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Title: Thought and Language - Rev'd Edition by Lev S. Vygotsky, Alex Kozulin ISBN: 0-262-72010-8 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fantastic
Comment: The only thing I can say about this book and the author is that this man was a genius! Worth every second spent reading it!
Rating: 5
Summary: A landmark...
Comment: Vygotsky, who was a contemporary of Piaget, unfortunately never received nearly as much attention while still alive. Probably due to the fact that he was working in Russia and had a relatively short career his work seems to have taken a very long time to even get published for 'western' consumption. His theories also go against the grain of the dogma currently in vogue in psychology.
This book gives a brief overview of Vygotsky's life and career. Then it launches into Vygotsky's original manuscript which begins with a critique of some of the central themes of that time; oddly enough those themes are still being pursued by psychologists today. Vygotsky's critique is very interesting and demonstrates a very broad range of understanding of psychological, physical and philosophical knowledge throughout the section.
The second part of the book then advances Vygotsky's theories of thought and language development. And that is the crux of Vygotsky's theory: thought and language each develop in a manner that one might characterize as partially self-catalyzing in addition to behaving as one. Vygotsky also advanced some important ideas about child potential with his "zone of proximal development".
Vygotsky pointed out that development hinges on the social structure surrounding the child and is not similar to the idea of some computer operating system simply requiring some type of "load" instruction. That is, Vygotsky's work seems to dispel some of the hot air surrounding Chomsky's ideas about "deep grammar" structures existing and just waiting for the instructions to start working; instead thought and language develop, sometimes separately and sometimes requiring each other to act as catalysts.
Given recent advances in primate language studies, complex adaptive systems and Wittgenstein's contributions to the philosophy of systems I believe Vygotsky's work becomes all the more important and relevant. We are only just starting to grasp the importance of thinking about development in a systems mode as opposed to the old way of reductionism (and the weird dogmatic offshoot of this: strict materialism).
This is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about how we develop. Other interesting ideas and overviews can be found in Bogdan's "Minding Minds" and Faber's "Objectivity and Human Perception". Then there is the burgeoning field of complexity where a good general overview can be found in "Signs of Life". And for those who really want to get deeper, read some of the recent work done in EEG and meditation to help kids with ADD and other problems.
Rating: 5
Summary: The behavior of cognition
Comment: A contemporary of Piaget (developmental psychology)and Watson (behaviorism), Vygotsky launches a cogent critique and synthesis of these two scientific schools. His asserting that learning leads development is as fresh and valuable today as it was when he first wrote the text. Secondly, his calling for a functional analysis of language has been pursued only by the behavioral schools; a short-fall of cognitive and developmental psychology which focuses on the structure of language and hypothetical constructs of brain functioning. Vygotsky relied on observable behavior under contrived and natural conditions in developing his model of socially mediated learning. Although he does a bit of theorizing, his view of learning speech and thought--a skill taught and mediated by social forces--is an excellent bridge between the two schools of thought mentioned above. This book should be required reading for developmental psychologists, educators and behaviorists alike.
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Title: Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes by L. S. Vygotsky, S. Vygotsky, L. S. Vygotskii, Vera John-Steiner ISBN: 0674576292 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1980 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Vygotsky and Education : Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology by Luis C. Moll ISBN: 0521385792 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 29 May, 1992 List Price(USD): $37.00 |
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Title: Language and Thought of the Child (Routledge Classics) by Jean Piaget ISBN: 0415267501 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 09 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind by James V. Wertsch ISBN: 0674943511 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1988 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Psychology of the Child by Jean Piaget, Barbel Inhelder, Helen Weaver ISBN: 0465095003 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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