Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky

Andy Blunden is an independent scholar in Melbourne. He has published on Soviet Psychology, Hegel’s philosophy and the foundations of political science. Andy has served as editor of Mind, Culture, and Activity and as Secretary of the Marxists Internet Archive.

Acknowledgements


Analytical Contents List


List of Illustrations


Introduction


1 What Is the Difference between Hegel and Marx?

 1 The Main Difference between Hegel and Marx Is the Times They Lived In


 2 The Young Marx vs. Hegel on the State


 3 Hegel and Marx on Universal Suffrage


 4 Marx and Hegel on the State


 5 Hegel’s Misogyny


 6 Hegel’s Failure to See the Contradiction in the Value of Commodities


 7 Universal Suffrage and Participatory Democracy


 8 In What Sense Was Hegel an Idealist?


 9 Turning Hegel on His head


 10 Goethe, Hegel and Marx


 11 Summary




2 The Unit of Analysis and Germ Cell in Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky

 1 Part 1: From Goethe to Marx


 2 Part 2: Vygotsky and Activity Theory




3 Concrete Historicism as a Research Paradigm

 1 Structuralism and Abstract Historicism


 2 Concrete Historicism


 3 The Germ Cell


 4 Conclusion




4 Perezhivanie as Human Self-Creation

 1 Introduction


 2 No Mystery


 3 An Experience


 4 Etymology


 5 Catharsis


 6 Personality


 7 Continuity and Discontinuity


 8 Unity


 9 Lived Experiences


 10 Units


 11 Development


 12 Reflection


 13 Examples


 14 Critiques


 15 Perezhivaniya on the Social-Historical Plane


 16 Conclusion




5 Agency

 1 The Domains of Self-Determination


 2 Free Will


 3 The Natural Will


 4 The Development of the Will in Childhood


 5 Self-Control


 6 Acquisition of Ideals


 7 Perezhivaniya


 8 Freedom and the State


 9 Voluntary Association


 10 Alliance Politics


 11 Conclusion




6 Tool and Sign in Vygotsky’s Development

 1 Part 1: Ape, Primitive Man and Child


 2 Part 2: Tool and Sign in Vygotsky after 1930


 3 Part 3. Marx, Engels, Vygotsky and the Marxist Tradition


 4 Conclusion




7 Vygotsky’s Theory of Child Development

 1 The Concepts of Vygotsky’s Periodisation


 2 Social Situation of Development


 3 Central Neoformation


 4 Lines of Development


 5 Age Levels


 6 Self-Relation and the Crisis Periods


 7 ‘Leading Activity’ and Zone of Proximal Development




8 The Concept of Object

 1 The Various Concepts of Object


 2 Hegel’s Objekt and Gegenstand


 3 Objective and Universal


 4 Marx’s Critique of Hegel and Feuerbach


 5 Arbeitsgegenstand – The Object to Be Worked Upon


 6 Object-Concept


 7 Boundary Objects


 8 The Object of a Project


 9 Conclusion




9 Leontyev’s Activity Theory and Social Theory

 1 Part 1: Objects and Activities in Leontyev’s Activity Theory


 2 Part 2: Leontyev’s Theory of the Personality


 3 Part 3: A ‘Project’ as an Activity




10 Fedor Vasilyuk’s Psychology of Life-Projects

 1 Otnoshiniye (отношение)


 2 The Lifeworld (жизненный мир)


 3 Perezhivanie (переживание)


 4 Types of perezhivanie


 5 Social Theory




11 The Invention of Nicaraguan Sign Language

 1 Introduction


 2 Vygotsky on the Ideal Form


 3 Deaf Children in Nicaragua


 4 The Effect of the 1979 Revolution


 5 aprias(Association to Help and Integrate the Deaf)


 6 Was ansnic Acting Alone?


 7 Minimal Conditions for Acquisition of a Sign Language


 8 In What Sense May the Case of nsl Be Generalised?


 9 The Development of Language Communities


 10 Goldin-Meadow on the Structure of Personal Sign


 11 Conclusion




12 Language in Human Evolution

 1 The Co-evolution of Animal Behaviour and Biology


 2 Bipedalism


 3 Delayed Gratification


 4 Voluntary Control and Conscious Awareness


 5 Speech


 6 Conclusions




13 Power, Activity and Human Flourishing

 1 Collaborative Project as a Unit of Social Life


 2 The Abuse of Power


 3 The Human Subject


 4 Political Economy




14 Vaccine Hesitancy

 1 Risk Culture and Healthism


 2 Trust


 3 The ‘vh Compass’


 4 Conclusion


 5 Postscript 2020




15 Something Worth Dying For?

 1 Foreign fighters


 2 Who Wants to Be a Foreign Fighter?


 3 Conclusion




16 Capital and the Urpraxis of Socialism

 0 Preliminaries


 1 Part 1: Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Vygotsky


 2 Part 2




17 Virtue and Utopia

 1 Internal Goods


 2 Problems with MacIntyre’s Virtue Ethics


 3 Consequentialism and Deontology


 4 Virtue Ethics


 5 Practical Anarchism and Virtue Ethics


 6 Goals and Motives


 7 Ethics and Utopia


 8 The Virtues of Practices


 9 Summary


 10 The Question of Delegation and Hierarchy


 11 Conclusion




18 The Origins of Collective Decision Making (Synopsis)

 1 The Question


 2 Research Methodology


 3 Collective Decisions without Voting


 4 Counsel


 5 Where Did Majority Come From?


 6 Origins of Majority


 7 The Development of Majoritarianism


 8 Crisis of Majoritarianism


 9 The Quakers and Consensus


 10 Myles Horton and Consensus in sncc


 11 James Lawson and Consensus in sncc


 12 Women Strike for Peace


 13 1968 and After


 14 Conclusion


 15 Postscript




19 False Heroes and Villains

 1 Villains and False Heroes


 2 John Howard


 3 The Right-Wing Populist Narrative


 4 An Alternative Left-Wing Narrative




20 Amartya Sen on Critical Voice and Social Choice Theory

 1 The Critique of Distributive Justice


 2 Amartya Sen


 3 Human Needs and Social Justice


 4 Utilitarianism and Positivism


 5 Utilitarianism and the Real Ethic of Bourgeois Society


 6 Sen’s Critique of Social Choice Theory


 7 Conclusion




21 Comments on ‘Social Capital’


22 Nancy Fraser on Welfare Dependency

 1 Pre-Capitalist Society


 2 Wage Labour


 3 Domestic Labour


 4 Public Assistance


 5 Universal and Targeted Benefits


 6 Dependency as a Personality Trait


 7 Building Capacity vs. Philanthropy


 8 The Ideology of Self-Help




23 Anthony Giddens on Structuration

 1 The Knowledgeability of Social Actors


 2 Routines


 3 Practical Consciousness


 4 Concepts and Motives


 5 Unintended Consequences and Conceptual Development


 6 Institutions and Social Movements


 7 Conclusion




24 Bourdieu on Status, Class and Culture

 1 Capital


 2 Field and Habitus


 3 Class and Habitus


 4 Cultural Capital and Educational Capital


 5 Social Capital, Body Capital, Linguistic Capital, Political Capital


 6 Cultural Relativism


 7 Idealism


 8 Political Opinion Formation


 9 Systems of Status Subordination


 10 Social Capital Theory


 11 Axel Honneth’s Criticism of Bourdieu


 12 Subjectivity


 13 Conclusion




25 The Coronavirus Pandemic Is a World Perezhivanie


26 As of 2020, the American Century Is Over


References


Index