Evald Ilyenkov - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Evald Ilyenkov and The End of Stimulus – Respond ParadigmSlide2

Freedom

is the central problem

of psychology

Lev VygotskySlide3

In

his recently published manuscript “To the notion of “human body”” Evald Ilyenkov sharply argues against Ivan Pavlov’s idea of sygnalness (arbitrariness) of psyche. His sentence to Pavlov’s theoretic approach sounds firmly and uncompromisingly:

“HUMAN psyche treated from positivist and conventionalist (arbitrary) position… Hopeless Cartesianism without a tiny hint on Spinozian escape from the dead end in the comprehension of secrets of THINKING.”

(

Ilyenkov, 2008

)

vsSlide4

There is nothing especially unexpected in this statement. It is known that Ilyenkov was

skeptical enough about the expansion of Pavlov’s teaching into psychology. Less known is the fact that elementary logic demands to extend this diagnosis to so called cultural-historical psychology of Lev Vygotsky.Slide5

Pavlov’s theory about the second signal system (1932) and cultural-historical approach of Vygotsky with his idea of mediation of the basic stimulus-response relation with arbitrary sign not only appeared in the same time but were based on the same mechanistic or “conventionalistic” logic.

Stimulus

Respond

Conventional sign (word)

Pavlov’s

“Second signal system”

theory

Vygotsky’s

Idea of

“Sign mediation”

Slide6

It's a matter of fact that Vygotsky who was eager to be a Spinozist could not accept Cartesian dualism and from the very beginning tried to find a way to overcome this dualism.

But in the same time he never even questioned the very basic Cartesian idea – the idea about life as a mechanical, stimulus-respond (S-R) process, the idea of reflex circuit as the basic relation of each animal. As the majority of his contemporary he regarded S-R relation as something firmly established by biology and physiology. Slide7

S

timulus

R

espond

The basis of common

Vygotsky and Pavlov’s

Conventionalist

ApproachSlide8

Thereby Vygotsky stayed blind to the fact that in the origin of his discourse he made an assumption that cancelled all his late attempts to find a way to freedom, that his train of thought unwillingly led him to quid pro quo, to substitution of the subject of his analysis. Instead of searching for solution of the problem of human freedom as “the central problem of psychology”

he in fact

responded to quite another question, a senseless one: how “freedom” of stimulus-response automaton is possible?

It’s easy to explain how wooden Nutcracker acquires a soul in

Goffman’s

fairy tale but it is impossible in real life.Slide9

A “free” automaton means broken automaton, means

an automaton which needs repair or utilization. We want to highlight that this quid pro quo is typical not only for Vygotsky but for the absolute majority of psychologists and philosophers both 100 years ago and now.

“ Free” automatonSlide10

The first definition of psyche formulated by Vygotsky is the following: “the act of thought, the act of consciousness is in our opinion not a reflex, that is, it cannot also be a stimulus, but it is

the transmission mechanism between systems of reflexes”. (Vygotsky). Vygotsky’s logic is evident: so far as a reflex or system of reflexes is nothing but mechanically determined respond to an external stimulus, it is something forced from

the outside and entirely not free. Thus we can’t be satisfied with a reflex as an explanation of human psyche. Surely if we don’t equalize a human and a robot. Thus we have to remove reflex from our explanation or to assign it

a lower

part

- leaving space

for freedom. Vygotsky couldn’t reject the idea of reflex because he sincerely believed that it is a necessary structural element of scientific physiology and psychology.Slide11

Unambiguously he declared that he entirely stays

“Within the general relationship stimulus-response (stimulus-reflex), proposed by natural scientific methods in psychology…”(Vygotsky, 1982, p. 105). In this condition he had only to connect reflexes so that the very method of their connection sublated their determined, mechanical character and enabled us to escape being pulled by string wires of Nature and society and “master” our own

behaviour. Vygotsky suggests conventional sign or so called “psychological tool” as such mediating link.

Baron

Munschgausen

dragging out himself and his horse from the swamp

by pulling himself by the hair.Slide12

“…all sorts of conventional signs”

Vygotsky left us no doubt that a sign in his theory is a conventional, arbitrary sign. Thus he mentioned: “language, different forms of numeration and counting, mnemotechnic techniques, algebraic symbolism, works of art, writing, schemes, diagrams, maps, blueprints, all sorts of conventional signs,

etc”as

examples of

“

psychological tools”.Slide13

And how does this sign enable us to master our behavior?

Easily. With

the aid

of old magic triangle of mediation which even now is very popular among CHAT psychologists. Vygotsky and Vygotskians put the S-R relation, i.e. entirely determined, not free relation, in its basis while “cultural sign” which in some magic way is capable to interfere into causal chain of events in the basis of triangle in its vertex. This magic happens by efforts of “subject” which understands the meaning of

the sign

and being inspired with it arbitrarily changes course of mechanical reactions. The only one thing remains obscure in this schema – where did this “subject” jump out of? How does an instance which can invent signs, understand their meanings and direct the bodily reactions appear in

mechanical

S-R relation?

Stimulus

Respond

”Cultural”

SignSlide14

Surely the idea of mediation with arbitrary sign can’t be taken as a serious hypothesis aimed to solve psychophysical problem because it is evidently inferior even to

Cartesian logic.

If old Rene had a chance to discuss the idea of triangle of mediation, he would probably say that the proposed idea is wrong and mediation is impossible because

S-R

relation entirely belongs to “extensive substance”, while

the meaning

of

a sign

- to “

thinking substance”.

Meanwhile any interaction between different “substances” is impossible

definitionally

.Slide15

On the contrary, following Spinoza and Marx, Ilyenkov didn’t act on the premise that a human is a dead automaton, but he starts from a living, object oriented active subject – an animal or a human. In “German Ideology” one can read the following words: “The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.” (Marx, Engels). We can add that existence of

livin

g i.e. object oriented, active individuals is sine qua non premise of a psychological analysis. From the first look it can be regarded as something terribly banal, but we can’t help if this banality is obscure for many.

The very subject, the subject per se, emerges where there is an object oriented activity instead of operations with arbitrary signs which in their turn need subjectivity and even more – human consciousness. To say that we deal with a subject means to say that we deal with object oriented activity, with active, reasonable movement of one material body according

to the

form of another one.Slide16

Just this mental train enables us finally to overcome the dead end of old psychophysical dualism. The act of thought or psychic act doesn’t start in Ilyenkov’s logic from external stimulus, and doesn’t finish in meaningless mechanical response. It starts from spontaneous directed to its object activity of living subject. In the beginning the act is inevitably abstract, because it inevitably starts from an abstract schema, given by Nature (innate) or acquired in the process of learning. But, being alive, this activity doesn’t break its object in conformity with its a priori schema, but facing the pressure of its object, it adjusts its first impulse in order to become similar to the form of the very object.Slide17

Does this process of activity or the process of thinking need mediation?

Of course! But we need it not for magical transition from mechanical S-R relation to free human consciousness, but for transition from abstract life (unicellular or elementary from of life) to

psychic life. A living creature can’t practically act according the shape of its object, not acting actively in the same time according the shape of its own body, not relating to it. Try to anaesthetise

your legs and say approach the fridge for a sandwich if you doubt.

Thus activity of creatures which have psyche has to be necessarily mediated by affect i.e. by relation to its own body, or by reflexive relation. The distinction of a human from an animal is that an animal can relate reflexively only to its living body i.e. to have

selfsensation

, while a human in addition can relate reflexively to its inorganic body which is opposed to him as an implement i.e. have self-consciousness.Slide18

It is even unnecessary to say that such

real mediation can’t be organized via conventional signs or signals that imply the very capability to arbitrary operations with signs (something like Hegelian

Namengebungkraft) i.e. suppose human consciousness before consciousness. This mediation can be organized only via material tools. Not an arbitrary sign but an implement plays a role of an instrument of idealization of the objective reality. That is the central idea that resulted from Ilyenkov’s Spinozian reflections. That is his fundamental impact to Marxist philosophy

.Slide19

Thus

being carried through Ilyenkov’s dialectical logic not only opens a possibility of scientific, i.e. monistic explanation of nature of human thinking, of his psyche and consciousness, his affects and his personality

but also finishes old false approach to understanding of life and psyche and sends popular S-R paradigm to its proper place, to the junk shop.