"The word becoming a deed:" The dialectic of "free action" in Vygotsky's Tool and

Sign in the Development of the Child

Peter E. Jones

IntroductionThis paper offers an exploration of Vygotsky's views on

the role of language in human activity with a special focus on his treatment of the problem in his Tool and Sign in the Development of the Child (Vygotsky, 1984; 1999).1 The explorationis intended as a contribution to the rather well-worn debateover the claim that Vygotsky overemphasised the significanceof language and other symbolic means at the expense of practical action. A. V. Brushlinsky's forthright Rubinshteinian critique of Vygotsky's alleged "sign-centric"orientation will be taken as point of departure. The interpretation of Vygotsky given here draws on the work of those scholars who have defended him against such criticism, with the methodological issues at stake (cf. Levitin, 1982; Davydov and Radzikhovskii, 1985; Lee, 1985) taking centre stage. Specifically, I will argue that Brushlinsky's critique appears insufficiently sensitive to Vygotsky's dialectical approach to the dynamic inter-relations between word, thought, and action within human activity. While Brushlinsky consistently seeks to turn our attention to the preconditions and initial conditions for the emergence of language--to language as a consequence of practical action--Vygotsky shows how, from this initial basis, language comes to exert a causal influence on action, enabling the conscious, purposeful, planned activity that herefers to as "free action."2

On Vygotsky's "sign-centric approach"For many years, the most consistent and outspoken

critic of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory has been Andrei Brushlinsky (e.g.,1968, 1994; Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990; editorial comments in Rubinshtein, 1990;

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contributions to Abul'khanova-Slavskaya et al, 1997). Brushlinsky is a leading advocate, continuator and developerof the psychological theories of S. L. Rubinshtein. Rubinshtein differed with Vygotsky over many issues, although their personal and professional relations were apparently cordial and cooperative.3 His main difference with Vygotsky, however, was over the role of language in thedevelopment of human thinking. Rubinshtein argued that in Vygotsky's conception:

The word-sign is transformed into the demiurge of thinking. Thinking turns out to be not so much a reflection of being, arising in unity with speech on the basis of social practice, as a derived function (proizvodnoi funktsiei) of the verbal sign. (In Brushlinksy & Polikarpov, 1990, p.68).

Brushlinsky builds on Rubinshtein's critique. He considers Vygotsky's approach to embody a dualism of natural and social factors in development (Brushlinsky, 1968; cf. Bakhurst, 1991, Wertsch, 1985a). He argues that Vygotsky's theory is a "sign-centric" (znakotsentristskii) approach (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 45) or "sign approach" (znakovyi podkhod) (Brushlinsky in Abul'khanova-Slavskaya et al, 1997, p. 187) like that of Bakhtin, rather than an activity approach of the kind developed by Rubinshtein or A.N. Leont'ev. In Vygotsky there is a "clear absolutization ofspeech (the word-sign)" as "the self-sufficient, self-imposing, principal factor in the child's mental development" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 50), and "the initial, primary and fundamental conditions of the arising and formation of the child's speech in the first months and years of life are not taken into account" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 50). Vygotsky's approachto speech does not take "due account of initially practical activity in which man and his mind are formed and manifest themselves" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 47), with the word-sign playing "the decisive role in the whole mentaldevelopment of the child, and, in particular, in the development of his practical intellect" (Brushlinsky &

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Polikarpov, 1990, p. 49). In general, then, the sign-centricapproach does not understand

that speech itself is only acquired by the child on thebasis of initial sensory and generally practical contacts with the surrounding world, i.e., thanks to the simplest practical actions and social interaction (obshcheniyu), and that the subsequent, most essential, reverse influence of speech on activity does not diminish the significance of this initial foundation. (Brushlinksy & Polikarpov, 1990, pp. 47-48).4

Furthermore, Brushlinsky argues that Vygotsky's misconception of the role of language in human activity alsoinvolves an inversion of the relationship between thinking and speech. Brushlinsky suggests that in Vygotsky's account "speech even fulfills the function of thinking (it plans actions, etc.); moreover, at the beginning, the practical task is resolved on the speech plane alone, with the help of‘speech planning,’ only after which is the 'motor realization of the prepared solution' effected" (Brushlinsky& Polikarpov, 1990, p. 49). In this way "speech turns out tobe primary in relation to specifically human practical action" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 49).

On these grounds, Brushlinsky considers that Vygotsky's"sign-centric" approach embodies an idealist view in which "consciousness, the mind generally, remains an ideal sphere,enclosed within itself, unconnected or insufficiently, inadequately connected with the external, material world" (Brushlinsky, 1968, p. 72).

In opposition to Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory,the "subject-activity" (sub'ektno-deyatel'snostnoi) approach (Brushlinsky in Abul'khanova-Slavskaya et al, 1997, p. 187) of S. L. Rubinshtein maintains that "however great the role of speech for thinking it is necessary to stress in the sharpest fashion that what is fundamental and most importantfor thinking is its relation to objective being independent of it" (Rubinshtein in Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 66). Furthermore, "man and his mind are formed and appear inactivity (initially practical), on the basis of which the child acquires speech which then exercises a reverse

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influence on the whole of mental development" (Brushlinsky &Polikarpov, 1990, p. 68-69). Brushlinsksy's own perspective does not, therefore, permit the relationship between language and thinking which he finds objectionable in Vygotsky's account:

planning and problem solving generally are accomplishednot by speech, but by thinking: A person plans and solves problems in the process of his thinking. The latter is always indissolubly connected, of course, with language and speech, but all the same they play a different role: As is known, the function of speech is a means of social interaction (obshcheniya) while the function of thinking is cognition (to speak is not yet to think). (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 50)

This position clearly echoes Rubinshtein's (1999, p. 361) own criticism of Vygotsky's position:

The peculiarities of child speech noted above in the functional use of the word are derived from (proizvodnymi ot) the peculiarities of his thinking. Certainly, the connection between speech and thought isa mutual, dialectical one: Cause and effect here changeplaces more than once; the peculiarities of the functional use of signs in their turn influence thinking. But what is fundamental and most important isthe determining influence of thinking, which reflects objective reality in a specific fashion, on speech, andnot the other way around. To attempt to transform the peculiarities of the functional use of the word into the 'productive cause' (provodyashchuyu prichinu) of the peculiarities of child thinking is to present an idea about the true pathways of the child's mental development which is false to the core.5

Brushlinsky also outlines the methodological implications of the opposing approaches. While the "primary dependence of speech on initially practical contact with reality was not duly taken into account by E. Cassirer, the early J. Piaget,V. N. Voloshinov (M. M. Bakhtin), the later Vygotsky and

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others" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 51, my emphasis), the subject-activity approach provides the methodological foundation "for the study of those initial, primary,fundamental preconditions which are necessarily formed only in the course of activity and social interaction (obshcheniya) and initially determine the development of speech in children andadults" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 55, my emphasis).

Summing up these differences, Brushlinsky argues that Rubinshtein's approach, in contrast with the sign-centric approach, realizes the idea that "in the beginning was the deed (and not the word, despite the exceptional significanceof the latter)" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 97). Brushlinsky also notes that Vygotsky's "sign-centrism" was criticized not only by Rubinshtein and his supporters but also by "many psychologists who studied Vygotsky's theory" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 54). Brushlinsky mentions Gal'perin, for example, who "stresses that, according to [cultural-historical] theory, 'the driving force of the development of the mind was the interaction of the consciousnesses' of the child and adult, and not the initially practical activity of the subject (as in the theories of Rubinshtein and Leont'ev)" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 54).6

In defence of VygotskyBrushlinsky's views on Vygotsky's "sign-centrism" and

the relationship of his theory to activity approaches are not shared by all psychologists in the cultural-historical and activity theory traditions. Davydov and Radzikhovskii (1985, p. 56), for instance, argue that "the category of practical activity is the general explanatory principle of [Vygotsky's] theory." They go on to say:

In our opinion, the very idea of sign meaning, as an important concept in psychological theory, does not contradict the idea of activity as a general explanatory principle. On the contrary, the concept of sign creates one of the interesting paths for developing the explanatory principle of activity.

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Indeed, if one accepts as the basis of psychological theory the concept of historically evolving object-practical activity (carried out by humankind), and assumes that this activity determines the genesis, structure, and contents of the human mind, then communicative sign systems that emerge as a product of this activity can reasonably be considered as a specific form of this type of determination. (Davydov &Radzikhovskii, 1985, p. 57).

In defending this interpretation the authors insist that Vygotsky's conception of language needs to be seen in context:

In Vygotsky's last works, the problem of meaning acquired an independent character, while the idea of activity as an explanatory principle and the idea of determination through activity (even if indirectly) wasnot represented as logically necessary. However, it was implicit in all his works. (Davydov & Radzikhovskii, 1985, pp. 57-58, my emphasis).

They argue that this implicit assumption was not understood and that the removal of the sign system problematic from activity theoretical work "led only to a substantial 'narrowing' of the theory of activity" (Davydov & Radzikhovskii, 1985, p. 60).7

It is also interesting to note the authors’ belief thatVygotsky "was ahead of his time. Many of his basic ideas could be more adequately formulated only by using the mechanisms developed by Soviet Marxist philosophers and methodologists in the 1960s and 1970s" (Davydov & Radzikhovskii, 1985, p. 39). Continuing this theme, Davydov,in his posthumously published dedication to the Soviet philosopher Evald Ilyenkov, argues that "Vygotsky came near to posing and considering the problem of the ideal, althoughin his day the necessary conceptual and even terminological resources were not available" (Davydov, 1999, p. 26). It is the "conception of the ideal worked out by Ilyenkov," which "allowed him, in our opinion, to give a contemporary logico-philosophical foundation for the cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky" (Davydov, 1999, p. 25).

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The views of Davydov and Radzikhovskii attune with A. N. Leont'ev's later argument:

As is known, as a result of the first cycle of works dedicated to the study of the role of external means and their 'turning' [sic], L. S.Vygotskii turned to thestudy of consciousness, its 'cells' - verbal meanings, their formation and structure. Although in these investigations meaning appeared in its, so to speak, reverse movement and, for this reason, as if it were something that lies behind life and directs activity, for Vygotskii an opposite thesis remained unshakable: Not meaning, not consciousness lies behind life, but life lies behind consciousness. (Leont'ev, 1978, p. 60, my emphasis).

Leont'ev continues:An investigation of the formation of mental processes and meanings (ideas) may express only one part of the total movement of activity, but this may be a very important part: the assimilation by the individual of methods of thought worked out by humanity. (Leont'ev, 1978, p. 60)Other scholars have defended Vygotsky's position

against the charge of underplaying the significance of activity in his treatment of language and consciousness. Bakhurst, invoking Ilyenkov's exploration of the concept of the ideal, argues that there is "no grand opposition betweenthe practical and the semiotic in a Marxist theory of the mind" because "the act of transforming nature is itself a semiotic act" in the sense that "by acting on the world, human beings endow their natural environment with meaning, with the significance which is its 'ideal form'" (Bakhurst, 1990, pp. 221-222).8 Kozulin (1990, pp. 245-247) offers a qualified defence of Vygotsky's position against the charge of idealism brought by P. I. Zinchenko.9 Collins, agreeing with Kozulin's interpretation of Vygotsky's position, (Collins, 1999, p. 58) takes up P. I. Zinchenko's charge that "Vygotsky tended to reduce the development of consciousness to the appropriation of a hierarchy of

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semiotic codes, and tended to ignore the relationship of this process to the larger process of life-activity which isthe truly decisive formative influence" (Collins, 1999, p. 57). Collins responds that "while this reading might initially seem to square with chapters 5 and 6 of Thinking and Speech, itsquares rather poorly with the broader contours of Vygotsky's writings" (Collins, 1999, p. 57). In Vygotsky, semiotic mediational means "are not, in and of themselves, held to be the explanation of consciousness, or the ultimate moving force behind it. Here it is not a question of choosing between practical activity and semiotic mediation, but of understanding how consciousness develops as a result of their union" (Collins, 1999, p. 58). Collins argues that Vygotsky (1986) is most concerned with the moment Leont'ev (1978, p. 60, cited above) "refers to as meaning in its 'reverse movement'," i.e., with the specific moment of the active influence of language on activity, and for that reason "the moment of activity as the former of consciousness is left to one side" (Collins, 1999, p. 60).

My arguments below will support this defence of Vygotsky's enterprise by the scholars cited. However, the simplest way to respond to Brushlinsky's critique is to lookat Vygotsky's own words on the matter.

Vygotsky: "in the beginning was the word" - meaning in its reverse movement

Brushlinsky argues that Rubinshtein's theory realizes the idea that "in the beginning was the deed," implying thatVygotsky's "sign-centric" conception embodies the opposing biblical formula "in the beginning was the word." But in hisown commentary on these formulas Vygotsky explicitly rejects the "in the beginning was the word" position taken by some psychologists on the grounds that "the word does not stand at the beginning of the development of the child's mind" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 86; 1999, p. 65). Both "instrumental thinking" and "intelligent (ymnoe) action" precede the rational use of language (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 86; 1999, p. 65). At the same time, however, Vygotsky also sharply

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criticizes as un-dialectical those theories, which cannot see further than the initial primacy of deed over word:

It is usually thought that the relationship between word and deed which is characteristic for the earliest age (the independence of deed from word and the primacyof action) is preserved on all subsequent stages of development and even throughout life . . . This conviction is based on the erroneous assumption that initial relationships between separate functions remain

1 I have chosen to use my own translations of passages from Vygotsky (1984) but have also indicated the relevant page reference in the published English translation (Vygotsky, 1999). I have also used my own translation of passages from Vygotsky (1996) which are not always to be found in the English translation by A. Kozulin (Vygotsky, 1986). My thanks to Marianna Ivanova for her help with the translation.2 The arguments advanced against Brushlinsky's critique are intended in the most amicable and constructive spirit. I am very grateful to him forhis hospitality and generosity during my visits to the Moscow Institute of Psychology in 1993 and 1994 and for the discussions we had over Vygotsky and Activity Theory. His own important and original contributions to the study of the role of discourse in cognitive tasks (e.g. Brushlinsky 1979, Brushlinsky and Polikarpov, 1990) should also benoted and deserve special study and discussion.3 Rubinshtein differed with Vygotsky over such key issues as internalization and the function of egocentric speech (cf. Rubinsthein, 1999, and Brushlinsky's editorial comments in this work). For example, Rubinshtein thought that Vygotsky's view of egocentric speech as social in appearance but having the function of inner speech (planning and the regulation and control of the child's own behaviour) represented an illegitimate "intellectualizing" of what he preferred to call "monologicspeech" (1999, p. 411). For Rubinshtein, monologic speech has all the same functions as speech in general (although these functions are realized in a special form) but is particularly effective as a self-motivational means (in adults as well as children), since it has all thetangibility, accessibility to conscious awareness and direct emotional power of interpersonal speech (1999, p. 411). 4 In this and subsequent passages I have translated the Russian term obshchenie as "social interaction", although "communication" would be a viable alternative.5 In a footnote to the term "productive cause" (provodyashchuyu prichinu) Brushlinsky (in Rubinshtein, 1999, p. 361) notes that this term is takenfrom Vygotsky (1996), and that the passage is part of Rubinshtein's "hidden polemic" (skrytuyu polemiku) against Vygotsky conducted throughout the work.

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unaltered throughout the whole course of development. (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 86; 1999, p. 65).

This "erroneous assumption" expresses a "formal-logical position" which takes the relationship of speech and action "as a thing and not as a process . . . statically, not dynamically, not in movement" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 87; 1999, p. 66). He argues that the "truly dialectical character of development of functional systems cannot be adequately reflected … in a single effective formal-logical schema of conceptual relations" since such schema do not "take into account the movement of concepts and the processes standing behind them, the mutability of relations, the dynamic and dialectic of development" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 88; 1999, p. 66).

Vygotsky's own research, guided by this sensitivity to the dialectical transitions within functional systems, led him to a picture in which relations between word and deed underwent a dramatic transformation in the course of the child's development. Thus, while in complete agreement with the formula "in the beginning was the deed," Vygotsky suggested placing the emphasis as follows: "in the beginning was the deed" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 87; 1999, p. 65). He explains:

6 Cf. e.g., Bakhurst (1991), Kozulin (1990), Davydov and Radzikhovskii (1985), Wersch (1985a), Kozulin (1990) for discussion of the differenceswithin the cultural-historical camp.7 The authors show that recent criticisms of Vygotsky's "anti-activity" approach are reminiscent of earlier ideologically inspired criticisms from the 1930s (Talankin and others): "They accused him of not recognizing how labor activity determines mental processes. In their ownway they were correct. Vygotsky indeed never recognized determination in the form that they did, in the form of direct and simple dependency. He did not recognize determination as a simple reduction of mind to labour activity" (Davydovand Radzikhovskii, 1985, p. 63, footnote 11, my emphasis). This issue istaken up by Bakhurst (1991). 8 Cf. Jones (2001) for a critique of Bakhurst's intepretation of Ilyenkov's ideal.9 "Although Zinchenko's overall attack of Vygotsky's theory was hardly justified, his comments did reveal important lacunae in this theory" (Kozulin, 1990, p. 246).

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From everything that has been said up to now it is veryclear that we cannot stop at either the biblical formulation or at Goethe's, whatever word we put the emphasis on. It is impossible not to see that all theseformulations . . . need to be extended. They talk aboutwhat was in the beginning. But what came after that? The beginning is only the beginning, i.e., the startingpoint of movement. But the very process of development necessarily carries within itself the negation of the starting point and a movement towards higher forms of action which lie not at the beginning but at the end ofthe whole developmental path. How is this achieved? Theattempt to answer this question has impelled us to write this work. We have tried to show how the word, intellectualizing itself and developing on the foundation of action, lifts action to a higher level, brings it under the control of the child, places on action the imprint of the will. But since we wanted to present all of this in a concise formula, in a single sentence we could say: if at the beginning of development stands the deed, independent of the word, then at the end stands the word becoming a deed; the word, making human action free. (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 90; 1999, p. 68, my emphasis).10

This is Vygotsky's response to Brushlinsky: The "initial foundation" of "sensory and practical contacts withthe external world" (as Brushlinsky puts it), is not diminished with the emergence and development of language, but it is negated in the dialectical sense: It gives way to "that new relationship of the actor to the external world, which is manifested in free action guided and directed by word" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 89; 1999, p. 67). Brushlinsky's charge of "absolutization of speech" misses the mark. Vygotsky's approach is not sign-centric; indeed, his concern here is not with speech, as such, but with "those forms of practicalactivity (deyatel'nosti) which could be recognized as specific 10 This whole passage is cited in Levitin (1982) who uses it as confirmation of Vygotsky's understanding and application of dialectics. Levitin compares the passage with a discussion by Marx of a mathematicalprocess.

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to man" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 13; 1999, p. 8), which he refersto variously as "free action" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 85; 1999, p. 64), "volitional action" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 89; 1999, p.67), "practical action in its higher forms" (Vygotsky, 1984,p. 88; 1999, p. 67), and "action guided and directed by the word" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 89; 1999, p. 67). By "free action," of course, he does not mean action which is free ofsocio-historical determination but which is "independent of the immediately impelling need and the directly perceived situation, action directed towards the future" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 85; 1999, p. 64). Similarly, Vygotsky's focus is not on consciousness, the interaction of consciousnesses, orpurpose, goal, intention, etc., in the abstract, but on conscious, purposeful, volitional, free action.11

Brushlinsky, although acknowledging with Rubinshtein the "powerful reverse effect of language," appears to shrinkfrom its implications. His critique of Vygotsky continually draws our eyes away from the word-action relations in the higher form and back towards its preconditions and to relations between functions at this earlier stage. Vygotsky,in contrast, begins his investigation with the identification and analysis of the new structures and functions proper to this higher form. This methodological approach is referred to by Ilyenkov as "the principle of concrete historicism," which "imposes the requirement of establishing, in a strictly objective manner, the point at which the real history of the object under consideration begins, the genuinely concrete starting-point of its origin"11 As Vygotsky explains, human intentional activity cannot be explained in terms merely of it having a goal: "The goal in general is not an explanation. Certainly no goal directed action is possible without the existence of a goal but the presence of the goal in no way explains the whole process, in its development and structure, of reaching the goal . . . The presence of a goal, the presence of a task is a necessarybut not sufficient moment for the arising of goal directed activity. No goal directed activity can arise without the presence of a goal and a task which set the process in motion and give it direction. But the presence of the goal and of the task still do not guarantee that activity which is really goal directed will be brought to life, and in any case do not have the magic power to determine and regulate the course and structure of that activity" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 124).

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(Ilyenkov, 1982, p. 215). The "genuinely concrete starting point" of Vygotsky's investigation is "free action" and the nodal points in the dialectical emergence of this higher form are then investigated empirically. Vygotsky attempts toelucidate the principal stages via which the initial relation between word and action - with word shadowing and reflecting practical-sensuous action already underway - is inverted in the higher form, with the consequence that the laws at work in the lower form ("in the beginning was the deed") have no explanatory force in relation to the higher form ("the word becoming a deed") to whose laws they become subordinate (cf. Ilyenkov, 1982, p. 217).

Vygotsky, therefore, is intent on understanding not only what is behind the word but what is in front of it: action in which word functions causally in its "reverse effect." This reflects his sensitivity to the dialectical logic of complexfunctional systems where:

No matter how appropriate a label for an entity may appear, to follow through the internal relations of this entity, its real ties within a concrete situation,will bring one to instances where the opposite label must be applied (Ollman, 1971, pp. 55-56).

This whole issue is summarized most insightfully by Lee (1985, pp. 79-80):

When speech and thought begin to interweave in action, a dialectic is set up in which the reversible nature ofsigns allows the child to “bootstrap” himself up through the various levels of abstraction present in language. At first the child is guided by these reversible semiotic signs without being aware of their effects. They are silent means in his goal-directed activity. Yet these very activities, because they involve the use of means structured along principles ofreversibility and generalization, create effects that later will become causes of the child's behaviour. Thisreversal of cause and effect is one of Vygotsky's interpretations of Marx's dialectic and is a key generic law in his psychology.

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Moreover, from this vantage point we can see that Brushlinsky's (1968) argument that Vygotsky's approach maintained a dualism between natural and cultural factors loses its force since Vygotsky begins not from some preconceived opposition between them but from the higher form of action, that concrete whole in which the natural and the cultural already form a dynamic unity, a complex system developing according to its distinctive, cultural logic. From this perspective, the key to understanding the dynamic relations between human culture and its natural psychological preconditions lies not in the search for some wholly “pre-cultural” psychological or physiological activity manifested at birth (or even earlier) but in the study of the process of development of individuals capable of the higher, cultural form of action and in the study of their continued progress, as children and adults, to participate actively in the development of human culture.

The dialectics of "free action"Vygotsky's developmental analysis of "free action" can

be briefly summarised as follows. He argues that the word emerges initially in the child's speech against the background of already established activity where it "accompanied his activity and reflected its fundamental vicissitudes in disconnected and chaotic form" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 34; 1999, p. 24). At this stage speech "remains in a structural relation of subordination to action" (Vygotsky,1984, p. 35; 1999, p. 24). Speech follows activity and the child "fixes in words the result of activity or its separatemoments" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 34; 1999, p. 24). The initial stage, then, does not manifest a genuine integration of speech and action. However, the child's speech "more and more displaces itself to the pivotal and initial moments of the process, beginning to run ahead of action, and elucidating action which has been conceived but not yet realized" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 34; 1999, p. 24). Vygotsky explains that this shift within the activity cycle "means not only a temporal advance of speech in relation to action,

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but also a change in the functional centre of the whole system" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 35; 1999, p. 24). Illustrating the point with an analysis of the development of children's drawing he argues:

speech, advancing to the initial moment of action, begins to dominate over it, to guide it, to determine its theme and course. Consequently, at the second stagethe planning function of speech is genuinely born. (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 35; 1999, p. 24). With the emergence of the planning function of speech,

activity "is divided into two consecutive parts" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 24; 1999, p. 16). The first consists of problem solving "on the verbal (rechevom) plane, with the help of verbal planning" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 24; 1999, p. 16), and the second involves "the simple motor realization of the prepared solution" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 24; 1999, p. 16). Vygotsky notes that "the planning function of speech is usually considered in isolation from its reflecting functionand is even counterposed to it" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 35; 1999, p. 24). However, he argues that

the transition from one function to another, the arising of the planning function of speech from the reflecting is that very genetic nodal point which connects the lower functions of speech with the higher and which explains their real origins. The child's speech, precisely because it is initially a verbal castof activity or its parts, reflects action or intensifies its results, begins at the latest stage to advance to the beginning of action, to plan and direct action, forming the action in conformity with the cast of previous activity, the cast which was earlier fixed in speech. (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 35; 1999, p. 24).

Thus, "speech forms an operation according to different lawsthan immediate action" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 48; 1999, p. 35) since

the inclusion of symbolic functions into an operation .. . creates the conditions for a connection of a completely new character between elements of the present and the future (actually perceived elements of

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the present situation are included into a single structural system with symbolically represented elements of the future). (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 49; 1999, p. 35).

Here, then, as Levitin (1982, p. 23) notes, word and action have swapped functions. In their new relation, word in its planning function is used to exert a causal influence on action so that the action is formed deliberately in accordance with the goal and means expressed on the verbal plane. In this way, man "directs and regulates his own behaviour, taking control of himself from without, forcing sign-stimuli to influence him and to elicit the reactions desired by him" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 84; 1999, p. 63).12

Brushlinsky's objection to this account on the grounds that "speech turns out to be primary in relation to specifically human practical action" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 49) distorts Vygotsky's position. The use of words in planning cannot be artificially counterposedto activity, since it is activity - "activity on the plane ofrepresentation, altering the ideal image of an object," altering "the objectified idea or form of the person's activity taken as a thing" (Ilyenkov, 1977, p. 280). The word (or other objectified form of the ideal) is generated between people in the course of their activity as a form of the activity itself but that form through which they begin to actively appropriate in conscious images their own powers and relations. If the causal power of the word in its planning function is, as Vygotsky argues, a consequence of the dialectical self-development of human action itself, then it would be quite wrong to see the power of the word as the power of speech over human thought or over human action. On the contrary, itis an expression of the power of people themselves; it is a power that they create between each other and for themselvesas agents of their distinctively human, purposeful action.13

The possibility - indeed, necessity - of the gravitation of the verbal mediator from the end or middle of activity to

12 For further discussion of Vygotsky's conception of the planning function of speech see, for example, Levina (1981), Lee (1985), Parrila (1995).

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the beginning, as one moment of the entire pulsation of the activity cycle, and the consequent temporal separation of word and action is not the "primacy of speech over practicalaction" but the dialectical negation of the initial form of practical action into its distinctively human form.14 This dialectical transformation of action makes all human activity dependent upon the word and other ideal forms, a dependence which is not in itself the rule of mystical abstractions over people (a form of alienation which does, of course, arise under certain conditions), but an expression of the power of the human collective objectified in special symbolic form.

Vygotsky, therefore, unequivocally accepts the primacy of deed over word in the initial stages of the development of human activity. But his emphasis is on the transformationof action resulting from the integration of language into tool-mediated activity, leading to "a dialectical transformation of cause into effect, which stems from the spiral-like character of any development of mutually conditioning phenomena" (Ilyenkov, 1982, p. 125; Jones, 2001). Furthermore, Vygotsky's analysis also contains an answer to the question of why language develops out of practical activity. His investigation indicates that a contradiction arises between the psychological processes taking shape in the early practical actions of the child andthe requirements - the tasks, methods, goals - of the cultural practices the child is striving to master. This contradiction is resolved through the use of the word (between adult and child) within their practical and communicative intercourse as a "functional barrier" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 45; 1999, p. 32); as a command, a suggestion, a focussing of attention which separates "the impulse from the immediate realization of the act" 13 For these reasons we might prefer to turn Bakhurst's argument, noted above, that "the act of transforming nature is itself a semiotic act" (Bakhurst, 1990, p. 221) on its head, thus: "the semiotic act is itself an act - an ideal act - of transforming nature."14 See Jones (2000) for a more detailed discussion of the dialectic of semiotic mediation in relation to Ilyenkov's conception of the "law of spiral-like development."

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(Vygotsky, 1984, p. 50; 1999, p. 36), allowing the child's action to be shaped and guided according to a new principle.The term "barrier" here, of course, needs to be understood dialectically. A barrier separates and divides but it also connects and unites, acting as "a mechanism for the preparation of an action put off to the future" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 50; 1999, p. 36). Hence, the immediate relation of the symbolic tool to one's own (and others') behaviour is just the mediated form of one's own (and others') relation tothe object of action and its properties and possibilities. Vygotsky's analysis, therefore, suggests how language and other forms of symbolic activity are required and are, consequently, necessarily generated as a response to the contradictions thrown up by social forms of life based on the production and use of tools. One could add that the separating out of word in its planning function and, with it, the addition of a whole new verbal link in the chain of mediated action contains the seeds of a new contradiction between word and practical action, a contradiction which can, under certain social conditions, become an antagonism, as in the case of that pervasive ailment afflicting formal schooling known as "verbalism" (Ilyenkov, 1991, p. 381; cf. Jones, 2001).15

Brushlinsky is right, of course, to say that planning is thinking and not speech as such. But this begs the question as to the distinctive form or means of thinking-as-planning. The conscious planning of action is only possible if the goal, means, direction and course of one's own, purposeful action can be given a form which is separate and distinct from the actual practical realization of the action, a form adequate to the exercise of a planning function.16

15 Cf. Marx (1973, p. 147) "As soon as money has become an external thing alongside the commodity, the exchangeability of the commodity for money becomes bound up with external conditions which may or may not be present." 16 The study of the role of language in the formation of mental action was considerably progressed by Gal'perin (cf. Arievich and van der Veer,1995).

18

Language comes to function here as this form, as the symbolic material of the ideal image of the aims and structure of the whole activity. Through this whole dialectical process of development of semiotically mediated activity "the form itself of the activity . . . is transformed for man into a special object with which he can operate specially without touching and without changing the real object up to a certain point" (Ilyenkov, 1977a, p. 278). In Ilyenkov's terms, Vygotsky is analysing the path ofdevelopment of "conscious ideality" (Ilyenkov, 1977b, p. 87), showing how it is that human action is conscious but not based or founded on consciousness. His work is the psychological underpinning of Marx's own characterization of"labour in a form in which it is an exclusively human characteristic" (Marx, 1976, pp. 283-4) as purposeful activity, as a process at the end of which "a result emergeswhich had already been conceived by the worker at the beginning, hence already existed ideally" (Marx, 1976, p. 284). From this Vygotskian perspective, Brushlinsky's position that "the function of speech is as a means of social intercourse while the function of thinking is cognition" (Brushlinsky & Polikarpov, 1990, p. 50) looks distinctly metaphysical. These definitions fix language and thought in a particular, restricted set of relationships, and this way of thinking about the problem is alien to Vygotsky's own approach to the dialectic of functional systems. Indeed, Vygotsky argues that "there cannot be a single formula which embraces the whole multiplicity of relations between speech and action at all stages of development and in all forms of disintegration" (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 88; 1999, p. 66). In fact, any rigid dichotomy between "means of social intercourse" and "cognition" explodes in the face of a simple verbal interchange. Let us take the example of a child saying to a parent: "bring me the toy." The utterance is a command; it is addressed to someone and is therefore a form or means of social intercourse. But at the same time it represents a whole event, a whole course of action: The (imagined) event is

19

analyzed through the generalized abstractions embodied in such words as "bring" and "toy" and re-synthesized through the dialectical interpenetration of these abstractions into a meaningful whole. In short, the verbal command is also an intellectual act, a form of cognition. It is a call to someone, but a call to purposeful action.17

Word and thought: the dialectic of form and contentVygotsky shows how the symbolic mediation of action by

word dialectically develops into the reverse influence of word on action within purposeful activity. In general terms,then, as this case shows, mediation must always be understood as internally related to the process of reverse action or reverse influence.18 This reverse action of the symbolic form must itself be understood concretely, which means that the properties of this form, its internal movement and contradictions can be and indeed must be studied specially and independently of its origins and of the influence on it of other factors (which must nonethelessbe ultimately taken into account for a fully concrete picture). This, as Collins (1999, p. 60) notes, is indeed the main topic of Vygotsky (1986). Although it is crucial, as Collins and other scholars have insisted, that this work be understood against the background of the ideas in Vygotsky (1984; 1999), the presuppositions and insights of the earlier work are not as implicit in the later work as issometimes thought. For example, Vygotsky emphasises that "the most essential thing for the concept" is "its relationship to reality" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 117), clearly distinguishes the conceptual from the purely verbal plane (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 117), and views the concept as emerging only in the process of thinking about and trying to understand and solve particular tasks (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 119). This is the basis for his special study of the structure, development and dynamic of the verbally expressed17 "It would not be wrong to state that the accomplishment of a simple action on verbal instruction can be regarded as the core of voluntary behaviour regulated by speech" (Luria, 1961, p. 26).18 This active reverse influence of mediational means is closely examined in Wertsch (1991, 1998).

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ideal plane, for his investigation into the development of concepts, the relations between concepts and word meaning, and the relation of this system of concepts to reality.

Vygotsky's method in this has generated further misunderstandings, and has only confirmed some researchers in their views on the "sign-centrism" of the cultural-historical approach. However, one needs to bear in mind that:

"Dialectical truth" does not fit together neatly like the pieces of a puzzle but allows for the kind of multiple one-sidedness that is the necessary result of studying a subject within the different perspectives associated with its different aspects. (Ollman, 1971, p. 219).

To treat the evolution of word meanings and the role of wordin concept formation as an independent and irreducible factor in the development of cognition does not imply that speech is independent of life (cf. Collins, 1999, pp. 58-59)or that word meanings transform themselves into concepts by their own immanent self-movement. This is not Vygotsky's position. As he makes plain, the driving force of conceptualdevelopment lies in the social environment (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 132). But a concrete conception of this process is impossible without understanding the "organic connectedness and internal unity of the moments of form and content in thedevelopment of thinking" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 132). Thus, theactive role played by the verbal form in the development of conceptual thinking cannot be overlooked.

Wertsch rightly draws attention to the problem of the relationship of form and content as a key issue in the differences between Rubinshteinian and Vygotskian views of language. He argues that "neither speech nor language occupied a particularly important place in Rubinshtein's theoretical framework; and when one of these notions was used, there was an emphasis on language and how it reflectedthe products of earlier activity carried out by humans" (Wertsch, 1981b, pp. 12-13). This is in contrast to Vygotskywho, rather than "simply recognizing that language can serveas a useful repository of distinctions and concepts that are

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useful for human cognitive activity, stressed that the introduction of speech [rech'] into historical and genetic frameworks causes a fundamental change in the very nature ofthe activity" (Wertsch, 1981b, p. 13). The significance of Wertsch's point can be seen from the discussion of the relationship between language and consciousness in Rubinshtein (1999). Rubinshtein argues that "the arising of consciousness as a specifically human form of reflection of reality is inseparably connected with language" and that "there is no consciousness without language" (Rubinshtein, 1999, p. 149). However, he adds:

It is not the word in itself, but the socially accumulated knowledge objectified in the word, which isthe core (sterzhnem) of consciousness. The word is essential for consciousness precisely on account of thefact that the knowledge by means of which man gets to know (osoznaet) reality is built up and objectified in the word and actualized through it. (Rubinshtein, 1999,p. 150)Vygotsky could agree that the content of word is

"socially accumulated knowledge" but would surely balk at the idea of such an abstract appeal to content as an argument for downplaying the significance of the concrete form of existence of this content. In short, Rubinshtein's view of word as the mere externality of cognitive content (its "linguistic encasement [yazykovaya obolochka]," Wertsch, 1981b, p. 12) manifests a metaphysical, undialectical conception, neglecting what Hegel called the "essential point to keep in mind about the opposition of Form and Content," which is "that the content is not formless, but has the form in its own self, quite as much as the form is external to it" (Hegel, 1975, p. 189). Significantly for ourpurposes, Hegel illustrates the "absolute correlation" (Hegel, 1975, p. 189) or "identity" (Hegel, 1975, p. 190) ofcontent and form by reference to verbal art (Hegel, 1975, p.190):

The content of the Iliad, it may be said, is the Trojan war, and especially the wrath of Achilles. In that we have everything, and yet very little after all; for the

22

Iliad is made an Iliad by the poetic form, in which that content is moulded. The content of Romeo and Juliet may similarly be said to be the ruin of two lovers through the discord between their families: but something more is needed to make Shakespeare's immortal tragedy.19

Further support for Vygotsky's position can be found in Mamardashvili's discussion of Marx's concept of "transformedform" (verwandelte Form) and the "nonclassical" causal dynamic(Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 281) which their emergence sets in train. He argues that such "transformed forms" of human activity as words or the money form of value, while generated by the complex internal dynamic of the social system as a whole, give a new form of appearance to the internal relations of the system and take on an "independentlife within the system in the form of separate, qualitatively whole phenomena, 'objects' alongside others" (Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 270). Such forms, he argues, "once they have become a special component of the system, appear to be a precondition, an initial cause of the movement of the whole" (Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 273). The functioning ofa transformed form (or "quasi-object," Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 275) of this kind cannot be reduced to the processes which are its ultimate source and ground since it presents "a distortion of content (one which is real rather than in the mind of the observer), or such a reworking of it that itbecomes unrecognisable at first sight" (Mamardashvili, 1991,p. 272).20 Nor can this new form be ignored in "representingthe real 'position of things'" since it acts "as a completely independent object separate in space and time, an'essence' whose role is precisely grounded in this transformation and distortion of the real which makes it an

19 In this connection, do we not detect a similarly formal flavour to Wertsch's own argument, against Vygotsky, that "word meaning (or any other semiotic unit for that matter) is a unit of semiotic mediation of mental functioning, not a unit of mental functioning itself" (Wertsch, 1985a, p. 208)?20 "Since money is the transformed shape of the commodity it does not reveal what has been transformed into it: whether conscience or virginity or horse dung" (Marx, 1976, p. 1073).

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irreducible and uniquely integral element of the system itself" (Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 272). Such forms have theirown causal effect on the system, which gives them life. Specifically they "regulate the system by embodying links and mediations cut out of the system, replacing them with a new relation, which ensures the 'life' of the system" (Mamardashvili, 1991, p. 275).

Thus, in the same way that it is impossible to think, feel, and respond artistically, musically, or poetically without working out and struggling to master the distinctive, historically worked out forms of art, music or poetry, so can there be no concept "without words" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 131), no conceptual thinking outside of the special activity of mastering the symbolic form which "functions in the role of a means of formation of concepts and later as symbol of this means" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 125).In that sense, and within these limits, Vygotsky is right tostress, against Rubinshtein and Brushlinsky, that "the use of the word, the functional application of the sign as a means of forming concepts" is "the productive cause [proizvodyashchaya prichina] of the ripening of concepts" (Vygotsky, 1996, p. 131).

Concluding remarksI have argued that Brushlinsky's charge of sign-

centrism against Vygotsky's approach is misplaced. Vygotsky clearly argues that language is rooted in practical activityand arises from it. But his work centres on the dialectical transformation and inversion of word-action relations with the development of "free action" and, within this framework,focuses on the special moment of the development and structure of the verbal plane as an active influence within human thinking and practice. This general conception and themethodology underpinning it do not entail an "absolutizationof speech" but, on the contrary, exemplify a profoundly dialectical approach to the logic of complex functional systems.

As we have seen, the role of language within activity is certainly not ignored in Brushlinsky's Rubinshteinian

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account which explicitly talks of the "reverse influence" or"ever more important influence" of language on thinking. Butit appears that the implications of this reverse influence are not adequately taken on board. A preoccupation with the preconditions and conditions of emergence of language leads to a failure to duly recognize the reverse causation betweenelements in the "higher form of action." An insistence on the essential unity - the identity - of language, thinking, and action within purposeful activity appears to get in the way to some extent of a fully concrete conception of the dialectical relations between functions and between the formand content of thinking. As Ollman notes in his discussion of Marx's differences with the economists, the general identity (the common ground) of elements within the economicsystem was not at issue for Marx, rather "the reverse was the problem:"

Their "identity" is assumed; where as the distinctiveness of each form, which includes the uniqueways in which it is related to others, is the subject of his empirical research. (Ollman, 1971, p. 187).

In Vygotsky's conception, similarly, the unity of language and thinking and their grounding in activity is the startingpoint of his investigation. What Vygotsky is after, however,is an understanding of the distinctive and irreducible function of word as the special, differentiated form of activity. This is what appears to divide Vygotsky from the Rubinshteinians, despite the many areas of common agreement between them.

This is not to imply, however, that Vygotsky's account is correct in all respects, or that Brushlinsky's (1968) critical commentary has no value or force. Nor is the position adopted here to be interpreted as a general critique of Brushlinsky's or Rubinshtein's contributions to psychology, something which is beyond the scope of this paper and the competence of this writer. On the contrary, the analysis of the emergence, development and functioning of language that Vygotsky presents should be and has been critically examined and modified in its details. After all, the inter-functional relations and transformations between

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word and practical action, word and perception and so on area matter for empirical investigation, not for speculation ordogmatic pronouncement. Furthermore, Vygotsky's analysis of the logic of emergence of the higher form of action should be complemented and extended by studies of the logic of development of activity on this higher basis, of the development of industrial and scientific practice, etc.

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