Using fundamental principles of Vygotsky's theory to go beyond him: How to understand human creativity?
Aaro Toomela
Setting the stage: Is there anything wrong with the following translation?
[…] the central problem for the explanation of the higher forms of behavior is the problem of the means through which man masters the processes of his own behavior.
As is indicated by the study that we will discuss here, all the higher mental functions are mediated processes. A central and basic aspect of their structure is the use of the sign as a means of directing and mastering mental processes. [...] Only the investigation of the functional use of the word and its development from one age to the next (a development where the various uses of the word are genetically linked with one another) provides the key to the formation of concepts.
The major inadequacy of Ach's method […] (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 126)
Original:
[…] центральной проблемой при объяснении всех высших форм поведения является проблема средств, с помощью которых человек овладевает процессом собственного поведения.
Как показывают исследования, на которых мы не станем здесь останавливаться, все высшие психические функции обединяет тот общий признак, что они являются опосредствованными процессами, т. е. что они включают в свою структуру как центральную и основную часть всего процесса в целом употребление знака как основного средства направления и овладения психическими процессами. [...] Только изучение функционального употребления слова и его развития, его многообразных качественно различных на каждой возрастной ступени, но генетически связанных друг с другом форм применения, может послужить ключом к изучению образования понятий.
Главнейшим недостатком методики Аха […] (Vygotsky, 1934, p. 110)
Most mistakes come forth only in comparison with the original
[…] the central problem for the explanation of the higher forms of behavior is the problem of the means through which man masters the processes of his own behavior.
As is indicated by the study that we will discuss here, all the higher mental functions are mediated processes.
[…] the central problem in explaining all higher forms of behavior is the problem of the means with the help of which man masters the process of his own behavior.
As studies that we will not dwell on here show, all higher mental functions are united by the common attribute that they are mediated processes,
A central and basic ASPECT of their structure is the use of the sign as a means of directing and mastering mental processes.
[...] Only the investigation of the functional use of the word and its development from one age to the next (a development where the various uses of the word are genetically linked with one another) provides the key to the formation of concepts.
i.e. that they include in their structure, as a central and fundamental PART of the entire process as a whole, the use of a sign as the main means of directing and mastering mental processes. [...] Only the study of the functional use of the word and its development, its diverse forms of application, qualitatively different at each age level, but genetically related to each other, can serve as the key to the study of the formation of concepts.
There are other translations of the same text:
Eugenia Hanfmann & Gertrude Vakar:
To explain the higher forms of human behavior, we must uncover the means by which man learns to organize and direct his behavior.
All the higher psychic functions are mediated processes, and signs are the basic means used to master and direct them. The mediating sign is incorporated in their structure as an indispensable, indeed the central, part of the total process. In Ach’s experiments [...] (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 56)
Alex Kozulin:
To explain the higher forms of human behavior, we must uncover the means by which man learns to organize and direct his behavior.
The major weakness of Ach's method […] (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 102)
1. In order to understand Vygotsky’s theory, his works must be read as parts of the whole.
1.1. In Vygotsky’s works aspects of his theory are discussed at different levels of generalization.
1.2. In some works he proposed general principles that apply to all ideas at more specific levels of analysis 🡪 all ideas at more specific levels of analysis must be interpreted in the context of these general principles
Why to assume that Vygotsky’s theory can be approached as a whole? – He was creating a unifying general psychology
How to connect the material of pathology, zoopsychology, social psychology? [...] the unification of heterogeneous material is not produced by summing [...] so that each part maintains balance and independence, when entering into the composition of the new whole. [...] Within the new whole, not the coexistence of individual disciplines is formed, but their hierarchical system, having the main and secondary centers, like the solar system. Thus, this unity determines the role, meaning, significance of each individual area [...] (Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 300, my emphasis)
2. Vygotsky’s theory must be interpreted as “structural-systemic” – scientific explanation must provide answers to the following questions:
2.1. What is the studied whole?
2.2. What are the parts/elements of the whole? (Wholes always change, when their parts change)
2.3. In which relationships the parts are? (The same parts in different relationships comprise different wholes)
Was Vygotsky Structural-systemic?
[...] the first task of scientific investigation, when it deals with some cultural method of behaviour, must be the analysis of that method, i.e. its decomposition into component parts [...] The second task of scientific investigation is to elucidate the structure of that method. Although each method of cultural behaviour consists [...] of natural psychological processes, yet that method unites them not in a mechanical, but in a structural way. [...] After the structure comes into being, it does nor remain unchanged, but is subject to a lengthy internal change which shows all the signs of development. (Vygotsky, 1994, pp. 59-62)
Detour:
2.4. It follows from the idea of the structural development that psyche/mind can be understood only through studies of internal psychic structures.
It is so because externally similar behaviors may rely on internally different mechanisms:
“The same problem, if solved by different means, will have a different structure.” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 61)
3. All (higher) psychological functions are structures:
The higher psychological functions are not superimposed as a second storey over the elementary processes, but represent new psychological systems which include a complex knot of elementary functions that, upon being included in the new system, begin to act according to new laws. Each higher psychological function thus presents a unity of a higher order, determined mainly by the particular combination of a series of more elementary functions into a new whole. (Vygotsky & Luria, 1994, p. 140)
4. Creative activity is also a psychological function, it is an adaptive activity with a certain aim:
We call creative activity such human activity that creates something new, regardless of whether this produced by creative activity is some thing of the external world or a certain construction of the mind or feeling that lives and is discoverable only in the person himself. (Vygotsky, 1967, p. 3)
In this sense, imagination acquires a very important function in human behavior and development; it becomes a means of expanding human experience [...] (ibid., p. 12)
4.* What is psychological function?
[...] the concept “function” is usually employed in two completely different senses. On the one hand, it can mean the activity performed by a given organ or tissue; for example, the function of the liver cells is to secrete bile [...] However, [...] in psychology the concept of “function” is very often used in a quite different sense. By “function” an organism's complex adaptive activity, directed toward the performance of some physiological or psychological task, is frequently meant. [...] According to this view, a function is actually a functional system [...]
(Luria, 1969, pp. 23-24)
5. Creative activity has a complex structure:
We have already said that the activity of the imagination depends on experience, on the needs and interests in which these needs are expressed. It is also easy to understand that it depends on the combinatorial ability and exercise in this activity; the embodiment of the products of the imagination in material form; it further depends on technical skill and on traditions, i.e. on those models of creativity that influence a person. [...] Much less noticeable - and therefore much more important is the action of another factor, namely the environment.
(Vygotsky, 1967, p. 24)
6. Human creativity is qualitatively different from creativity of other animals:
Animal play is also very often a product of motor imagination. However, these beginnings of creative imagination in animals could not receive any kind of solid and strong development under the conditions of their life, and only man developed this form of activity to its present height. (Vygotsky, 1967, p. 8)
[..] thinking in concepts is connected with freedom and intention of actions [...] Gelb carries this idea further, saying that only man is capable of doing something senseless. This is absolutely true. An animal cannot do anything senseless from the point of view of the concrete situation or operation. [...] the examples presented are quite enough for elucidating the simple idea that imagination and creativity connected with free processing of elements of experience and with their free combination absolutely require as a precursor the internal freedom of thinking, action, and cognition that can be attained only by one who has already mastered the formation of concepts.
(Vygotsky, 1998, p. 153, Ch 5: Imagination and creativity in the adolescent)
7. Linguistic signs become parts of the structure of psychological functions. What makes human linguistic signs special?
7.1. Linguistic sign, “psychological tool,” is not only a word:
Examples of psychological tools and their complex systems may be a language, different forms of numeration and arithmetics, mnemotechnic aids, algebraic symbols, works of art, writing, charts, diagrams, maps, figures, all possible kinds of conventional signs etc. (Vygotsky, 1982a, p. 103)
7.2. Characteristics of linguistic signs (Toomela 1996a, p. 320):
First, a symbol must be an object, behavioural act or phenomenon that can be directly perceived through sense organs. [...]
Second, the meaning of symbols must be shared by organisms. In other words, a meaning of a symbol must be conventional. [...]
Third, symbols refer to [AT: signify] objects, events and phenomena. Correspondingly, when attention that is directed to symbols is shared, that attention actually has two simultaneous focuses, the symbol itself and a referent [AT: signified] of that symbol.
Many other animals can learn and use such signs. Only human linguistic sign has another characteristic:
Finally, it must be possible to use a symbol either in ways or in contexts that are different from ways or contexts of utilization of symbols referents.
To elaborate earlier ideas (in Toomela 1996a, b): it is possible to use signifiers differently from their signifieds because the principles according to which linguistic signs are used are different from the principles according to which the signifieds exist and interact in the world. (Toomela, 2016, p. 101)
Would Vygotsky agree with the fourth characteristic?
Close study shows that the sign, applied here as a reminder of a certain stimulus, is not yet fully separated from the latter; along with the stimulus it forms a kind of general syncretic structure embracing both the object and the sign and as yet does not really serve as a means of memorizing.
(Vygotsky & Luria, 1994, p. 148)
8. Human creativity is so powerful because if is based on higher psychological functions, which include in their structure a linguistic sign.
In order to create something novel, either elements of the structure of thought, or their relationships, must change. How to put an element of thought, an image of something, for instance, into novel relationships with other images?
Signifiers of human linguistic signs can be detached internally from the signifieds – and used in ways and contexts that cannot be observed in the world. Human creativity realizes this potential.
Some examples of children’s creativity:
Already at a very early age we find creative processes in children, which are best expressed in children's games. A child who, sitting astride a stick, imagines that he is riding a horse, a girl who plays with a doll and imagines herself its mother, a child who in a game turns into a robber, a Red Army soldier, a sailor - all these children at play represent examples of the most genuine, the most real creativity. (Vygotsky, 1967, p. 7)
How? – by attributing novel properties to objects and actions with linguistic signs: doll = “child” and “mother” = I; “horse” = stick used in a certain way ...
There are much more complex areas where imagination and creativity are essential, most of all in sciences, which aim at understanding the nonsensory world.
Knowing that nonsensory world exists and learning how this world is organized is available only to humans – human linguistic signs allow to give different names to identical objects (e.g., readings of the digital voltmeter, photometer and gravimeter). They also allow to use the same term for externally very different phenomena (electricity) and name absolutely nonsensory things and phenomena. Science is possible only with the use of language.
9. Where to go next in understanding creativity?
Following structural-systemic approach, two complementary directions of studies are needed:
9.1. Studies of the parts of the
functional system of imagination/
creativity. There are two general
parts of all psychological
processes, the individual and
his/her environment
(see Toomela, 2020 for the
theory of the human psyche)
9.1.1. Studies of the cognitive structure of individual: experience (knowledge and skills), needs, interests, planning and execution of plans (to embody the products of imagination in material form).
Another detour: neuropsychology would be indispensable for such studies. It allows to test all theories of cognitive structure, because ...
(1) HPF are structures that can be distinguished in the brain: ... every specific function is never connected to the activity of any one center, but always is a product of integrative activity of strictly differentiated and hierarchically connected one to another centers. (Vygotsky, 1982c, p. 170)
(2) Functioning of the whole HPF as related to the characteristics of the parts can be understood:
... Any complex function (speech), in case of damage to any one region, related to one partial aspect of that function (sensory, motor, mnemic) always suffers as a whole in all its parts, even though not evenly; this refers to the fact that normal functioning of such a complex psychological system is ensured not by an aggregate of the functions of specialized regions but rather by the unitary system of centers, participating in formation of any of the partial aspects of the given function. (ibid., p. 171)
(3) Development of the structure of HPF can be studied:
... analogous symptomatic pattern [...] can be observed in different localizations of the damage in case of children and adults. And conversely, similarly localized damage can lead to entirely different symptomatic patterns in case of children and adults.
(ibid., p. 172)
Detour from the detour: Modern neuropsychological studies are next to useless because of ignoring the fundamental methodological principles:
(1) Neuropsychological studies require psychological theory of the (human) psychological processes that does not exist in neuropsychology today; for example, it is ignored that functional organization of the brain is partly determined by the structure of the cultural environment:
“The investigation of aphasias, agnosias, and apraxias leads us to the conclusion that in the localization of these disorders an essential role is played by disturbances of extracerebral connections in the activity of the system of centers which in the normal brain ensures the correct functioning of higher forms of speech, cognition and action.” (ibid., p. 173)
(2) It is ignored that functioning of the component processes can be understood only in the context of the functioning of the whole:
“... an analysis that breaks down a complex psychological whole into its constituent elements and, as a result, loses in the process of breaking down the whole into elements, the properties that are subject to explanation, inherent in the whole as a whole, must be replaced with an analysis that breaks down a complex whole into further indecomposable units that preserve in their simplest form the properties inherent in the whole as a known unity.” (ibid., p. 174)
(3) It is ignored that functioning of the whole process can be understood only when component processes and their relationships are understood:
“... structural and functional analysis, which is unable to cover the activity as a whole, must be replaced with interfunctional or systemic analysis based on identifying the interfunctional connections and relationships that determine each given form of activity.” (ibid., p. 174)
(4) There is actually no neuro“psychology” today – there is neurobehaviorism: It is almost (?) completely ignored that externally identical behaviors may rely on developmentally different internal structures.
9.1.2. Studies of the environment of the individual:
Much less noticeable - and therefore much more important is the action of another factor, namely the environment. (Vygotsky, 1967), p. 24)
Environment cannot be studied in psychology today because there is no relevant theory of environment – psychologically, environment is never separable from the individual, whose environment must be understood (cf. Toomela, 2020).
9.2. Development of the creative HPFs must be studied from general to specific levels of analysis:
Psychological analysis of this [creative] activity points to its enormous complexity. It does not arise immediately, but very slowly and gradually, developing from more elementary and simple forms into more complex ones, at each age level it has its own expression, each period of childhood is characterized by its own form of creativity. (Vygotsky, 1967, p. 8)
9.1. Most generally, development of creativity from natural to cultural line should be studied (cf. Toomela, 2020)
9.2. Development over Vygotsky’s 4 (or Toomela’s 5) stages of the WMS development should be studied
9.3. Within-stages development should be studied.
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