L.S. Vygotsky: Reading Anew. Part 1.

Abstract

The article dwells on the earlier period of Vygotsky’s works before the time when the principles of the Cultural Historic Theory were formulated. His report on the 2nd Psycho-Neurologic Congress in 1924 as well as some adjacent works including “The historical sense of psychological crisis” are considered by the author as key moments. If to compare Vygotsky’s approach with I.P. Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflex, V.M. Bechterev’s reflexology and K.N. Kornilov’s reactology,from one side, and psychology, from the other, it reveals Vygotsky’s determination to restructure psychology on the objective basis. In his opinion this implies the turn of psychology to higher forms of human’s behavior, actually, to human activity. In these methodological changes of Vygotsky’s views one can trace certain relations of Vygotsky’s early works with P.Ya. Galperin’s theoretical survey on subject and method of psychology.