Understanding Educational Psychology: A Late Vygotskian, Spinozist Approach

1 Vygotsky, Spinoza, and Cultural Psychology of Education ................ 1
What Vygotsky Might Have Glimpsed ..................................................... 2
Marxist Foundations of Vygotsky’s Work to Come ............................ 3
Towards a New Psychology................................................................. 8
Restoring Life in and to Vygotsky’s Legacy ............................................. 10
Steps Towards a Non-dualist Discipline ................................................... 14
Transcending Dichotomies .................................................................. 15
Knowing-How and Life’s Power to Act .............................................. 18
Concrete Human Psychology .............................................................. 22
Conceptual Sketch of the Remainder of This Book .................................. 24
References ............................................................................................ 25
Part I Foundations
2 Biology | Culture...................................................................................... 33
From the Origin of the Psyche .................................................................. 35
Modeling Morphogenesis ......................................................................... 40
From Biology to Culture ........................................................................... 44
The Thinking Body and the Body–Mind Problem.................................... 48
Coda: Intermeshing of Body and Culture ................................................. 51
References ............................................................................................... 53
3 Communicating | Thinking .................................................................... 57
Relation of Thinking and Speaking .......................................................... 58
Unity/Identity of Opposites ....................................................................... 61
Finding Thinking in Communicating ........................................................ 63
Moving to Know ....................................................................................... 67
From the First Dim Stirring of a Thought to Its Formulation ................... 72
Coda: Thinking and Communicating as Intransitive Verbs....................... 78
References ......................................................................................... 80
4 Intrasubjectivity | Intersubjectivity ....................................................... 81
Common Approaches to Intersubjectivity................................................. 82
Givenness of the World ............................................................................. 85
The Word as Reality for Two Persons ....................................................... 89
Coda: Revisiting Intersubjectivity and Mediation .................................... 96
References ..................................................................................... 99
5 Primacy of the Social and Sociogenetic Method .................................. 101
Ways of Theorizing the Social .................................................................. 103
The Social Constructivist Way ............................................................ 103
The Ethnomethodological Take ........................................................... 105
The Social for a Cultural Psychology of Education ............................ 105
The Social in Mathematical Reasoning ............................................... 107
The Social Nature of Joint (Social) Work ................................................. 111
Sociogenetic Method ................................................................................ 114
Ontogenetic Origin of Mathematical Reasoning ................................. 115
Identity Is at Stake ............................................................................... 119
Coda: Demystifying Internalization .......................................................... 123
References .................................................................................... 124
6 Learning | Development .......................................................................... 127
Classical Studies of Reasoning on the Balance Beam .............................. 129
Reasoning on the Balance Beam in a Classroom Setting ......................... 134
Reasoning in Context .......................................................................... 135
Reasoning and Social Relations .......................................................... 139
A Monist Account of Reasoning on the Balance Beam ............................ 144
Coda: What Changes in Learning and Development ................................ 147
References ................................................................................... 150
Part II Case Studies
7 The Social Nature of Reading ................................................................ 161
From the Origins of Reading .................................................................... 163
Reading Aloud .......................................................................................... 170
Coda: Reading Is a Mode of the Thinking Body ...................................... 176
References ......................................................................................... 179
8 Intention—A Product of Joint Social Work ......................................... 181
Rethinking the Genesis of Intention ......................................................... 183
The Paradox of Learning-motivated Task ................................................. 186
Coda: Motivation and the Unity of Affect and Intellect............................ 194
References ........................................................................................ 196
9 Culturing Conceptions............................................................................ 199
On Misconceptions and Situated Language Use ...................................... 199
On Finding Conceptions ........................................................................... 204
Lifeworld and Language ........................................................................... 211
Misconceptions From and For the Other .................................................. 213
Against the Reduction of the Nonverbal to the Verbal .............................. 217
Coda: From Concepts (Meanings) to Sense-Giving Fields ...................... 221
References ...................................................................................... 223
10 Natural History of the Sign .................................................................... 225
Problematizing the Sign ............................................................................ 226
Genesis of Signs in Practical School Activity ........................................... 233
Genesis of Signs in Adult Activity ............................................................ 236
Coda: Investigating the Sign as Historical Process ................................... 242
References ..................................................................................... 245
11 Genesis of the Zone of Proximal Development ..................................... 247
{Teaching | Learning} and Social Relations ............................................. 250
Noticing a Problem of Seeing-as ......................................................... 251
Searching for a Way of Letting the Phenomenon Reveal Itself ........... 253
Coming to See as the Phenomenon Reveals Itself .............................. 257
Coda: The Zone of Proximal Development Redux ................................... 260
References ....................................................................................... 263
Part III Implications
12 The Thinking Body ................................................................................. 269
A Lesson Fragment ................................................................................... 271
Words and Relations ................................................................................. 274
Manifesting, Producing, and Being (in) the Relation .......................... 275
Addressivity and the Intra-intersubjective Nature of Talk................... 275
Thinking Body and Affects ....................................................................... 277
Body Position and Orientation ............................................................ 278
Changing Functions of Hand/Arm Movements .................................. 279
Prosody ................................................................................................ 281
There Is but One Substance ...................................................................... 283
Transcending the Mind—Matter Opposition ...................................... 284
{Thinking | Communicating} .............................................................. 288
The ‘Other Within’ for the Psychologist ............................................. 291
Coda: A Monist Approach for Educational Psychology ........................... 293
References .................................................................................... 294
13 “The Way to Freedom” in/for Education .............................................. 297
The Problem of (Learning) Context .......................................................... 299
Historical Senses of Context ............................................................... 300
Bracketing and Rethinking Context .................................................... 301
Schooling and Re/Production ................................................................... 304
Re/Production of Inequality ................................................................ 305
{Objectifi cation | Subjectifi cation} ..................................................... 308
Towards an Education that Matters ........................................................... 310
Activist Transformation ....................................................................... 312
Transforming Whole Persons .............................................................. 314
From Anthropogenesis to Freedom ........................................................... 317
References ..................................................................................... 317
Appendix: Transcription Conventions .......................................................... 321
Reference .................................................................................... 322
Index ............................................................................................ 323