Tomasello, Vygotsky, and the Phylogenesis of Mind: A Reply to Potapov’s “Objectification and the Labour of the Negative in the Origin of Human Thinking”
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: recent response "Objectification and the Labour of the Negative in the Origin of Human Thinking."There, Potapov defends Vygotsky against my view that Tomasello's account of the role of joint intentionality in the phylogenesis of human cognition can help avoid the problems of Vygotsky's "directive-centric" account of the origin of human thought.Potapov presents a strong challenge to anyone thinking of applying Tomasello's account of phylogenesis to Vygotsky's theory of ontogenesis.However, I'm skeptical that this applies to my critique of phylogenesis in Vygotsky.Potapov perhaps rightly took issue with my formulation of Vygotsky's account as "Machiavellian."I'll admit that this phrasing was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.It was meant to point out that Vygotsky, in centralizing directive speech acts in phylogenesis, seems to run the risk of endorsing Humphrey's "Machiavellian Intelligence" hypothesis-of which surely no Vygotskian, or Marxist for that matter, would likely approve.Humphrey (1976) posits competition and social subterfuge as the main drivers of human cognitive phylogenesis.Moll and Tomasello call their account of cognitive origins the "Vygotsky Intelligence Hypothesis" to stress that "the unique aspects of human cognition … were driven by, or even constituted by, social cooperation" (2007, 639).However, my point was that even Vygotsky might not be so "Vygotskian" when it comes to phylogenesis.Tomasello claims that competition and subordination drive non-human cognition.The representational states available to such individually intentional agents remain situationbound, reflecting ego-centric, and never joint or collective, goals.Joint intentionality, however, provides the missing phylogenetic link between more primitive individually intentional hominids and the fully collective intentionality of behaviorally modern Homo sapiens, replete with propositional representations, reflective inferences, and importantly for Potapov, normative forms of self-governance.I claimed that insofar as Vygotsky lacks a notion of joint intentionality, his account of the phylogenetic development of cognition risks explaining not human but rather non-human hominids (i.e., Tomasello's "individually intentional" agents).Potapov doubts that Vygotsky needs a theory of intentionality, joint or otherwise, to explain the emergence of higher mental functions.But his alternative doesn't address the fact that Vygotsky sure seems to be talking about individually intentional agents when he should be talking about joint and collective agents.Instead, Potapov takes issue with my positioning of Vygotsky among "Liberal" theories of consciousness.This includes labeling Vygotsky as "Machiavellian," applying Hegel's master/slave dialectic to Vygotsky's theory of the origin of language and higher mental functions, and relying on Tomasello insofar as he draws from analytic social ontology.This response will attempt to redress these criticisms while also expanding on some other aspects of Tomasello that are relevant to the Vygotskian project.
Author: Chris Drain
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3198751665