L.S. Vygotsky: Mind in society ⋆ Book Box PDF

Mind in society : The Development of Higher Psychological Processes by L.S. Vygotsky

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky has figured prominently in American psychology since the publication in 1962 of his monograph Thought and Language.

Luria made available rough translations of two of Vygotsky’s works. The first, “Tool and Symbol in Children’s Development” (1930), had never been published. The second was a translation of a monograph entitled The History of the Development of Higher Psychological Functions, which appeared in the second volume of Vygotsky’s writings published in Moscow in 1960.

In a few cases passages have been taken from the work of Vygotsky’s students or collaborators which provide concrete examples of experimental procedures or results which the original text describes with extreme brevity. References to these sources are given in the notes.

The reader will encounter here not a literal translation of Vygotsky but rather edited translation of Vygotsky, as other editors have noted, Vygotsky’s style is extremely difficult.

He wrote copiously and many of his manuscripts have never been properly edited. In addition, during frequent periods of illness he would dictate his papers—a practice which resulted in repetitions and dense or elliptical prose.

Gaps in the original manuscripts make them even less accessible now than they might have been at the time they were written. The process of tracking down and reading these sources has itself proved a very rewarding enterprise; many of his contemporaries were fascinatingly modern in important respects.

CONTENTS:

L.S. Vygotsky: Mind in society

Basic Theory and Data

1. Tool and Symbol in Child Development
2. The Development of Perception and Attention
3. Mastery of Memory and Thinking
4. Internalization of Higher Psychological Functions
5. Problems of Method