Theoretical work is very peculiar. The object of research does not openly show that the tools by which it is approached generate skewed outcomes. We tend to get what we expect to find. This is, of course, true in empirical research as well.
When Marie Curie studied radioactive substances she could not anticipate the health hazards involved. In all fields of research, we can recognize, in hindsight, that we have paid attention to a limited sphere of outcomes in the data at the early stages of research.
When Marie Curie studied radioactive substances she could not anticipate the health hazards involved. In all fields of research, we can recognize, in hindsight, that we have paid attention to a limited sphere of outcomes in the data at the early stages of research.
However, sooner or later, the object of study responds in ways that compel us to pay attention to previously unseen consequences.
Theories do not do that. They humbly comply with our prevailing convictions and beliefs. Hence, as in the case of cognitive psychology, we can happily rely on conceptualizations that have originated 2300 ago.
We do perceive the paradoxes, like the mind-body problem, the gap between imagery and linguistic thought, or the difficulty in understanding the relationship between cognition and emotion. But we do not perceive that the basic fault is our habit of beginning the analysis from sensation and understanding activity as a response to stimulation. This point of departure repeats Aristotle’s original approach.
These issues were as clearly evident in 1966, when I became a psychology student, as they are presently. The gaps and inconsistencies in theory do not point out potential conceptual alternatives. In spite of our misgivings, we tend to stick to what we have assumed.
Theories do not do that. They humbly comply with our prevailing convictions and beliefs. Hence, as in the case of cognitive psychology, we can happily rely on conceptualizations that have originated 2300 ago.
We do perceive the paradoxes, like the mind-body problem, the gap between imagery and linguistic thought, or the difficulty in understanding the relationship between cognition and emotion. But we do not perceive that the basic fault is our habit of beginning the analysis from sensation and understanding activity as a response to stimulation. This point of departure repeats Aristotle’s original approach.
These issues were as clearly evident in 1966, when I became a psychology student, as they are presently. The gaps and inconsistencies in theory do not point out potential conceptual alternatives. In spite of our misgivings, we tend to stick to what we have assumed.
Alternative ways of analyzing mental phenomena have been proposed. George Herbert Mead, Sigmund Freud, and Lev Vygotsky understood the object of psychological study in different terms. Their common point of departure was mediation. Mental phenomena are mediated by symbolic tools.
They differed in their ways of understanding the origin of these tools, but they shared the idea that human activity, and mental action as its specific mode, is a triadic phenomenon. But mainstream psychology has been unable to revise its classic approach to mental phenomena, Hence, Freud, Vygotsky, and Mead have remained in the margin throughout the last century up to this day.
Adopting mediation as the point of departure breaks the Newtonian understanding of causality. Contemporary nuclear physics seems to have no difficulty in conceptualizing mediated interactive events. Cognitive psychology still wants to detect causal sequences, disregarding the triadic forces that are involved in any mental event.
They differed in their ways of understanding the origin of these tools, but they shared the idea that human activity, and mental action as its specific mode, is a triadic phenomenon. But mainstream psychology has been unable to revise its classic approach to mental phenomena, Hence, Freud, Vygotsky, and Mead have remained in the margin throughout the last century up to this day.
Adopting mediation as the point of departure breaks the Newtonian understanding of causality. Contemporary nuclear physics seems to have no difficulty in conceptualizing mediated interactive events. Cognitive psychology still wants to detect causal sequences, disregarding the triadic forces that are involved in any mental event.
I was a young psychology student in 1969, when getting in touch with Lev Vygotsky’s work. Finland’s geopolitical position and the radicalization of university students generated an exchange between German (East and West) and Russian academic institutions in the early 1970’s.
Vygotsky’s thinking presented an obvious alternative to the information processing approach that was in the vogue within academic psychology. From those days onward, the issue of sign mediation has occupied me and it still does.
