Psychology and marxism

8/14/2019 Psychology and marxism

1/21

L.S. Vygotsky 1925

New translation of Vygotskys

Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior

First Published: 1925;

Source: Undiscovered Vygotsky: Etudes on the pre-history of cultural-historical

psychology (European Studies in the History of Science and Ideas. Vol. 8), pp. 251-

281;

Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing 1999;

Translated: Nikolai Veresov;

Transcription/Markup:Nate Schmolze;

Online Version:Vygotsky Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000

The spider makes operations resembling the operations of the weaver, and the bee

creating its waxen cells disgraces some architects. But from the very beginning, the

worst architect differs from the best bee in that before building the cell of wax, he

already has built it in his head. The result, which is received at the end of the process

of work, already exists in the beginning of this process in an ideal form in a

representation of a person. The person does not only change the form given by nature,

but in what is given by nature he, at the same time, realises his conscious purpose,

which as a law determines the way and character of his actions and to which he must

subordinate his will. K. Marx

Related Translators Comments:

Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior, Nikolai Veresov

I

The question of the psychological nature of consciousness is persistently and

deliberately avoided in our scientific literature. Attempts are made even to take no

notice of it, as if it does not exist for the new psychology. Owing to this, the systems

of scientific psychology, which are developing under our eyes, have from the very

beginning a number of organic defects. We shall mention a few, which in our opinion

are the main and most fundamental ones.

1. By ignoring the problem of consciousness psychology has deprived itself of access

to the study of some rather complex problems of human behaviour. It is forced to

restrict itself to explaining no more than the most elementary connections between a

living being and the world. That this is actually the case can easily be seen at a glance

at the table of contents of Academician Bekhterevs book General foundations of

human reflexology (1923): The principle of conservation of energy. The principle

of continuous change. The principle of rhythm. The principle of adaptation. The

principle of a counterforce equal to a force. The principle of relativity. In a word,

they are all-embracing principles, embracing not only animal and human behaviourbut the world in its wholeness. Among all this we find not even one psychological law
mailto:[email protected]://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labourhttp://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/works/veresov/consciousness.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labourhttp://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/works/veresov/consciousness.htmmailto:[email protected]


2/21

which formulates the relationship or interdependence of the phenomena, that would

characterise the uniqueness of human behaviour in contrast to animal behaviour.

The other pole of Bekhterevs book contains a classic experiment of establishing a

conditional reflex one small experiment, which in principle is extremely important,

but not filling the space from the conditional reflex of first degree to the principle ofrelativity. Disparity between the roof and the foundation, the absence of a building

between them, patently demonstrate that it is still too early to formulate universal

principles on reflexological material, and how easy it is take laws from other areas of

knowledge and apply them to psychology. Indeed, the broader and more

comprehensive a principle we will take is, the easier it is for us to pull it onto any fact

we require. We must just not forget that the volume and content of a concept are

always in an inversely proportional relationship. Since the volume of universal

principles tends toward infinity, their psychological content tends toward zero.

But this is not a defect particular to the Bekhterevs course. The same flaw appears in

one form or another elsewhere and leaves its imprint on every attempt tosystematically produce a theory of human behaviour as mere reflexology.

2. The denial of consciousness and the attempt to construct a psychological system

without this concept, as a psychology without consciousness, to use the expression of

P. P. Blonsky [1] leads to the situation in which method has been deprived of the most

necessary means and instruments for studying latent responses, such as internal

movements, internal speech, somatic responses, etc., that are not observable with the

naked eye. The study of only those reactions that are visible to the naked eye is totally

powerless and untenable in explaining even the simplest problems of human

behaviour.

But human behaviour is organised in such a way that, in fact, it is these internal

movements, difficult to perceive, that actually direct and guide it. When we develop a

conditional salivary reflex in a dog, we are organising by certain external devices the

dogs behaviour beforehand; otherwise the experiment will not succeed. We place the

dog in a stand, wrap straps around it, etc. In the same way, we organise the behaviour

of a human subject beforehand, with certain internal movements, through instructions,

explanations, etc. If these internal movements suddenly become altered during the

course of the experiment, the entire picture of behaviour changes sharply. Thus, we

always make use of inhibited reactions; we know that they are constantly operating in

the body; and we know that they play a very influential and regulatory role inbehaviour because it is conscious. Nonetheless, we have no means of studying these

internal reactions.

To say this simply, a human being is always thinking to himself; this is never without

some influence on his behaviour; a sudden shift in thought during an experiment will

always sharply make some impact on the subjects overall behaviour (for example,

sudden thought: I will not look at the apparatus). Yet we know nothing of how to

assess this influence.

3. Any principal distinction between animal behaviour and human behaviour is

obliterated. Biology devours sociology and physiology devours psychology. Humanbehaviour is studied as the behaviour of a mammal. What is essentially new, what
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n1http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n1


3/21

consciousness and psyche brings in human behaviour, is ignored. As an example I

shall mention two laws: the law of extinction (or internal inhibition) of conditional

reflexes, discovered by Academician Pavlov [2], and the law of dominants, formulated

by Professor Ukhtomsky[3].

The law of extinction (or internal inhibition) of conditional reflexes expresses the factthat with continued excitation elicited by one conditional irritant, not reinforced by

another unconditional irritant, a conditional reflex gradually diminishes in strength

until it finally disappears. Now let us turn to human behaviour. Let us develop a

conditional reaction on some irritant in a human subject. For example, we give the

instructions When you hear the bell, press the button. Now let us repeat this

experiment 40, 50, or even 100 times. Does extinction take place? On the contrary, the

connection is reinforced with each instance, with each passing day. Fatigue sets in, but

this is not what the law of extinction is referring to. It is obvious here that simple

extrapolation of a law from animal psychology to human psychology is not possible.

We need some principal stipulation. But we do not know just what this stipulation is,

nor do we even know where and how to look for it.

The law of dominants propounds the existence in the animal nervous system of focus

of excitation that attract to themselves other subdominant excitations impinging on

the nervous system at the same time. Sexual excitation in a cat, the acts of swallowing

and defecation, the embracing reflex in a frog all these, as experiments have shown,

are strengthened at the expense of any other extraneous irritation. From this a direct

step is made to the act of attention in humans, and it is asserted that a dominant is the

physiological foundation of this act. Yet it turns out that attention is actually devoid of

the capacity to be strengthened at the expense of any other extraneous irritation which

is the characteristic feature of a dominant. On the contrary, any extraneous irritant

distracts and weakens attention. Again, a step from laws concerning dominants in the

cat or the frog to the laws of human behaviour needs some essential corrective.

4. But what is most important is that the exclusion of consciousness from the domain

of scientific psychology to a considerable extent preserves all the dualism and

spiritualism of former subjective psychology. Academician Bekhterev asserted that his

system of reflexology did not contradict the hypothesis of the soul [4]. Subjective or

conscious phenomena are depicted by him as second-order phenomena, as specific

internal phenomena accompanying combinatory reflexes[5]. Dualism is reinforced by

the fact that a special science, subjective reflexology[6], is admitted as not only

possible in the future, but even as inevitable.

The main premise of reflexology, namely, the purported possibility in principle of

explaining all human behaviour without any recourse to subjective phenomena and of

constructing a psychology without psyche, is the hand-me-down dualism of subjective

psychology, its attempt to study pure, abstract psyche. This is the other half of the old

dualism: then there is a psyche without behaviour, here behaviour without psyche;

in both cases mind and behaviour are understood as two different phenomena.

No psychologist, even if he is an extreme spiritualist and idealist, has, precisely by

virtue of this dualism, ever denied the physiological materialism of reflexology. Yet,

on the contrary, it is idealism through and through, and indeed necessarilypresupposed it.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n2http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n3http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n3http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n4http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n5http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n5http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n6http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n6http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n2http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n3http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n4http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n5http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n6


4/21

5. Banishing the consciousness from psychology, we are trapped in biological

absurdity for evermore. Even Academician Bekhterev warned against making the

major mistake of regarding subjective processes as completely superfluous or

secondary phenomena in nature (epiphenomena), inasmuch as we know that

everything superfluous in nature atrophies and is obliterated, whereas our own

experience tells us that subjective phenomena achieve their highest development inthe most complex processes of correlative activity [7].

Thus we are left with two choices: either this is actually the case, and it is impossible

to study human behaviour and the complex forms of human interrelated activity

without reference to the human mind; or it is not the case, and mind is an

epiphenomenon, a secondary phenomenon, and everything can be explained without

mind, and we shall come to the biological absurd. No third possibility is given.

6. When the question is posed in this way, we are forever barred access to the study of

the most important problems: the structure of our behaviour and an analysis of its

composition and forms. We are forever doomed to retain the false notion thatbehaviour is the sum of reflexes. At the same time, man is not at all a skin sack filled

with reflexes and the brain is not a hotel for conditional reflexes that happen to pass

by.

A reflex is an abstract concept. Methodologically, it is extremely valuable, but it

cannot become the fundamental concept of psychology as a concrete science of

human behaviour. In reality we are [not] a leather bag filled with reflexes and the

brain is not a hotel for complex groups; combinations and system built according to

the most diverse types.

The study of dominant reactions in animals and of reflex integration has shown,

persuasively, that the work of each organ, its reflex, is not something static, but only a

function deriving from the overall state of the organism[8]. The nervous system

works as an integrated whole this formula of Ch. Sherrington [9] should serve as the

foundation for a theory of the structure of behaviour.

Indeed, the sense in which we use the term reflex resembles very closely the story

of Kannitfershtan, whose name a poor foreigner heard in Holland as a response to any

question no matter what he asked: Whom are they burying? Whose house is this?

Who just passed by? etc. He naively thought that everything in this country was done

by Kannitfershtan, whereas actually, the word simply meant that the Dutchman he metdid not understand his questions. A reflex of purpose or a freedom reflex can be

presented as patent evidence of such a misunderstanding of investigated phenomena.

It is clear to everyone that these are not reflexes in the usual sense, i.e., in the sense

that a salivary reflex is a reflex, but rather are some sort of structurally distinct

mechanism of behaviour. Only if we reduce everything to one common denominator

can we explain everything in the same way: then a reflex is like this Kannitfershtan.

But the very term reflex loses its meaning.

What is perception? It is a reflex. What is speech? What are gestures, facial

expressions? They are also reflexes. And instincts, slips, emotions? They, too, are

reflexes. All the phenomena the Wurzburg school have discovered in higherintellectual processes, or Freuds analysis of dreams[10]are also reflexes. All this, of
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n7http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n8http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n8http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n9http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n10http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n10http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n10http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n7http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n8http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n9http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n10


5/21

course, is really so, but the scientific infecundity of such empty statements is quite

obvious. With such a method of discovery science neither sheds light nor brings any

clarity to the problems it studies. Instead of dissecting and delimiting the objects,

forms, and phenomena under its scrutiny, it, on the contrary, places everything in a

dim penumbra, where everything is blurred and blended together, and there are no

distinct borders between objects. This is a reflex and that is also a reflex, but whatdistinguishes this one from that one?

We ought to study not reflexes, but behaviour, its mechanism, its component parts,

and its structure. Each time we conduct an experiment with animals or humans we

have an illusion that we are studying a reaction or a reflex. Actually, what we are

studying in every case is behaviour, since we invariably organise beforehand, in some

way or other, the behaviour of the subject in order to ensure that this or that reaction

or reflex will dominate; otherwise, we would achieve nothing.

Does the dog in Academician Pavlovs experiments really react with a salivary reflex,

but not with a multitude of the most varied internal and external motor reactions? Is ittrue that these reactions had no influence on the observed reflex? And is it true that a

conditional irritant introduced into these experiments did not also itself elicit the same

sort of reactions (orienting reactions of the ear, the eyes, etc.)? Why was a temporary

connection formed between the salivary reflex and the bell, not vice versa, i.e., why

didnt the meat begin to elicit an orienting movement of the ears? And is it true that a

subject who presses a button of a key at a signal is expressing his whole reaction? The

general relaxation of the body, falling back in the chair, the tilting of the head, the

sigh, etc., arent all these essential components of the reaction?

All this shows how complex every reaction is, how this complexity depends on the

structure of the behavioural mechanism the reaction is a part of, and that it is

impossible to study a reaction in abstract form. Besides, we must not forget before we

draw any major and crucial conclusions from classic experiments with conditional

reflex, that this research has only just begun, and so far has covered only a very

narrow circle, that only one or two types of reflexes, a salivary and a defensive motor

reflex, have been studied, and then only the conditional reflexes of a first or second

order and always of a type that is biologically disadvantageous for the animal. Why

should an animal salivate in response to very remote signals, to conditional irritants of

a high order? Therefore, we should beware of any direct transportation of

reflexological laws into psychology. Professor Wagner[11]is right in saying that a

reflex is a foundation, but the foundation tells us nothing about what is going to beconstructed on it.

Owing to all these considerations, I think that we have to alter the view on human

behaviour as a mechanism, which can be opened completely with the key of

conditional reflex. Without having a preliminary working hypothesis concerning the

psychological nature of consciousness, it is impossible to undertake a critical revision

of the accumulated scientific knowledge in this area, to select and screen it, to

translate it into a new language, to develop new concepts, and to create new problems.

Scientific psychology cannot ignore the facts of consciousness; it must materialise

them, translate what objectively exists into an objective language, and once and for all
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm#pavlov-ivanhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n11http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n11http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm#pavlov-ivanhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n11


6/21

unmask and bury the fictions, phantasmagoria, etc. Otherwise, no work is possible,

neither teaching nor criticism nor research.

It is easy to see that consciousness cannot be regarded as a phenomenon of a second

line, neither biologically, physiologically, nor psychologically. A place must be found

for it, and it must be interpreted in the same line with all other reactions of theorganism. This is the first requirement of our working hypothesis. Consciousness is a

problem of the structure of behaviour.

Other requirements are: a hypothesis must, without stretch, explain the major

questions pertaining to consciousness the problems of conservation of energy, self-

awareness; the psychological possibility of knowing other minds, the conscious

character of the three major fields of empirical psychology (i.e., thinking, feeling, and

will), the concept of the unconscious, the evolution of consciousness, and its identity

and unity.

Here, in this brief and cursory essay we have only outlined the most preliminary, mostgeneral, and most basic thoughts that, when blended together, should, we think,

provide the future working hypothesis of consciousness in the psychology of

behaviour.

II

Now let us take a look at the question from outside, i.e., not from the field of

psychology. In its most essential forms all animal behaviour consists of two groups of

reactions: innate or unconditional reflexes and acquired or conditional reactions.

Innate reflexes, in a certain sense, constitute a biological extract of the inheritedcollective experience of the entire species, whereas acquired reflexes are formed on

the basis of this inherited experience through the formation of new connections

provided by the personal experience of the individual. Thus, all animal behaviour may

provisionally be designated as inherited experience plus inherited experience

multiplied by personal experience. The origins of inherited experience were

discovered by Darwin; the mechanism by which this experience is multiplied by

personal experience is the conditional reflex Academician Pavlov discovered.

Generally speaking, this formula covers all animal behaviour.

The situation is different with human beings. If we are to cover human behaviour atall completely, new members must be introduced into the formula. First, it must be

pointed out that the inherited experience of human beings is incomparably broader

than that of animals. Man makes use not just of physically inherited experience. All

our life, our labour and behaviour draw broadly on the experience of former

generations, which is not transmitted at birth from father to son. We may provisionally

designate this as a historical experience.

Ranked alongside this historical experience is social experience, the experience of

other people, which constitutes a very important component in human behaviour. I do

not possess only those connections that have been formed in my personal experience

between unconditional reflexes and particular elements of the environment, but I alsohave a multitude of connections that were established in the experience of other
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/d/a.htm#darwinhttp://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/d/a.htm#darwin


7/21

people. If I know the Sahara and Mars although I have never travelled outside my

country and have never looked into a telescope, obviously the origin of this

experience is due to the experience of other people who have travelled to the Sahara

and have looked into a telescope. It is just as obvious that animals have no such

experience. Let us call this the social component of our behaviour.

Finally, what is fundamentally new in human behaviour is that mans adaptation and

the behaviour connected with it assume new forms compared with those of animals.

Whereas animals passively adapt to the environment, man actively adapts the

environment to himself. To be sure, in animals we encounter the rudimentary forms of

active adaptation in their instinctive activity (making a nest, building a house, etc.);

but in the animal kingdom these forms, first, do not have a dominant, fundamental

importance and, second, are still passive in terms of their essential characteristics and

the mechanisms by which they are carried out.

The spider that weaves his web and the bee that builds his cell out of wax do this out

of instinct, mechanically, always in the same way, and in doing so they never displayany more activity than in any other adaptive reactions. But the situation is different

with a weaver or an architect. As Marx said, they first built their works in their heads;

the result of their labours existed before this labour in ideal form [12].

Marxs explanation, which is beyond dispute, means nothing more than a doubling of

experience that is compulsory for human labour. Labouris repeated, in the

movements of the hands and the changes produced in the material being worked on,

what had already been done beforehand in the workers imagination, with models, as

it were, of these movements and material. It is this doubled experience that enables

man to develop forms of active adaptation that do not exist in animals. Let us call this

new kind of behaviour doubled experience.

Now, the new part of our formula of human behaviour is: historical experience, social

experience, and doubled experience.

The question remains: With what are the signs to connect these new parts in our

formula with one another and with its original part?

The sign of multiplication between the inherited experience and the personal

experience is clear for us; it refers to the mechanism of the conditional reflex.

We shall try to find the other connecting signs in the following sections of this article.

III

In the preceding section we outlined the biological and social aspects of the problem.

Now let us take a brief look at its physiological side.

Even the most elementary experiments with isolated reflexes encounter the problem

of co-ordination of reflexes or their transmission into behaviour. Above we mentioned

in passing the fact that all of Academician Pavlovs experiments had already

presumed that the dogs behaviour was organised beforehand in such a way that asingle necessary connection was formed in collision of two reflexes. And
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n12http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labourhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n12http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour


8/21

Academician Pavlov was forced to deal with some other, more complicated reflexes

in the dog as well.

Academician Pavlov more than once referred to the collision of two different reflexes

occurring in the course of his experiments. The results of such a collision are not

always the same: ( see articles XXI and XXV in one case he discusses theintensification of a food reflex by a simultaneous guarding reflex, and in the other

case he talks about the victory of a food reflex over an guarding reflex). [13]. Two

reflexes may be seen literally as two pans on a balance beam, observed Academician

Pavlov on this point. He does not close his eyes before the unusual complexity of the

accomplishment of a reflex. He says that if we take into account that any reflex to an

external irritation is limited and governed not only by another external simultaneous

reflex act but also by a multitude of internal reflexes and by the effects of every

conceivable sort of internal irritants chemical, thermal, etc impinging not only on

different segments of the central nervous system but also directly on active tissue

elements themselves, then, and only then, will we begin to have any full and realistic

picture of the vast complexity of the phenomena of reflexes.[14]

The basic principle of reflex co-ordination, as Sherrington [15] elucidated in his

research, entails the struggle of different groups of receptors for the common motor

field. The point is that there are many more afferent neurons in the nervous system

than efferent ones; hence, each motor neuron has a reflex connection not only with

one receptor but with many, and probably with all. A struggle is always going on in

the body between different receptors for a common motor field, for the possession of

one working organ. The outcome of this struggle depends on many extremely

complicated and varied causes. Thus, any realised reaction, any victorious reflex,

emerges after a struggle, only after a conflict at a point of collision [16].

Behaviour is a system of victorious reactions.

Under normal conditions, says Sherrington, leaving questions of consciousness

aside, all animal behaviour is made up of successive transitions of the final field, now

to one group of reflexes, now to another. [17]. In other words, all behaviour is a

struggle, which does not subside even for a minute. There are enough grounds to

presume that one of the most important functions of the brain is to establish co-

ordination between reflexes coming from outlying points, owing to which the nervous

system is integrated into a whole individual.

The co-ordinating mechanism of the common motor field serves, according to

Sherrington (1904, p. 466), as the basis for the mental process of attention. The

singleness of action from moment to moment thus assured is a keystone in the

construction of the individual whose unity it is the specific office of the nervous

system to perfect (Ibid., p. 466).

A reflex is an integral reaction of the organism. Each muscle, each working organ,

should be regarded as a check payable to the bearer, which may be any group of

receptors. The general notion of the nervous system becomes clear from the

following comparison.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n13http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n13http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n13http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n14http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n14http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n15http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n16http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n16http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n17http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n13http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n14http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n15http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n16http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n17


9/21

The system of receptors is to the system of efferent path ways as the wide top of a

funnel is to its narrow bottom opening. But each receptor is connected not with one,

but with many and perhaps with all efferent fibres; of course, these connections vary

in strength. Hence, extending our comparison with the funnel, we must say that the

whole nervous system is a funnel, one opening of which is five times wider than the

other; within this funnel are receptors that are also funnels, whose wide openings areturned toward the outlet of the larger funnel and completely cover it[18].

Academician Pavlov compared the hemispheres of the brain with a telephone

switchboard where new temporary connections are established between elements of

the environment and different reactions. [19] But much more than a telephone

switchboard our nervous system resembles the narrow doors in some large building

through which a crowd of many thousands is rushing in panic. Only a few people can

get through the door. Those who entered successfully are only few from many

thousand who died or were pushed back. This more closely conveys the catastrophic

nature of the struggle, the dynamic and dialectic process between the environment and

the person and within the person, that we call behaviour.

From all this follow two statements that are necessary for properly posing the problem

of consciousness as a mechanism of behaviour.

1. The outside world flows into the wide opening of the funnel by thousands of

irritants, attractions, and summons; a constant struggle and collision take place within

the funnel; all excitations flow out of the narrow opening as responses of the organism

in a greatly reduced quantity. What takes place in behaviour is only a negligible

fraction of what is possible. At every moment the individual is full of unrealised

possibilities. These unrealised possibilities of our behaviour, this difference between

the wide and the narrow openings of the funnel, is a perfect reality; the same reality as

the reality of victorious reactions, since all three aspects of a reaction are present in it.

This unrealised behaviour can have an extremely wide variety of forms, given even a

slightly complicated structure of the final common field and of complex reflexes. In

complex reflexes, reflex arcs sometimes ally themselves with one portion of the

common field and compete with one another for another part of the field [20]. Thus, a

reaction may remain half realised or realised in some, always indefinite, part.

2. Owing to the extremely complicated balance established in the nervous system by

intricate struggle of reflexes, the outcome of the struggle is often decided by the quiteinsignificant force of a new irritant. Thus, in the complex system of competing forces,

even a negligible new force can decide the outcome and direction of the resultant

force; in a great war even a tiny country, allying itself with one side, can mean the

difference between victory and defeat. This means that it is easy to imagine how

reactions, insignificant in themselves, even negligible, can assume a dominant role

depending on the conjuncture at the point of collision where they enter.

IV

The most elementary, fundamental, and universal law of reflex relationships may be

formulated as follows: reflexes are joined according to conditional reflex laws bywhich the response component of one reflex (motor, secretory) may, under
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n18http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n18http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n19http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n20http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n18http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n19http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n20


10/21

appropriate conditions, become a conditional irritant (or inhibition) of another reflex,

forming a reflex arc with a new reflex via the sensory pathway of peripheral irritations

associated with it. A whole series of such connections may be given genetically and

belong to the class of unconditioned reflexes. The rest of these connections are

formed in the process of experience a process that cannot not go on in the organism

without ceasing.

Academician Pavlov called this mechanism a chain reflex and used it to explain

instinct[21]. In his experiments, Doctor Zelenyi discovered the same mechanism in

studying rhythmic muscular movements that also proved to constitute a chain

reflex[22]. Thus, this mechanism provides the best explanation for unconscious,

automatic combinations of reflexes.

But if we take into account not merely the same system of reflexes, but different ones

and the possibility of reflection of one system on another, this mechanism is also

essentially the mechanism of consciousness in its objective sense. The capacity of our

body to be an irritant (through its own acts) for itself (for new acts) is therein thebasis of consciousness.

Now we can speak about the unquestionable interaction among different systems of

reflexes, and of the reflection of one system by others. A dog reacts to hydrochloric

acid by salivating (reflex), but the saliva itself is a new irritant for the reflex of

swallowing or expectoration of the acid. In free association I pronounce narcissus

on the word rose. This is a reflex, but it is also an irritant for the next word

gillyflower. All this takes place within a system or co-operating systems. The howl of

a wolf, as an irritant, evokes in me somatic and mimetic reflexes of fear: altered

respiration, heart beat, trembling, dryness in the throat (reflexes) all these induce me

to say or think: I am afraid. Here a transmission from one system to another takes

place.

Our awareness or ability to be conscious of our deeds and states must be seen

primarily as a system of transmission mechanisms from one set of reflexes to another,

that is correctly functioning at every conscious moment. The more correctly every

internal reflex, as an irritant, elicits a sequence of other reflexes from other systems or

is transmitted to other systems, the more capable we are of giving an account to

ourselves and others of what we are experiencing, and the more consciously is that

experiencing (sensing, formulating in words, etc.).

Giving an account means transmitting one set of reflexes into another. The

unconscious and psychical also refer to reflexes that have not been transmitted into

other systems. There may be an infinite varied degrees of awareness, i.e., the

interaction of systems participating in the mechanism of an acting reflex. To be

conscious of ones own experiences means nothing less than to possess them in object

form (irritant) for other experiences. Consciousness is the experiencing of

experiences, just as experience is simply the experience of objects.

But this capacity of a reflex (the experience of an object) to be a irritant (the object of

an experience) for a new reflex, this mechanism of consciousness, is also a

mechanism of transmission of reflexes from one system into another. This is more orless what Academician Bekhterev called accountable and non-accountable reflexes.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n21http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n22http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n21http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n22


11/21

The problem of consciousness must be solved in psychology in a sense that

consciousness is an interaction, reflection, and mutual excitation of different systems

of reflexes. What is conscious is what is transmitted as an irritant to other systems in

which it has a response. Consciousness is always an echo, a response apparatus. I will

give three references to the literature.

1. It is pertinently to remind ourselves that the psychological literature has been

pointed to a circular reaction as a mechanism that returns to the organism its own

reflex, with the aid of the centripetal currents thus arising and that this mechanism lies

at the basis of consciousness [23]. The biological significance of such a circular

reaction was often stressed: a new irritation sent by a reflex elicits a new secondary

reaction, which either intensifies and repeats or weakens and suppresses the first

reaction, depending on the general condition of the organism and on the value

ascribed by the body to its own reflex. Thus, a circular reaction is not a simple

combination of two reflexes, but a combination in which one reaction is steered and

regulated by another. This describes a new aspect in the mechanism of consciousness:

its regulatory role with respect to the behaviour.

2. Ch. Sherrington distinguishes exteroceptive and interoceptive fields, the field on

the outer surface of the body, and the internal surface of certain organs into which

some portion of the external environment enters. Elsewhere he speaks of a

proprioceptive field, which is excite by the organism itself, by changes taking place in

muscles, tendons, joints, blood vessels, etc.

In contrast to the receptors of the extero- and interoceptive fields, the receptors of the

proprioceptive field are excited only secondarily by influences coming from the

external environment. The irritant of these receptors is the active state of some organ

or organs, for example, contraction of a muscle, which in turn serves as a primary

reaction to the irritation of the surface of the receptor by factors of the external

environment. Usually, reflexes elicited by stimulation of proprioceptive organs join

with reflexes elicited by irritation of exteroceptive organs[24].

As research has shown, the combination of these secondary reflexes with primary

reactions, this secondary connection, can combine reflexes of both allied and

antagonistic types. In other words, a secondary reaction can intensify or terminate a

primary one. This constitutes the mechanism of consciousness.

3. Finally, Academician Pavlov has said that the reproduction of neural phenomenain the subjective world is very unique, and so to say, refracted many times over, so

that, on the whole, a psychological understanding of nervous activity is, to a

considerable extent, only tentative and approximate. [25].

Although here Pavlov did not mean anything more than a simple comparison, we are

ready to understand his words in the literal and precise meaning and assert that

consciousness is the multiple refraction of reflexes.

V

With this, the problem of mind is resolved without any waste of energy.Consciousness is wholly reduced to the transmitting mechanisms of reflexes operating
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n23http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n24http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n24http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm#pavlov-ivanhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n25http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n23http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n24http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm#pavlov-ivanhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n25


12/21

according to general laws, i.e., no processes other than reactions can be admitted into

the organism.

The way is also paved for the solution of the problem of self-awareness and self-

observation. Inner perception and introspection are possible only thanks to the

existence of a proprioceptive field and secondary reflexes, which are connected withit. This is always the echo of a reaction.

Self-awareness as the perception of what takes place in a persons own soul, to use J.

Lockes expression, is wholly exhausted by this. It now becomes clear why this

experience is accessible to only one person the person experiencing his own

experience. Only I, myself, and alone can observe and perceive my secondary

reactions because my reflexes serve as new irritants of the proprioceptive field only

for myself and myself alone.

It is also now easy to explain the fundamental split nature of experience: the mental is

not like any other because it is affected by irritants sui generis that occur nowhere elsebut in my own body. The movement of my arm, which is perceived by the eye, may

also be an irritant for both my eye and the eye of another; but the awareness of this

movement, those proprioceptive excitations that occur and elicit secondary reactions,

exist for me alone. They have nothing in common with the first irritation of the eye:

completely different neural pathways, different mechanisms, and different irritants are

here.

Another very complicated question of psychological procedure is closely connected

with this: it is the question of the value of self-observation. Previous psychology

considered self- observation to be fundamental and the main source of psychological

knowledge. Reflexology rejected self-observation completely or placed it under the

control of objective data, as a source of supplementary information. [26]

The presented approach to the problem enables us, in a very rough and general

outline, to understand the (objective) meaning which the verbal report of a subject

may have for scientific research. Undetected reflexes (tacit speech), internal reflexes

inaccessible to the direct perception of the examinee can be detected often indirectly

by mediation, through observable reflexes for which they serve as irritants. The

presence of a complete reflex (a word) serves as an indicator of the presence of a

corresponding irritant that plays a dual role. In this case it is an irritant for the

complete reflex and is itself a reflex relative to the previous irritant.

In view of the tremendously important and paramount role the mind (i.e., this

undetected group of reflexes) plays in the system of behaviour, it would be suicide for

science to reject its discovery by an indirect method, through its reflection on other

systems of reflexes. Actually, we do take into account reflexes to internal irritants

hidden from our view. Here the logic, the train of thought, and the proof are the same.

In this view a subjects report is in no sense an act of self-observation that interferes

like getting a spoon of tar into the barrel of honey of objective scientific investigation.

No self-observation at all. The subject is not at all in the situation of an observer; he

does not help an experimenter observe reflexes hidden from his view. To the very end,and during the actual giving of an account, a subject fully remains the object of an
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n26http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n26


13/21

experiment; but certain changes or transformations are introduced into the experiment

itself, through subsequent questioning; a new irritant is introduced (a new

questioning), and a new reflex enables us to assess the undetected portions of the

preceding one. The entire experiment passes through a double lens.

It is necessary to include such a passing of an experience through the secondaryreactions of consciousness in the methods of a psychological investigation. An

individuals behaviour and the establishment of new conditional reactions are

governed not only by disclosed, complete, and fully detected reactions, but also by

reactions, undisclosed in their external part, invisible to the naked eye. If it is possible

to study complete speech reflexes, why then cant we take into account reflexes-

thoughts, torn off at two thirds of the way along[27], although these, too, are really

existing, unquestionable reactions?

If I pronounce the word evening, which comes to me by free association, so that it

is audible to the experimenter, it is subject to be account as a verbal reaction, a

conditional reflex. But if I pronounce it inaudibly, to myself, when I think it, does itcease to be a reflex and change its nature? Where is the border between an uttered and

an unuttered word? If my lips moved, if I uttered a whisper that was still inaudible to

the experimenter what then? May he ask me to repeat this word aloud, or will this

be a subjective method admissible only to me? If he may (and almost everyone will

probably agree with this), then why cant he ask me to utter aloud a word that I have

uttered in my thoughts, i.e., without moving my lips and whispering? Indeed, it

always was and still is a speech motor reaction, a conditional reflex without which

thoughts are impossible. This is already an interrogation, the utterance of the subject,

his verbal account of those undetected reactions unperceived by the experimenters

hearing (and this is the only difference between thoughts and speech), but the

reactions were still objective nevertheless. We can be convinced by many methods

that these reactions did take place and that they really did exist with all the attributes

of material existence. The development of the methods is one of the most important

tasks of psychological methodology. Psychoanalysis is one of these methods.

But what is most important here is that these reactions themselves will take care to see

that we are convinced of their existence. In the further course of reactions they will

express themselves with such strength and forcefulness that they will force the

experimenter to pay attention to them or to refuse to study the course of reactions into

which they burst. Actually, are there many examples of such behaviour into which

inhibited reflexes would not intrude? So, either we refuse to study human behaviourin its most essential forms, or we are forced to introduce the obligatory registration of

these internal movements in our experiments.

Two examples will show this necessity. If I recall something and establish a new

speech reflex, is it true that it does not matter what I am thinking during this time

whether I am simply repeating a given word to myself or establishing a logical

connection between this word and another? Is it not clear that the results in both these

cases will be essentially different? In a free association I say the word snake in

response to the cue word thunder, although first the thought of lightning flashed.

Is it not clear that if I do not take this thought into account, I will get a deliberately

false notion that my reaction to the word thunder was snake and not lightning?
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n27http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n27http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n27


14/21

It goes without saying, that what we are talking about here is not a simple transferring

of experimental self-observation from traditional psychology into the new

psychology. Rather, the point is the urgent necessity to develop a new method for

studying inhibited reflexes. We have merely advocated the fundamental necessity and

possibility of that.

In order to finish with the question of methods, let us stop briefly on the curious

metamorphosis recently undergone by the method of reflexological investigation

when applied to humans. Professor Protopopov [28] discussed in one of his articles that

initially reflexologists applied an electro-dermal irritation to the sole of the foot.

Then it proved to be more profitable to choose a more perfect apparatus, more suited

to orienting reactions as the criterion of a response. So the leg was replaced by a hand.

But once a was said, it was necessary to say b. The human being has an

immeasurably more accomplished apparatus, with which he has established more

extensive connections with the world, the speech apparatus. We should turn to

verbal reactions. But the most curious are certain facts upon which investigators

stumbled in their work. The point was that the differentiation of a reflex wasextremely slow and sluggish in human beings and what has appeared [my emphasis,

L.V.] was that conditional responses might be inhibited or excited depending on the

speech stimulus presented to the object.

In other words, the discovery is reduced to the point that with a human being it may

be stipulated with words that he withdraw his hand in response to a certain signal, and

then, when a different signal is given, that he not withdraw his hand. The author has to

assert two statements that are important for us here.

1. Undoubtedly in the future reflexological studies on human beings will have to be

carried out mainly with the aid of secondary conditional reflexes. This means

nothing other than that consciousness bursts even into the experiments of

reflexologists and has essentially changed the picture of behaviour. Turn the

consciousness out the door and it will enter through the window.

2. The inclusion of this research technique in the reflexological method makes this

method non-distinguishable from the method of studying reactions long established in

experimental psychology. Professor Protopopov mentions this, but he considers this

coincidence as incidental and external only. For us, on the contrary, it is clear that

what it amounts to is a thorough capitulation of pure reflexological method, which is

used so successfully on dogs, to the problems of human behaviour.

It is extremely important to show that all three spheres into which empirical

psychology has divided the mind cognition, feeling, and will also readily reveal

the same nature of conscious awareness that is relevant to them, and can be easily

reconciled with this hypothesis and with the method it entails, if one looks at them

from the point of view of the hypothesis we have presented here.

1. Jamess theory of emotions paves the way for such an interpretation of conscious

awareness of feelings. Taking three usual components A the cause of a feeling, B

the feeling itself, and C its corporeal manifestations James rearranged them in the

following way A-C-B. [29]. I shall not repeat his arguments that are known to all. Ishould only like to point out that his formulation laid bare (1) the reflex character a
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n28http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n29http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n29http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n28http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n29


15/21

feeling, a feeling as a system of reflexes A and B, and (2) the secondary, derivative

character of conscious awareness of a feeling when ones own reaction serves as an

irritant for a new internal reaction B and C. The biological significance of a feeling

as a quick evaluating reaction of the entire organism to its own behaviour, as an act of

engagement of the entire organism in the reaction, and as the internal organiser of all

behaviour manifest at a particular moment is also rendered understandable. I can alsonote that Wundts three-dimensional model of a feeling essentially describes this

evaluative character of the emotions as the organisms echo to its own reaction. This

accounts for the unrepeatability and singularity of emotions in every particular case.

2. The acts of cognition of empirical psychology also reveal their dual nature, since

they take place consciously. Psychology clearly distinguishes two floors in them:

acts of cognition and the consciousness of these acts.

What is especially curious in this respect is the results of the extremely refined self-

observation of the Wurzberg school, that pure psychology of psychologists. One of

the conclusions from these studies establishes that an intellectual act itself isunobservable, that it eludes perception. Self-observation here exhausts itself. We are

at the bottom of consciousness. The paradoxical conclusion that suggests itself here is

the unconscious character of acts of thought. The elements of thought that we find in

our consciousness are rather surrogates of thought than its actual essence: they are

fragments, detritus, and scum of thought.

O. Klpe noted that we have experienced that the I cannot be divided. We cannot

completely surrender to our thoughts, immerse in them and observe these thoughts at

the same time[30]. This means, therefore, that consciousness cannot focus on itself,

that it is a secondary moment. One cannot think ones thoughts, i.e., grasp the very

mechanism of consciousness, because this mechanism is not a reflex, i.e., it cannot be

the object of experience, the irritant of a new reflex, and is only a transmitting

mechanism between systems of reflexes. But as soon as a thought is completed, i.e.,

as soon as a reflex is formed, it may be consciously observed: First one, and then the

other, as O. Klpe says.

In one of his articles Professor Krol comments on this point, that the new phenomena

discovered by the Wurzburg studies of the higher processes of consciousness

surprisingly resemble Pavlovs conditional reflexes [31]. The spontaneity of thought,

the fact that it is found ready-made, the complex feelings of activity, of inquiry and

search, etc., bear this out. The impossibility to observe the thought also speaks infavour of the mechanisms we have outlined here.

3. Finally, the will most fully and patently of all reveals those essential characteristics

of its consciousness. The fact that motor representations (i.e., secondary reactions

from the movements of organs) are present beforehand in consciousness clarifies the

point. Any movement must first be accomplished unconsciously. Then its kinesthesia

(i.e. secondary reaction) becomes the basis of its conscious awareness[32]. Bairs

experiments with ear movements illustrate this. Our conscious awareness of our will

creates the illusion of two aspects: I thought, and then I did. Indeed, there are two

reactions here, but they are in the opposite sequence: first comes the secondary

reaction and then basic or primary one. Sometimes the process is more complicated;and the theory of a complex volitional act and its mechanism, complicated by
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/w/u.htm#wundt-wilhelmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n30http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n30http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n31http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n32http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n32http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/w/u.htm#wundt-wilhelmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n30http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n31http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n32


16/21

motives, i.e., the collision of several secondary reactions, also agrees completely with

the thoughts propounded above.

But what is most important is to clarify, in the light of these ideas, the development of

consciousness from the moment of its birth, its origin in experience, its secondary

nature, and, consequently, its psychological determinateness by the environment.Being determines consciousness; this law can, after some elaboration, for the first

time receive a precise psychological meaning and reveal the actual mechanism of this

determinateness.

VI

There is one group of easily distinguishable reflexes in humans that one could

correctly call reversible reflexes. These are reflexes to irritants that in turn can be

created by man. A word that is heard is the irritant, and a word that is pronounced is a

reflex producing the same irritant. The reflex is reversible here, since an irritant can

become a reaction, and vice versa. These reversible reflexes, which constitute the

foundation for social behaviour, serve for collective co-ordination of behaviour. In the

whole multitude of irritants one group clearly stands out for me, the group of social

irritants coming from people. What distinguishes them is that I, myself, can reproduce

the same irritants and that they become reversible for me very early, and hence

determine my behaviour in a different way from all others. They make me comparable

to another, and make my actions identical with one another. Indeed, in the broad

sense, we can say that the source of social behaviour and consciousness lays in

speech.

It is extremely important here to establish, if only in passing, that if what we have saidis correct, it means that the mechanism of social behaviour and the mechanism of

consciousness are the same. Speech, on the one hand, is a system of reflexes for

social contact [33], and, on the other, a system, most eminently, of reflexes of

consciousness, a system for reflecting other systems.

Here, too, is the root of the question of another persons I, i.e., of how I can know

the mind of another person. The mechanism for knowing oneself (self-awareness) is

the same as the mechanism for knowing others. Usual theories of our knowledge of

anothers mind either proclaim forthwith its unknowability [34] or, by means of a

variety of hypotheses, endeavour to construct a plausible mechanism that essentially

is the same in a theory of sensations or a theory of analogy: we know others becausewe know ourselves; in getting to know the anger of someone else, I am reproducing

my own anger[35].

Actually, it would be more correct to say just on the contrary. We are conscious of

ourselves because we are conscious of others; and in an analogous manner, we are

conscious of others because in our relationship to ourselves we are the same as others

in their relationship to us. I am aware of myself only to the extent that I am as another

for myself, i.e., only to the extent that I can perceive anew my own reflexes as new

irritants. Between the fact that I can repeat aloud a word spoken silently to myself and

the fact that I can repeat a word spoken by another there is no essential difference, nor

is there any principal difference in their mechanisms: both are reversible reflexes irritants.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n33http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n34http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n35http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n35http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n33http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n34http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n35


17/21

Therefore, a direct consequence of this hypothesis will be the sociologising of all

consciousness, the recognition that the social moment of consciousness is primary in

time and in fact. The individual aspect of consciousness is constructed as derived and

secondary, based on the social and exactly according to its model. [36].

A dual nature of consciousness comes from here: the idea of a double is the pictureof consciousness that is the closest to reality. This is very close to the division of the

individual person into an Ego and an Id, which S. Freud analytically describes.

In its relation to the Id, I is like a horseman who must keep rein on the

outstanding strength of a horse, with the difference that the horseman tries to do this

with his own forces, while I employs borrowed forces. This analogy may be

extended. Just as a horseman who does not want to dismount from his horse must

often perforce allow himself to be taken where the horse desires, so, too, the I

ordinarily transforms the will of the Id into an action that appears to be its own

will [37].

The excellent confirmation of this thought of the identity between the mechanism ofconsciousness and the mechanism of social contact and the idea that consciousness is,

as it were, social contact with oneself, is the process of development of an awareness

of speech in the deaf-mutes and partly by the development of tactile responses in the

blind. The speech of the deaf-mutes usually does not develop but remains frozen at

the stage of a reflex cry not because the speech centres are damaged, but because,

owing to the loss of hearing, the possibility of reversible speech reflexes is paralysed.

Speech cannot return as an irritant to the speaker himself. Because of this it remains

unconscious and asocial. The deaf-mutes are usually limited to a conventional

language of gestures that links them to the narrow circle of social experience of other

deaf-mutes and develops consciousness in them by virtue of the fact that these

reflexes revert back to the mute himself through his eyes.

The education of the deaf-mute from the psychological side entails restoring, or

compensating for, the destroyed mechanism of reflex reversibility. The mutes learn to

speak by reading articulatory movements of a speakers lips and learn to speak

themselves by making use of the secondary kinaesthetic irritations occurring during

speech motor reactions.[38].

What is most remarkable in all this is that conscious awareness of speech and social

experience emerge simultaneously and completely parallel with one another. It is in

some sense a specially arranged experiment of nature that confirms the main thesis ofthis article. In a special work I hope to demonstrate this more clearly and fully. The

deaf-mute learns to be conscious of himself and his movements to the extent that he

learns to be conscious of others. The identity of the two mechanisms is amazingly

clear and almost obvious.

Now we can bring together the terms in our formula of human behaviour that we

presented in one of the earlier sections. Historical and social experience are not in

themselves different entities, psychologically speaking, since they cannot be separated

in experience and are always given together. We can link them with a sign +. As I

have tried to show, their mechanisms are exactly the same as the mechanism of

consciousness, since consciousness must be regarded as a particular case of social
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n36http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n37http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n38http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n38http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n38http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n36http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n37http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n38


18/21

experience. Hence, both these parts may be readily designated to with the same index

of doubled experience.

VII

In concluding this essay I think it is extremely important and essential to point out theagreement between the conclusions I have developed here and those of the brilliant

analysis of consciousness made byWilliam James. Thoughts pursued in completely

different fields and along completely different paths have led to the same view as that

presented by James in his speculative analysis. I should like to see this as a partial

confirmation of my ideas. Already in his Psychology James declared that the

existence of states of consciousness, as such, is not a fully proven fact but rather a

deeply entrenched prejudice. It was the data of his brilliant self-observation that

persuaded him of this.

Any time I attempt to impute to my thinking an activity as such, I invariably come

up against a purely physical fact, some impression coming from the head, the brow,

the throat and the nose he wrote.[39]. In his essay Does consciousness exist? he

argues that the whole difference between consciousness and the world outside

(between a reflex to a reflex and a reflex to an irritant) lies only in the context of

phenomena. In the context of irritants, it is the outside world; in the context of my

reflexes, it is consciousness. Consciousness is only a reflex of reflexes.

Thus, consciousness does not occur as a specific category, as a specific mode of

being. It proves to be a very complex structure of behaviour, in particular, the

doubling of behaviour as it is presented relatively to labour in words taken as an

epigraph. As for myself, I am convinced that the flow of thoughts? is only a facileterm for what on closer analysis turns out essentially to be a respiratory flow he

said. The I think that, according to I. Kant, accompanies all my objects is nothing

other than an I breathe that actually accompanies them? Thoughts? are made of the

same matter as things [40].

In the present essay a few thoughts of preliminary character were briefly and cursorily

outlined. I think, however, that it is with them that the study of consciousness should

begin. Our science is still a long way from the concluding formula of a geometric

theorem, culminating the ultimate argument Q. E. D [what was to be proved]. We

must still schedule what is to be proved, and only then set about proving it. We must

first put forward the task and then solve it.[41]

. I hope the present essay should serve asa statement of the task.

Notes.

1. Blonsky, P. P. (1921). Essays in scientific psychology. Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo;

Chapter 1, p. 9.

2. Academician Pavlov, I. P. (1923). Twenty years of experience in the objective study

of higher nervous activity of animals. Moscow; Chapter 9 and others.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/j/a.htm#james-williamhttp://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/j/a.htm#james-williamhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n39http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n39http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n39http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n40http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n41http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n41http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n41http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/j/a.htm#james-williamhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n39http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n40http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm#n41


19/21

3. Ukhtomsky, A. A. (1923). The dominant as a working principle of nervous centres.

Russkii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal, 6.

4. Bekhterev, V. M. (1923). General foundations of human reflexology. Chapter 3.

5. Ibid., p.78. See also his Mind and Life.

6. Ibid., Chapter 46.


8. See the article by Ukhtomsky, A. A., Vinogradov, M. I., and Kaplan, I. I. (1923).

Russkii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal, 6.

9. Sherrington, Ch. (1906). The integrative action of the nervous system. New York:

Charlres Scribners Sons.

10. Bekhterev, V. M. (1923). General foundations of human reflexology, Chapters 50

and 51.

11. Vagner, V. A. (1923). Biopsychology and allied sciences. Petrograd; Chapter 4.

12. K. Marx. Das Kapital. Vol. 1; Part 3; Chapter 5.

13. Pavlov, I. P. Twenty years of experience...


15. Sherrington, Ch. (1912). The correlation of cerebrospinal reflexes and the

principle of a common field. (Russian translation in Uspehi Biologii, Odessa; 1912.)

16. Herings expression.

17. Sherrington, Ch. The correlation of cerebrospinal reflexes...

18. Sherrington, Ch. The correlation of cerebrospinal reflexes...

19. Pavlov, I. P. Twenty years of experience in the objective study of higher nervousactivity in animals, Moscow.

20. Sherrington, Ch. (1912). The correlation of cerebrospinal reflexes and the

principle of a common field.

21. Pavlov, I. P. Twenty years of experience..., Chapter 25.

22. Dr. Zelenyi, D. T. (1923). On rhythmic muscular movements. Russkii

Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal, 6. In a school of Pavlov the same term is also used to

designate several other mechanisms for the combination of reflexes into a chain. Cf.

D. S. Fursikov (1922). On chain conditional reflexes. Russkii FisiologicheskiiZhurnal, 4.


20/21

23. Lange, N. N. (1914). Psychologiya. Itogi nauki. Vol. 8. Mir Publishers.

24. Sherrington, Ch. The correlation of cerebrospinal reflexes and the principle of a

common field.

25. Academician Pavlov, I. P. Twenty years of experience..., Chapter 23.

26. Bekhterev, V. M. General foundations of human reflexology. Chapter 2.

27. Sechenovs definition.

28. Protopopov, V. (1923). The methods of the reflexological studies of man. Zhurnal

Psikhologii, Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii, 3, p. 22.

29. James, W. (1905). Psychology. St. Petersburg. Translated by Lopatin; Chapter 24.

30. Klpe, O. (1922). Uber die Bedeutung der modernen Denkpsychologie. In O.

Klpe, Vorlesungen ber Psychologie, Russian translation in Novie idei v filosofii, 16.

31. Krol, M. B. (1922). Thinking and speech. In Trudi Belorusskogo

gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1.

32. See the analysis of a volitional act in Munstenberg, H. (1909). Psychology of a

teacher. Chapter 20 and Ebbingaus, G. (1902). Grundzge der Psychologie

[Foundations of psychology.] Moscow; Vol. 1, 2, Chapter IV.

33. Zalkind, A. (1924). Essays on the culture of the revolutionary time. Moscow;

34. Vvedenskii, A. (1917). Psychology without metaphysics, p. 71 and Vvedenskii, A.

(1892). On the limits and attributes of being animated.

35. Lipps, Th. (1907). Das Wissen von fremden Ichen. See also Lapshin, I. I. (1910).

The problem of other persons mind in modern philosophy.

36. See Natorp, P. (1899). Sozialpdagogic, p. 95: There is no understanding of the

self without the understanding of others as its basis. He goes on to say Even in

isolation from others, when we silently think to ourselves, we constantly use words

and, consequently, maintain at least the fiction of communication. Consciousness, inour view, is just this fiction of communication.

37. Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. Moscow; Chapter 2, p. 25.

38. W. Jerusalem (Laura Bridgman, V, pp. 54-55), analysing the process of thinking

and consciousness in a deaf-mute and blind Laura Bridgman noted: Thus, for her,

thinking was one of the sensory organs, at first, of course, because it provided

information, but then also because she perceived the process of thinking sensuously.

Laura herself considered that she had four sense organs (thinking and nose and mouth

and fingers). (Lamson, p. 56). Here it is perfectly obvious that thinking is ranked with

the work of analyzers.


21/21

39. Epilogue.

40. James, W. (1913). Does consciousness exist? Russian translation in Novie idei v

filosofii, Vol. 4.

41. This article was already in print when I got acquainted with several works bybehaviourist psychologists concerning this problem. The problem of consciousness is

formulated and solved by these authors very closely to the thoughts developed here,

as a problem of the relation between reactions (See unverbalized behaviour in

Watson, J. B. (1924). The unverbalised in human behaviour. Psychological review, 31,

p. 273-280 and also Lashley, K. S. (1923). The behaviouristic interpretations of

consciousness. Psychological review, 30, p. 237-272; 329-353).

Psychology and Marxism | Vygotsky Archive
http://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/index.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htm

Documents

Psychology and marxism