Vygotsky's Non‐classical Dialectical Metapsychology

Abstract

The approach taken here is to begin to understand the focus from abstract to concrete in learning to master the principles of methodology, which are different from Western methods and procedures. This methodology is opposed to the empiricist approach of establishing rules and procedures from the concrete to the abstract. The initial discussion revolves around an explanation of the use of metaphor, metatheory, and psychology understood as a non-classical science. There is then a discussion on dialectics, dialectical synthesis, and metafacts. The core of the article is dedicated to a metatheoretical description Vygotsky uses as an abstract outline of possible guidelines in better understanding how to implement a model for nonclassical psychology, using the example of a table being reflected in a mirror. A represents the actual table, while a represents the object being reflected in the mirror, and X represents the processes that take place in the mirror (i.e., the reflection of a table is the refraction of light beams). Therefore, Vygotsky concludes that both A and X are real processes and that a is their apparent, i.e., unreal result . The reflection does not exist, but both the table and the light exist. The result is that the objective existence of X and A independent of a is a dogma of materialistic psychology. There is a discussion on the interfunctional relationships of importance in such a model, and the role of consciousness, and language. The focus of this metatheoretical framework supports Vygotsky's intentions of reaching individual inner freedom and freedom of action, together with Spinoza's social determinism.Indeed, mental life is characterized by breaks, by the absence of a continuous and uninterrupted connection between its elements, by the disappearance and reappearance of these elements. Therefore, it is impossible to establish causal relationships between the various elements and as a result it is necessary to refrain from psychology as a natural scientific discipline . . . We must not study separate mental and physiological processes outside their unity, because then they become completely unintelligible. We must study the integral process which is characterized by both a subjective and an objective side at the same time. Vygotsky (1997, pp. 111-113) METAPHOR, METATHEORY, AND NON-CLASSICAL SCIENCEThe use of constructs such as metaphor and metatheory only represent the first level of rethinking the overall approach to Vygotsky's approach, which evolves into a unified tripartite model with philosophy positioned at the top, general science in the middle, and individual disciplines and practice at the bottom of the model, with a dialectical top-down, bottom-up movement (see Vygotsky, 1997, p. 363).Vygotsky was fond of using metaphors in describing his metapsychology, and such metaphors serve as tools in immediately understanding something given as representing something else:As a modeling idea, the metaphor orients the learner to totality. Two heterogeneous spheres are transformed into compone...

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Dynamic assessment precursors: Soviet ideology, and Vygotsky

“…Vygotsky has thus been referred to as a meta-psychologist and for very good reason (Kozulin,1986;Robbins, 2001Robbins, , 2003.…”

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