Thinking and labour (reading Vygotsky)

Abstract

Lev Vygotsky connected the development of “higher forms of thinking” with labour, and claimed that this connection is “central and basic”, allowing to unfold the peculiarities of children’s thinking and the new in adolescent’s mind. Meanwhile, the concept of labour in Vygotsky’s works has not been investigated so far. This article traces the “genetic nodes that connect together the child’s thinking and practical activity” (Vygotsky), starting with “practical intelligence” and ending with labour. Thus, the development of the child’s psyche appears as its ingrowing into the process of social labour. According to Vygotsky, the speech of adults acts as an “ideal form” in dialogue with which the child’s speech develops; the same ideal form is constituted by labour. The child’s practical activity develops towards labour through the stages of playing, drawing, modelling and constructing. The article touches upon the problem of mastering affects by means of concepts, discusses the connection between the conceptual and real “fields” in human consciousness, and draws a parallel between the development of consciousness and labour.