizing either the internal or the external. While Vygotsky has overcome a thing-ontology and moved to a process-ontology in conceptualizing the internal, the external, meaning for Vygotsky first of all the social and represented by tools, remained to a great extent within the framework of a traditional thing-ontology.

Two historical examples of tool use can illustrate the social and political embeddedness of tools as aspects that are neglected in Vygotsky’s theorizing of tools. These reconceptualizations are achievements of post-Vygotskian scholarship, first of all in the field of science and technology studies. They can contribute to a further consequent development of Vygotsky’s theory, without questioning his basic assumptions. This development would speak to the validity of the fundamentals of his theory, but also to the necessity of overcoming the restraints of the specific conditions of his time.

The first historical example chosen here is the Gutenberg case. Johannes Gutenberg (1395–1468), blacksmith and goldsmith from Mainz, invented the mechanical movable-type printing press and printed an edition of the Bible in Latin in the 1450s. He was not the first worldwide with this invention as the Chinese Pi Sheng had already developed a movable-type printing press around 1040. But this invention remained unknown in Europe – as many other achievements of the eastern civilizations – one of the many manifestantions of ethno- and Euro-centrism. By the 1450s, European technology had all the components in place for a movable-type printing revolution. This included paper, oil-based ink, metal alloys, casting methods, and presses used for centuries to make wine and olive oil. The Europeans had one key advantage over the Chinese in making movable-type printing preferable to hand copying. Latin, Greek and all the other European languages were alphabet-based. They did not have tens of thousands of characters like Chinese. The Europeans had only to produce types for a limited number of letters (26 in the case of English).

In this way a so-called printing revolution started and it affected the whole of life, first of all religious and intellectual life. Books became less mediated by the then existing church authorities and in this way a critical examination of church dogmas could be fostered. The Roman Catholic Church quickly realized the potential of the printing press as a great challenge to its position, though at first it saw in it a divine art. Just a few decades after Gutenberg’s invention censorship was introduced in the print shop and Pope Innocent VIII ordered approval by church authorities for all printed books before their publication. Ironically enough one of the forbidden books was the Bible printed in any other language than Latin. In spite of that, without Gutenberg’s invention the Reformation would not have been possible. The printing press helped to spread Luther’s message which acknowledged everybody’s being able to understand the Bible printed in vernacular language. Protestant interpretation of the Bible and the introduction of the principle sola scriptura challenged the main authority of the feudal order. At the same time, it fostered the spreading of reading literacy.

The Reformation and the Renaissance have played a substantial role in shaping modern subjectivity and modernity in general. It was the invention of a mechanical tool that changed intellectual attitudes and ways of thinking, not the signs themselves. In contrast to handwritten text which could not be accessible to many readers, the printing press made objectified knowledge accessible to more and more scholars and eventually lay people. It is said that Gutenberg as a child whose parents could afford books, commented that it was a pity that only rich people could own books. One could also imagine that Gutenberg’s early sense of justice played an important motivational role in his endeavour. Apart from his possible personal motivation, general religious and cultural attitudes have certainly also played an important role. For example, most Muslim countries prohibited printing until the 1800s due to the belief that Arabic was the sacred language of God in the Koran and that only handwritten books were appropriate to communicate with God.

This example demonstrates the importance of the processes that brought about a tool, of the features of the tool, their availability and relation to other institutions. In short, in order to understand the effects of the internalization, it is necessary first to take into account processes preceding the internalization – namely externalization. And these processes are embedded in a broader socio-cultural and political context. As is shown, the context determines the function of the tool and before that it instigates the need, the search for, the construction and use of the tool.

The second example shows that the tool itself is not enough – beliefs and attitudes, including sometimes even cosmological ones, are necessary conditions of possibility for the acknowledgement and use of tools. The tool in the second example is the telescope constructed by Galileo around 1610. It enabled him to observe the moon and planets and these observations undermined the position held by church authorities. It is said, however, that Galileo’s university colleagues did not see any need to use the telescope and observe – their a priori trust in church authority was stronger than their curiosity for the new. The availability of the tool was not enough, even the availability of a more competent user and mediator of the tool. But, as is well known, further historical development approved Galileo’s attitude, not that of his colleagues.

The function of this reminder of these historical examples was to show that the unit of analysis even in the domain of tools should include tools in their socio-cultural contexts. Vygotsky has argued that the unit of analysis in the domain of mental functions should be considered as a whole, not as an aggregate of elements. It is a unity of thinking and speech which transforms thinking, argued Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]). The same argumentation can be applied to the conceptualization of tools. Tools do not exist and even less function as isolated entities. They are affected by the context through the whole developmental line – from a recognized need for a new tool, to an idea of how to construct it, to its realization and finally its function in the internalization processes which does not start from the pure existence of tools ‘found over there’.

Vygotsky exempted tools from socio-historical explanations although he advocated and applied such explanations when approaching the development of mental phenomena. In other words, conceptual tools were available to him, but it seems that something else mediated to allocate tools theoretically to conceptual reification instead. This could be just a consequence of the distribution of Vygotsky’s interests. But it would also be possible to assume that this could be related to the fact that the very existence of tools (as means of production) had an important role in the ideological justification of a new social system and therefore they were not very suitable for relativizing historical reconstructions.

Given their important theoretical function in Vygotsky’s thought it is clear that tools and signs deserve a detailed analysis. They should have such theoretical features as would be in accord with other categories and with Vygotsky’s whole theoretical edifice.

There is another equally important reason why it is necessary to contextualize tools socially and culturally. It is tools, in their material and symbolic forms, which build culture, they make history – as, for example, the above-mentioned Gutenberg’s movable type press. It is from that social and cultural repertoire that they are taken and used – also in the processes of the internalization of the social interpersonal relations into intrapsychic functions, which are the focus of Vygotsky’s analysis.

What remained less analysed, if at all, in Vygotsky is the other direction of the process: externalization, or – expressed in a classical German philosophical term – objectification [Vergegenständlichung]. But in order to conceptualize and understand historical development both dimensions should be taken into account. The very concept of agency, even more so of historical agency, requires coordination of both aspects. The externalization is obviously a necessary condition of possibility of communication. Knowledge of the subjective worlds of others is possible only thanks to the expression of these worlds in gestures and activity, language, material and symbolic products. In Vygotsky’s theory these aspects are rather assumed than properly elaborated.

The neglect of the externalization aspect is even more surprising within a materialist account of history which Vygotsky accepted from Marx and Engels. According to this account human tool-mediated labour has a decisive role in the making of human history. In The German Ideology, the first systematic exposition of historical materialism, by the way never published during their lifetimes, Marx and Engels wrote:

The first premise of all human history, of course, is the existence of living human individuals. The first historical act of these individuals, the act by which they distinguish themselves from animals is not the fact that they think but the fact that they begin to produce their means of subsistence. (Marx and Engels, 1994[1932 (written 1846)]: 107)

It is this insight into the role of the material productive aspects of human life that offered a new account of history. Without such insights into history emancipative projects which are necessary parts of historical materialism would not have been possible within Marxist theory.

Vygotsky not only shared such an account but elaborated it in the domain of human psychic life. He ascribed to signs as a special kind of tools a role in producing new forms of psychic life which he named higher or cultural psychic functions. In the theoretical framework of the development of higher mental functions, signs or symbolic tools are both structural and functional instruments that transform the ways of mental functioning into the specific human psyche: natural functions are replaced by cultural, features of processes change, processes build composite structures (for example, verbal thinking, logical memorizing), cultural mental processes allow for the planning and control of activity (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]).

Among the symbolic tools, language signs play the most important role in the historical development of human beings and in the ontogenetic development of individuals (Vygotsky, 1982[1934]). Inasmuch as the invention of writing systems is an achievement that marks a rupture in history, Vygotsky’s operationalization of their instrumental functions in shaping psychic functions could be understood as an introduction of general history into psychology, or the laying down of the foundation of historical psychology.

Indeed, general history is represented in Vygotsky’s theory mostly as a time framework within which tools, material and symbolic ones, emerged. Such a concept of history is related to the anthropological understanding that tool-use is an activity constitutive of humans. Though the tool as a generic term also includes symbolic tools, i.e. signs which play the decisive role in psychic development, it seems that in Vygotsky’s anthropological models non-symbolic tools prevailed. This could be a consequence of Vygotsky’s reliance on a Marxist focus on human productive activity as the defining feature of the human species and the relative subordination of other forms of activity. It is through human productive activity that a new kind of development started, different from biological evolution and its mechanisms:

Indeed, the struggle for existence and natural selection, the two driving forces of biological evolution within the animal world, lose their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical development of man. New laws, which regulate the course of human history and which cover the entire process of the material and mental development of human society, now take their place. (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 175)

These new forces are, according to historical materialism, production forces and production relations, or as Vygotsky expressed it: ‘the entire psychological makeup of individuals can be seen to depend directly on the development of technology, the degree of development of the production forces and on the structure of that social group to which the individual belongs’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 176). In the course of development from the life of ‘primitive man’ to more complex societies, the relationship between the social basis and the psychological superstructure becomes ‘mediated by a very large number of very complex material and spiritual factors’ (ibid.), but ‘the basic law of historical human development which proclaims that human beings are created by the society in which they live and that it represents the determining factor in the formation of their personalities, remains in force’ (ibid.).

The development of the means of production is also responsible for historical progress, according to the classic Marxist account. Though production relations are introduced into the account, their function is secondary, i.e. they should correspond to the level of development of the means of production, which is the driving force. Vygotsky remains within such an account – defending the industrial development which leads to the conquest of nature and criticizing capitalist forms of organization as responsible for the ‘crippling effects of progressing civilization upon human beings’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 179).

Relying further on Marx, Vygotsky preserved productive labour – which is the subjective, psychological representation of production forces – as a constitutive part of the future educational system which would create a ‘new type of human being’ (1994[1930]: 179). Both Marx and Vygotsky believed in the inherent liberating effects of production forces. This is a rather surprising claim given the fact that they both acknowledge the importance of the subjective attitude toward labour and of the social relations under which labour takes place.

In the same text, ‘The Socialist Alteration of Man’, published in 1930 in Varnitso, the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR, Vygotsky explicates three roots of the transformation of man which will follow from societal change accomplished through socialist revolution. The first root ‘consists of the very fact of the destruction of the capitalist forms of organization and production and the forms of human social and spiritual life which will rise on their foundation’. The second springs from the fact that ‘an enormous positive potential present in large scale industry, the ever growing power of humans over nature, will be liberated and become operative’. The ‘[t] hird source which initiates the alteration of man is change in the very social relationships between persons. If the relationships between people undergo a change, then along with them the ideas, standards of behaviour, requirements and tastes are also bound to change’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 181).

Though not directly related to this third source, Vygotsky describes the change in direction of the activity of man – ‘Whereas earlier their actions were directed against people, now they begin to work for their sake’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 181). No doubt, this is worthy as a general humanist statement. However, Vygotsky gives no hints as to how that change could affect the consciousness and behaviour of human beings. The crucial question is of course whether the changes in the external social world will generate structural changes in mental functions or just content changes. Could these changes affect cognition as well as emotions and volition?

In his theory Vygotsky claimed that higher, cultural mental functions need signs to be included in inter-individual interaction in order to develop. For sure, they could be developed within the old order, described as bourgeois or capitalist society. At the same time, Vygotsky also argued that the capitalist organization of society is responsible for ‘crippling effects’ on human development. Among the symptoms he mentioned the ‘corruption and distortion of the human personality and its subjection to unsuitable, one-sided development within all these different variants of the human type’ (Vygotsky, 1994[1930]: 176).

These descriptions belong to the classic Marxist repertoire, though some features were also recognized before Marx and Engels (for example, in Rousseau). In other words, Vygotsky did not add any substantially new psychological insights about the ‘crippling effects’ of the old order, as he did not depict any new beneficial impact of the new future order on human psychic development. More importantly, his psychological theory does not leave a space for developmental stages beyond the higher, cultural mental functions – similarly as Piaget’s theory does not leave a space for a stage beyond formal operations (Piaget, 1950[1947]).

Given ‘the basic law of historical human development which proclaims that human beings are created by the society in which they live’, and assuming that this law applies to the whole historical development from primitive life to developed industrial societies, it could be expected that it would be valid also for the future development (Jovanović, 2015, forthcoming). As the new order is supposed to be different from the old society, it would follow that a new type of personality and behaviour would be developed. And indeed Vygotsky repeatedly confirms that, using the rhetorical tools of opposition of the old and new – society and man.

We cannot master the truth about personality and personality itself so long as mankind has not mastered the truth about society and society itself…

In the future society, psychology will indeed be the science of the new man. Without this the perspective of Marxism and the history of science would not be complete. But this science of the new man will still remain psychology. Now we hold its thread in our hands. There is no necessity for this psychology to correspond as little to the present one as – in the words of Spinoza [1955[1677]: 61] – the constellation Dog corresponds to a dog, a barking animal. (Vygotsky, 1997a[1927/1982]: 342, 343)

What is common to the new society and the new man is freedom, and freedom is understood as self-mastery. ‘“The leap from the kingdom of necessity into the kingdom of freedom”…inevitably puts the question of the mastery of our own being, of its subjection to the self, on the agenda’ (Vygotsky, 1997a[1927/1982]: 342). Mastery of nature has its subjective counterpart in mastery of our own being. And Vygotsky’s psychological theory has offered tools to conceptualize the ‘mastery of our own being’. But this is a capacity enabled by higher mental functions, which are, as said above, already achievements of the old society.

Thus, it remains open to imagine what the new man would look like in the future society.

Historical theorizing

The last question – namely, how to conceptualize future developments – is just one aspect of a general problem of the epistemology of history. How a valid knowledge of historical processes is possible is a challenging question from many perspectives. Evidently, processes are more challenging objects of knowledge than things or static entities. But development and history are not just processes – development presupposes changes and continuity at the same time. And changes and continuity appear as an organized whole. Thus, there is a developmental and holistic epistemological challenge in tasks of knowing and reconstructing development and history.

The challenges cannot be overseen, and there are different responses to them. The most radical one is to deny any possibility of theoretical historical knowledge. The best-known proponent of such an attitude was Karl Popper. Just a few years after Vygotsky was arguing for historical explanation, Popper started, in the mid-1930s, to elaborate his thesis of the ‘poverty of historicism’. At the beginning he showed ‘that historicism is a poor method – a method which does not bear any fruit’ (Popper, 1976[1936]: v). By historicism Popper meant ‘an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the “rhythms” or the “patterns”, the “laws” or the “trends” that underlie the evolution of history’ (ibid.: 3). But he went further to refute historicism: ‘for strictly logical reasons, it is impossible for us to predict the future course of history…we must reject the possibility of a theoretical history; that is to say, of a historical social science that would correspond to theoretical physics’ (ibid.: v, vi).

It would be challenging to establish a possible dialogue between Vygotsky and Popper as they adopt in many senses opposite positions, though they both share a trust in scientific knowledge. Within that framework the question of historical explanation is of special importance. Beyond the epistemological domain in a narrow sense, i.e. the questions about the possibility of knowledge and the explanation and understanding of history, references to the socio-political settings within which Vygotsky and Popper developed their ideas on historical explanation are also relevant to an understanding of their positions. And the socio-political sphere is not just an external sphere – in different ways it enters into epistemological argumentation – again in opposite ways. Finally, their different biographical pathways led Vygotsky and Popper to quite different worldviews.

In his youth in Vienna in the second decade of the 20th century Popper was involved in left-wing politics. He joined the Association of Socialist School Students and became for a time a Marxist. As a result of disillusion with Marxism and other socio-political movements in Europe in the 1930s Popper developed a sharp critique of the theoretical underpinnings of totalitarianism, which he saw in historicism and holism. Though inspired by and derived from his understanding (and experiences) of totalitarianism, Popper’s critique of historicism and holism is expressed in universal claims.

More or less at the same time in another part of the world Vygotsky was living under conditions that were characterized by the development of a new ideology, based on Marx, Engels and Lenin, which should lead the project of radical socio-political, intellectual and cultural transformation. As already mentioned, Vygotsky relied on Marxism as an important theoretical and methodological resource. And he relied on Marxism when arguing for an historical approach. Vygotsky was also arguing for an historical approach in his conceptualization of structures of mental development and he formulated as a basic law of historical development that human beings are created by the society in which they live. Such claims were, however, also supported by references to non-Marxist authors such as Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl and Thurnwald (Van der Veer, 1991). Consequently, Vygotsky appeals to a difference between primitive and modern developed, civilized man and he had no doubt that according to developmental criteria, modern man is superior to primitive man. Contrary to Popper who refuted historicism, which presupposes that it is possible to recognize historical trends and knowing them, then make predictions, Vygotsky saw a recognizable historical trend from primitive states to developed, civilized ones.

But to this general developmental diagnosis Vygotsky added, as has already been shown, very critical remarks about the ‘crippling effects’ of bourgeois society on personality. However, his descriptions of these crippling effects are rather vague pointing mostly at one-sided development. They might sound ideological, but they do not have important theoretical implications. Vygotsky did not claim that these crippling effects affect the very possibility of the development of higher mental functions. Such functions were, in Vygotsky’s view, not possible before the invention of writing systems. Thus, claims Vygotsky, there is a recognizable progress in history.

Coming back to the proposed virtual exchange between Popper and Vygotsky on the epistemological value of historical explanations, it could be said that while Vygotsky was living in a society under official Marxist ideology which argued in a holistic manner for social transformation as a condition for individual change, his epistemological theoretical claims were not necessarily subjected to ideological adaptations. Popper, on the other hand, after turning to a strong individualism, tried to show that theoretical holism is linked by its implications to totalitarianism and tyranny: holism generally holds that the whole has features that cannot be derived from the features of elements. When applied to the social domain, holism argues that society is more than a sum of individuals and therefore it has and should have priority. It is this specific social holism that Popper has in mind. ‘Even the emotionally satisfying appeal for a common purpose, however excellent, is an appeal to abandon all rival moral opinions and the cross-criticism and arguments to which they give rise. It is an appeal to abandon rational thought’ (Popper, 1976[1936]: 159). While Vygotsky argued that the social is the developmental condition of possibility of higher individual thinking, Popper saw in the social a danger for thinking.

Popper explicitly described Marxism as a totalitarian ideology and tried to reconstruct its theoretical underpinnings. He believed that they were to be found in historicism and holism. Vygotsky, on the other hand, saw in Marxism a fruitful theoretical source for the development both of a better society and of a better psychological theory. While the first issue, the relation of Marxism to social change, at both a theoretical and practical level would require a comprehensive separate work, the theoretical status of arguments concerning historicism and holism could be assessed regardless of their function in ideological projects.

In order to better assess the epistemological validity of holistic and genetic arguments, a reference to a third party could be helpful, especially as the position of the third party seems not to be influenced by either a positive or a negative attitude towards Marxism as in the case of Vygotsky and Popper. Both arguments – holistic and at least genetic, if not historical in its full sense – were also advanced by Jean Piaget in his genetic epistemology and developmental theory. Holistic claims are constitutive of structuralism in general (Titchener’s structural psychology is indeed an exception as it deals with structural elements). These claims hold also for genetic structuralism as they are derived from the very definition of structure – structure is more than a sum of elements, the features of a structure are not given in the features of the elements themselves. Though this seems self-evident, there had been a long tradition of elementarism and associationism in psychology. Holism was advanced as a reaction to and a critique of them. Gestalt psychology provides the best example from the history of psychology.

Piaget is further arguing for genetic structuralism as structures, for him, are not given static entities, but develop through processes of transformation. To grasp the genesis of structures is the proper scientific task. Like Vygotsky, Piaget ascribed to psychology that task:

The future of psychology will no doubt be determined chiefly by the development of comparative and psychogenetic methods, for it is only by observing the formation of behaviour and how it operates in animals and children…that its nature and the way it operates in adults may be understood. (Piaget, 1973: 42)

So far it could be said that both genetic and structural (holistic) arguments are convincing, at least in the domain of mental development and in psychology as the science studying mental development.

However, it is worth mentioning that in Piaget there is an explicit reference to the relation between genetic structuralism and Marxism. In the preface to his collection Epistémologie des sciences de l’homme (1972b) Piaget refers to a statement in a book on Marxism and the human sciences written by the Marxist theorist Lucien Goldmann in the 1970s to draw attention to similarities among constructivist, dialectic and structuralist methods. Piaget quoted the following passage from Goldmann: ‘We have defined the positive method in human sciences, more precisely – Marxist method – by the expression (which we by the way borrowed from Jean Piaget) genetic structuralism’ (Goldmann, 1971: 246 [trans. G.J.).

Additionally, in his Epistemology, Piaget also raised a general question of the relation of the human sciences to philosophical and ideological positions. This problem is unavoidable, states Piaget, due to the fact that the scientist is not just a scientist, he or she always also defends a philosophical or ideological standpoint. In that context Piaget analysed three examples: empirical philosophy, dialectical philosophy and phenomenology. Dialectical philosophy plays, Piaget admits, the main role in socialist ideologies and especialy in those disciplines which entail a dimension of ‘historical development’. But Piaget argued that the ‘dialectic spirit’ is broader than adherence to any school. In that broad sense dialectics is an epistemological attempt to bring to consciousness operations used to explain historical developments in different domains. And he has no problem in admitting that his constructivism comes very close to dialectical interpretation, though there was no direct influence. Piaget did not express any theoretical objections to philosophical dialectics.

What can be concluded from this analysis: holism and historicism hold for epistemological reasons, they also hold independently of ideology. I would suggest that the fact that Marxism adopted both holism and historicism has contributed to its theoretical strength.

This is also relevant for the question, which returns again and again, of Vygotsky’s relation to Marxism (Bruner, 2004; Packer, 2008; Ratner, 2012; Veresov, 2005; Wertsch, 1985). There is more than enough evidence that Vygotsky referred to Marxist theory, to its holistic and historical claims, in developing his cultural-historical psychological theory. And this was not just external reference. Vygotsky needed both holism and historicism in his theory for epistemological reasons and they were united in Marxism –endorsed in Vygotsky’s time, to speak truly, also as an ideological standpoint. Nonetheless, as the case of another theoretician in psychology, namely Piaget, has shown, holism and historicism could be argued for without any influence of Marxist ideology.

However, if Vygotsky had lived longer, he could have faced another kind of challenge. In his psychological theory and his understanding of the development of society Vygotsky was a modernist in a strong sense. He argued for the superiority of generalization over the particular, for a hierarchical relation between higher and lower psychic functions, between cultural and primitive ways of thinking and remembering. These criteria are used by Vygotsky to assess the developmental stage at both an ontogenetic and a socio-historical level. These criteria also belong to the modernist patterns of thinking and to the modern concept of progress as a hierarchically structured process.

But a postmodern questioning of the general, of universality, of progress would have serious implications for Vygotsky’s theory. The same could be said about the Marxist theory of history. There is a general question behind these specific questions – is there any possibility of saving the very concept of development on the basis of a postmodern rejection of the general, of a long-term binding perspective? And the question as to whether we can dispense with normative criteria at all goes even deeper – to the very question of human nature. Charles Taylor convincingly argued that reflection on evaluative attitudes is human differentia specifica. Human agents assess actions according to their moral, aesthetic values, not just pragmatic use. These evaluations necessarily imply hierarchical relations among evaluated objects.

In weak evaluation, for something to be judged good it is sufficient that it be desired, whereas in strong evaluation there is also a use of ‘good’ or some other evaluative term for which being desired is not sufficient; indeed some desires or desired consummations can be judged as bad, base, ignoble, trivial, superficial, unworthy, and so on…It must be clear that an agent who could not evaluate desires at all would lack the minimum degree of reflectiveness which we associate with a human agent…the capacity for strong evaluation in particular is essential to our notion of the human subject; that without it an agent would lack a kind of depth we consider essential to humanity, without which we would find human communication impossible. (Taylor, 1985: 18)

If we accept this argument, which is for sure quite convincing, we still remain with numerous problems related to the content of evaluations or norms. Which and whose content is included in such norms is of course a very important question. And inclusion itself depends on other orders of evaluations, whose content is a result of different socio-historical processes, which themselves include normative criteria, and a lot of struggles for the recognition of the rights of the repressed and marginalized.

Evaluative criteria are not excluded from knowledge, nor are they excluded from science either. They were also assumed in Vygotsky’s theory. Generally speaking they describe human beings as oriented toward conquering nature. Ideally, conquering nature means liberation from necessity and entering the ‘kingdom of freeedom’. The same model applies to relation to internal nature. This is the classical modernist agenda whose realization brought about consequences which require serious analyses. There are already many doubts as to whether such a model of progress is acceptable – in the relation of human beings to ‘external’ nature and society, as well as to their psychic, subjective world.

Vygotsky’s theory certainly needed refinements in its conceptualizations of body, nature, power, domination as constitutents of individual and historical development. For that purpose the means developed by Vygotsky himself, but not applied to these domains, could be used (see, for example, some promising prospects in Portes and Salas, 2011).

Symbolization and liberation

Relying on his strong instrumentalist position, Vygotsky was able to recognize the decisive role of a special kind of tool, signs, in transforming the ways of psychic functioning toward self-regulation and freedom. It is by the use of external means that individuals can master themselves.

The most essential feature distinguishing the psychological tool from the technical tool, is that it directs the mind and behaviour whereas the technical tool, which is also inserted as an intermediate link between human activity and the external object, is directed toward producing one or other set of changes in the object itself. (Vygotsky, 1997c[1930/1982]: 87)

Due to their origin in a general concept of tools, signs retained a strong instrumental connotation. These features also characterize that powerful tradition whose origin we already find in Locke and Condillac, but which is strongly associated with the later German thinkers Wilhelm von Humboldt and Johann Gottfried Herder (Hardcastle, 2009). They all share the view that language has an essential role in the formation of mind. Vygotsky could also rely on a Russian tradition in which Potebnja and Gustav Shpet were the main figures:

Potebnja and Shpet were inheritors of von Humboldt’s ideas about the relationship between thinking and speaking and, whereas Leont’ev and his associates in Kharkov increasingly emphasized the role of object-oriented activity (labour) and the mechanisms of externalization in line with official Soviet ideology, Vygotsky concentrated on the relations between thought, word and meaning. (Hardcastle, 2009: 182)

It is worth mentioning that there was an influence in the opposite direction too – from the Soviet Union and Vygotsky to Germany. It was Walter Benjamin who referred to Vygotsky’s ideas on the role of language in thinking in his study of the sociology of language (Benjamin, 2002[1935]). As reported by John Hardcastle in his article on Vygotsky’s Enlightenment precursors, Benjamin discovered Vygotsky’s (1929) article, ‘The Genetic Roots of Thinking and Speech’, in the journal Unter dem Banner des Marxismus [Under the Banner of Marxism] (Hardcastle, 2009: 181). It is interesting, by the way, to know that in the same journal and the same year, Wilhelm Reich published his extensive study on the relationship between dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis (Reich, 1972[1929]).

The instrumental role of language signs, words, in thinking should not, however, divert our attention from the fact that the processes of signification themselves belong to a different order than the use of instruments, means for achieving ends. As defined by Charles Peirce, ‘A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign’ (Peirce, 1932: § 2, 308). While a sign stands for something in the process of signifying, it cannot be said that this holds for relations between instruments and objects and goals.

What is very important in Vygotsky’s conceptualization of language is its developmental perspective. He could rely on a developmental turn which had been brought into the understanding of language and was already well represented by Wilhelm von Humboldt in his first linguistic project ‘Über das vergleichende Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung’ [On the Comparative Study of Language and its Relation to the Different Periods of Language Development] proposed in 1820. This developmental turn also affected German philosophy of history – it was Wilhelm von Humboldt himself who wrote on the task of the historian ‘Über die Aufgabe des Geschichtsschreibers’ (1821) pointing out the very specific nature of historical understanding. In that way Wilhelm von Humboldt had already addressed the main hermeneutic problems. Hegel is considered to be one of the best representatives of historical thinking in the philosophy of history. As is well known, Marx adopted Hegel’s historical approach, though he understandably criticized his idealism. Thus, Vygotsky could rely on an already well-established and accomplished turn toward historical thinking in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of history.

There is also a more direct link between the developmental approach to language and the conceptualization of history due to the formative function of language not only in ontogenetic development, but for sure in the development of humankind. Signs are tools of intergenerational transmission, of intercultural transmission. History is of ‘[an] irreducibly narrative character’ (Ricoeur, 1998: 275). Semiotic and a broader narrative mediation make the past in principle available, but it is understanding, indeed historical understanding, which brings the past to the present and subjects the present to a new perspective, opening in this way different prospects for the future. ‘It is the systemic productivity of man’s language use that makes it possible for him to rise above history and even alter its course’ (Bruner, 2004: 24).

It was only in the last years of his life, as shown by Norris Minick (1996), that Vygotsky drew more attention to another function of signs, in addition to their role in individual self-regulation:

…Vygotsky began to insist in 1933 and 1934 that the analysis of the development of word meaning must begin with the analysis of the function of the word in mediating the specific types of social interaction and communication, in mediating specific forms of social practice. (Minick, 1996: 41)

This is not only a broader approach to words as symbolic tools, it is also a necessary aspect of reflection on social practice. It is only in the domain of reflexive praxis and by use of symbolic tools that freedom can be conceptualized at all. Generalization is inherent in the concept of freedom defined in relational terms. Such were both Hegel’s and Marx’s notions of freedom and they both substantially influenced Vygotsky’s theory. The relational concept of freedom defines the freedom of an individual as conditioned by the freedom of others. This then presupposes the capability to de-centre from one’s own position and to assume the position of another, which leads to the coordination of perspectives. The coordination of perspectives is not possible without some generalization. To that general claim Vygotsky added his psychological insight: ‘the form of generalization corresponds to the form of communication. Communication and generalization are internally connected’ (Vygotsky, 1997d[1968/1982]: 138).

Conclusion

It is already the very name of Vygotsky’s theory – dominantly described as a cultural-historical theory – which invites the search for an understanding of the meaning of the historical in this theory.

The historical is an essential feature of the human condition and of the human mind – these are fundamental anthropological beliefs Vygotsky shared with Marxism, but also with a more widespread legacy of a developmental turn which started shaping human sciences in the first decades of the 19th century.

Vygotsky understood the history of the development of mental processes as part of the historical development of humankind. It is thanks to historical achievements – as tools and signs are – that the manner of human psychic functioning has radically changed. Thus, history is included in the very structure of higher psychic functions as they become sign-mediated. An instrumental attitude of human beings toward nature has been reproduced in the instrumental role of signs in psychic functions. But what is neglected is that it is not instruments per se that have a formative function – it is their history and hermeneutics that make them formative forces. The same applies to the role of conceptual tools in scientific development (Jovanović, 2011). Without taking into account these insights it would not be possible to understand the vicissitudes of Vygotsky’s theory itself. Another aspect that remained undertheorized in Vygotsky’s theory is the externalization of the mental into the social and cultural.

Vygotsky formulated a ‘law’, as he called it, according to which human beings are created by the society in which they live. But Vygotsky stressed that ‘historical development is development of human society and not only of the human mind’ (Vygotsky, 1997b[1931/1960]: 12). This promises, at least at first glance, a broader and richer concept of the historical determination of psychic development. Unfortunately, this promise was not quite fulfilled – Vygotsky did not offer any hints as to how a future society, which he believed would be built, would shape a different form of psychic functioning compared with the old society. What is described as different is more in terms of scope and content than structure of psychic functions. Has then the history of the development of psychic functions theoretically come to an end?

This issue is also relevant for epistemological reasons. It is already a challenge to understand the past while living in a different world, but this is at the same time a hermeneutic chance to understand the author better than he understood himself – as Dilthey already had argued and Gadamer (1990[1960]) continued to do so.

This is also a framework in which Vygotsky’s time and theory are to be understood as hermeneutic tools for understanding ourselves, our scientific theories and, most importantly, our societies and cultures that shape us as we shape them.