Living Subjectivity and Cultural-historical Method: Limits to Applicability

Abstract

Background. Any method of research or influence has limits of applicability. Determining the limits of applicability of the cultural-historical approach will reveal new phenomena in the study of living subjectivity that cannot be investigated within the framework of the cultural-historical approach to the psyche. Objective of the study was to determine the limits of applicability of the cultural-historical method and to describe new mental phenomena, the study of which requires fundamentally different methodological approaches. Methods. The material is the author’s and his colleagues’ long-term research in the field of functioning and development of consciousness. The method involved logical analysis when comparing the cultural-historical approach to psyche and the approach based on intuitive-reflective self-observation of living subjectivity. Results. The analysis showed that cultural-historical method and socio-cultural method derived from it, aim at managing subjectivity with the help of objectified structures of the psyche — sign-symbolic formations such as speech, logical thinking, scientific concepts, social norms or culturally developed perceptual patterns. At the same time, the “fossils of living subjectivity” — symbols and signs, scientific concepts, schemes, algorithms, norms, theories, and others — are “psychological tools” that mediate the operation of living subjectivity. All directions in Russian psychology within this approach originated from this approach — the assertion of the leading role of speech in the development of the higher mental functions (HMF) by L.S. Vygotsky, the concept of the orienting basis of action (IBA) by P.Ya. Galperin, school programs for teaching concepts by D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, neuropsychological methods by A.R. Luria, studies of the development of voluntary movements by A.V. Zaporozhets and others. All these approaches worked; however, the living subjectivity remained a mystery. On the contrary, the method applicable to the study of living subjectivity can be called the method of “releasing impact” — an experiment based on self-observation and self-report in conditions where the subject can freely structure reality. Conclusion. The cultural-historical method is effective in teaching ready-made knowledge at school, in developing skills, restoring lost cognitive functions in patients, or shaping cognitive and socio-moral forms of behavior based on external control. However, this method is not applicable to living subjectivity — experiences, the motivational-semantic sphere based on the magical laws of participation, emotional sphere and creative thinking, since this method considers a person as an object. The principles of studying living subjectivity are proposed, practical approaches to influence living subjectivity, as well as the contradictions and dangers associated with them are analyzed.

Keywords

• a.n. leontiev
• psyche
• subjectivity
• cultural-historical approach
• limits of applicability