Quasi-appropriation of dialectical materialism: a critical reading of Marxism in Vygotskian approaches to cultural studies in science education

Transcription

1 Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2014) 9: DOI /s FORUM Quasi-appropriation of dialectical materialism: a critical reading of Marxism in Vygotskian approaches to cultural studies in science education André Rodrigues Juliano Camillo Cristiano Mattos Received: 7 January 2014 / Accepted: 7 January 2014 / Published online: 7 March 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract In this review essay we examine five categories of dialectical materialism proposed by Paulo Lima Junior, Fernanda Ostermann, and Flavia Rezende in their study of the extent to which the articles published in Cultural Studies of Science Education, that use a Vygotskian approach, are committed to Marxism/dialectical materialism. By closely examining these categories ( thesis, antithesis and synthesis, unity of analysis, History, revolution, materialism ) we expect to enrich the general discussion about the possible contributions of Marxism to science education. We perceive part of science education practice as orientating toward positivism, which reduces human beings teachers, learners and researchers to isolated individuals who construct knowledge by themselves. The very same approach aggravates the inner contradiction of the capitalist society demanding commitments from researchers to continually build innovative science education from human praxis. Nevertheless, it is necessary to situate ourselves beyond a formal commitment with dialectical materialism and hence reach the heart of this method. Besides understanding the researchers commitments, we question the extent to which the respective research helps to radically refresh the current view on science, science education practice, and research in science education. This review essay synthesizes and expands upon issues raised in Paulo Lima Junior, Fernanda Ostermann and Flavia Rezende s paper entitled: Marxism in Vygotskian approaches to cultural studies of science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education /s Lead Editor: K. Tobin. A. Rodrigues (&) J. Camillo Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil andremr@if.usp.br J. Camillo camillo@if.usp.br C. Mattos São Paulo, Brazil mattos@if.usp.br

2 584 A. Rodrigues et al. Keywords Vygotsky Marx Dialectical materialism Method The paper published by Paulo Lima Junior, Fernanda Ostermann and Flavia Rezende examines the extent to which the articles published in Cultural Studies of Science Education (CSSE) that use a Vygotskian approach are committed to Marxism/dialectical materialism. The authors review papers published in CSSE that relate Marxism and sociocultural theory. We are in accordance with their concluding statement that, the deepening of theoretical commitments and an increasing effort to go forward in the methodological issues could afford more interesting outcomes in cultural studies of science education and would also represent a strengthening of the role of dialectical materialism in expanding sociocultural perspectives. We critically analyzed their paper in order to delimit the meanings around dialectical materialism, possibly reframing the conclusions. Hence, we focus mainly on the five categories proposed by the authors as dialectical materialism categories; i.e., thesis, antithesis and synthesis, unity of analysis, History, revolution, materialism. We expect that by closely examining the categories proposed in the original paper we will enrich even more the general discussion about the possible contributions of Marxism to science education. Lima Junior, Ostermann and Rezende introduce several thought-provoking ideas and many of them are worth discussing in more detail. The first term presented is metatheoretical categories of dialectical materialism, which seems to be a key concept structuring the discussion. At first sight, this term leads us to question if dialectical materialism should be considered a theory to build theories or a meta-theory or a group of theories or a set of rules or criteria that could be understood as a priori criteria of knowledge construction. Moreover, different schools of thought would provide different answers to all these raised issues. From the very beginning, considering the scope of this text, it is enough to assume Henri Lefebvre s position that Marxism, as world view, taken in all its extensiveness, is called dialectical materialism (1963, p. 25). From this point of view instead of meta-theoretical we could gaze at an interesting clue in Lev Vygotsky s word method. He uses the term method to refer to neither any specific research design nor a theoretical system. In a nutshell, Marx s method to Vygotsky might be taken as a rationality within an ontological system, as we understand Vygotsky s claim for a Das Kapital of psychology. It is not merely an employable category to a given problem; it must ultimately include the problem formulation within itself. As Evald Ilyenkov (2009, p. 197) indicates, Marx s way of posing the problem was not at all fortuitous and was not simply a rhetorical device. It was linked with the very essence of the dialectical method of developing theory, following the development of the actual object. The solution of the question corresponds to the posing of it. However, if a positivist or an idealist position is assumed, the method will be explicitly designed as a set of criteria or steps, which are independent of the investigated object. Depending on the conception that one has about the research process or the knowledge construction, the concept of method would be very different. The belief of the independence between object and method is based on the relative temporal and structural stability of objects that allows one to conceive an epistemological method independently of object, as if the method could be used in any other research situations. Nevertheless, this belief falls apart when we consider the subject in its historical dynamics, i.e., the complex

3 Quasi-appropriation of dialectical materialism 585 richness of its determinations. In this sense the formulation of the method does not take place either before its consolidation as well as independently of the object. From this point of view science has been conceived through the relation between science products and process, between what we know (scientific outcomes) and how we know (ways of knowing). Content-centered science education has mainly focused on what we know to the detriment of how we know, emphasizing science results instead their processes. Experimental physics teaching could be seen as an exemplar of this practice. Experiments are taught as recipes to achieve previously determined results or open procedures whose results are determined and could be achieved by one s own effort. Then science education is taught as an ontology, a description of how thing are in the world, or just as an epistemology, as merely a way to know something of the world (Camillo and Mattos in press). Therefore, in our point of view the central issue in the paper could be posed in terms of method, assuming explicitly the position that method is a conception of intelligibility of the reality, a kind of totality, in which the object of investigation is concrete, multivariously divided within itself, rich in determinations, historically formed (Ilyenkov as cited in Barkhurst 1991, p. 138). Consequently, considering this perspective the objectives proposed by the authors, i.e., how Vygotsky appropriated them as mediational meta-theoretical tools for building concepts and arguments for his new psychological approach and how dialectical materialism has been influential and appropriated could be reframed as two different questions as follow: Is Vygotsky s method the same as Marx s method? And do the papers selected for the literature review use the same method as Vygotsky and/or Marx? Certainly reframing them has also an impact in elaborating the presented main metatheoretical categories of dialectics. Instead of finding the categories appropriated by Vygotsky, the objective might be to outline the core of dialectical materialism. We shall briefly go over the categories presented, supported by what we think is the core of dialectical materialism that will be presented along with discussions of the categories proposed by the authors. The first category presented is the thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Curiously, neither Hegel nor Marx nor Vygotsky made extensive use of this triad as such. As presented by the authors, this item seems to be a mechanical and step-by-step protocol, much closer to formal logic than dialectical logic. From our point of view, within the corpus of dialectical logic this triad would be better represented by the idea of contradiction, widely explored by thinkers of dialectical logic, that is understood here as the means of resolving contradictions (Ilyenkov 2009). Grounded on dialectical thinking, Vygotsky was able to face contradictions in psychology along with the crises taking place at that moment. For instance, those related to the obliteration of the concept of consciousness. By assuming that synthesis is not the middle ground between opposite poles, we agree with the authors that synthesis implies the emergence of a new quality. Nevertheless the example, mind without behavior is as impossible as behavior without mind does not fully express the synthesis achieved by Vygotsky as consciousness, whose quality differs from the coexistence of two mutually opposing concepts behavior and mind. In addition, the contradiction between thought and language was overcome by meaning of the word avoiding the idea that dialectical synthesis is a scholastic discussion of divergent ideas, reducing the problems of dialectical materialism to problems of rhetoric. In the subsequent section on unity of analysis the authors rightly highlight the argument against reductionist approaches. In fact, science education often holds positivist perspectives that narrow important concepts such as learning, development, teaching and

4 586 A. Rodrigues et al. science. Although we agree that the irreducible unity of analysis is central in dialectical materialism, it seems that the concrete unities labor, commodity, meaning, consciousness, activity, etc., are overlooked. The point is to recognize that an abstract analytical approach might produce results in certain contexts; however, from the perspective of concreteness and totality, one cannot build a dialectical method that produces knowledge about anything. For instance, Lenin argues that Marx did not give us the logic, but the logic of Capital. The investigation of Marx, the results he obtained, and therefore the method he used are part of a universe quite specific, the capitalist society and its mode of production. Grasp the method of Marx and Vygotsky means to grasp the concrete analysis of a concrete object. Moreover, the method goes beyond the theory and practice of political economy, psychology, and even science education, having universal significance, a necessary condition of successful inquiry and correct procedure for the solution by thought of the specific task of the theoretical cognition of the world (Ilyenkov 2008, p. 135). It is important to stress that even though a dialectical materialist approach implies a non-reductionist approach, a non-reductionist approach does not necessarily entail a dialectical materialist approach. Furthermore, it is necessary to make a brief comment on the term minimally complex unit of analysis. It does not mean a reduction of complexity of the investigated object, but reducing to a minimum unit capable of capturing the whole complexity of the system, as sought by Vygotsky. The third category presented by the authors is History. In fact, despite History being one of the most important concepts among Marxists, it is not as self-evident in Vygotsky s legacy. Sylvia Scribner (1985), for instance, pointed out that the concept of History was not explicitly explored by Vygotsky. From our point of view, the citation used by the authors to illustrate the category History is much closer to the Vygotsky s concept of development. The use of development does not mean to deny the historical human development, but to better define the concept of history, since it is a challenging concept even within Marxist approaches. For instance, Newton Duarte (2006) indicates that two processes within labor, objectification and appropriation, sustain the human historical development, allowing humankind to produce and reproduce culture over time. In the well-known statement in the manifesto of the communist party, where Marx and Engels declare: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (2003, p. 2); even though class struggle is clearly posed as the driving force of History, this aspect is usually neglected in discussions. In this sense, using the concept of development would be less difficult than history and closer to the intention we understood the text suggested. The use of the concept of ZPD seems to corroborate the uncertainness between the categories History and development. Furthermore, we consider that ZPD is far from being an easy-to-grasp concept, not just by taking into account the myriad of definitions and applications for the very same term, but also due to its connection with the complex multilevel human genetic developing process. In order to answer the question about the continuity and discontinuity of the dialectical processes, the authors present Revolution as a category outlining it upon as an unusual instance of debate: This question may be answered through considering what happens during a debate situation. Eventually, the tension that relates thesis and antithesis is dialectically overcome, i.e., a synthesis that resolves the conflict is produced. The process of producing the synthesis cannot be considered continuous, since it qualitatively changes the debate situation from conflictive to non-conflictive. In this sense of

5 Quasi-appropriation of dialectical materialism 587 qualitatively transforming the situation we can say that the production of synthesis represents a revolution in the argument. Revolution is a central idea articulated by many i.e., Lenin, Trotsky, Bernstein, Gramsci, Lukács, Althusser and others, showing how polemical is the idea of dialectical materialism. It is improbable that the Marxists would sustain the concept of revolution strictly in terms of debate. On the other hand, considering that lately in the discussed paper the authors also make use of the concept of human agency, we understand that this concept could help to better define the revolutionary processes in contemporary terms. At last, it is easy to agree that Vygotsky was a revolutionary scientist; however, one might unlikely find Revolution itself as a category in Vygotsky s legacy. Although the last category presented is Materialism, the authors apparently assume an idealist position in constructing the previous categories, underpinning the arguments in a way that put the previous considerations in terms of debate as an abstract movement. Precisely in the category of materialism, the authors materialized the concrete social phenomena, but it is important not to fall into a trap that Feuerbach fell into as pointed out by Marx and further developed by Ilyenkov, on the Concept of Ideal, that underlines the interweaving feature of social world that is, at the same time, material and ideal. The main problem is the materialization of concrete social phenomena as an indistinctive amalgam. It worth noting that dialectic, as well as materialism, has a long philosophical history involving Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and others. Using materialism as a category without making explicit its philosophical roots leads to the construct being excessively polysemic, making it hard to understand how materialism could be considered a category of dialectical materialism itself. After a careful reading of the five categories proposed by the authors a question persists: where did the categories actually come from? That was probably a selection among many other possible categories such as labor, contradiction, development, objectification, activity, class struggle, praxis, concreteness, alienation and so on. In the paper, the authors leave the reasons for choosing those five categories barely explained. It is unclear whether the categories were picked out for being the heart of dialectical materialism or for being mediational meta-theoretical tools appropriated by Vygotsky. Another issue that we would address is related to the keywords used to choose the articles. There is no question that James Wertsch s theory on mediated action is largely grounded on Vygotsky s and Bakhtin s works. However, it needs much more justification for why Wertsch is among the keywords along with Marx, Vygotsky and Leont ev. Indeed, with no proper justification this point might represent a misleading in the literature review presented in the paper. Since Wertsch s cited books Mind as action (1998) that has no explicit mention to Marx and Vygotsky and social formation of mind (1988) where citations of Marx are basically historical contextualization, it is reasonable that the research based on Wertsch s theory of mediated action would seldom embrace a commitment with Marxism. The article Marxism in Vygotskian approaches to cultural studies of science education could be considered an exemplar of science education research that flirts with sociocultural-historical theories. Currently, science education is largely oriented to what seems to be a positivist perspective, which reduces human beings teachers, learners and researchers to passive and isolated individuals constructing knowledge by themselves. The very same approach aggravates the inner contradiction in capitalist society demanding from researchers

6 588 A. Rodrigues et al. commitments to building innovative science education. The Lima Junior, Ostermann and Rezende s paper can only be understood within a broader movement of revitalization of the Marxism in science education. In an attempt to ground a science education on dialectical materialism, this paper has merits in seeking to display characteristics of some studies based on this framework. However, we see that many points might be clarified in order to effectively advance toward a Marxist science education. The paper might, and likely will, enrich the discussion for an alternative program, but it is necessary to situate ourselves beyond a formal commitment with dialectical materialism and hence reaching the heart of this method. Besides understanding the researchers commitments, we shall question to what extent the respective research helps to radically refresh the current view on science, science education practice, and research in science education. That question shifts the issue from formal connections to a radical commitment with this alternative program. Thus, even surveying a socio-cultural-historical committed journal, it s hard to achieve a sampling that could represent a more general picture of the relationship between science education and Marxism, since wider surveys and further research should be done by those interested in this research program. Finally, Vygotsky (1997, p. 330) foresees the dialectical need to achieve a Das Kapital of Psychology, saying: In order to create such intermediate theories methodologies, general sciences we must reveal the essence of the given area of phenomena, the laws of their change, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, their causality, we must create categories and concepts appropriate to it, in short, we must create our own Das Kapital. It suffices to imagine Marx operating with the general principles and categories of dialectics, like quantity-quality, the triad, the universal connection, the knot [of contradictions], leap etc. without the abstract and historical categories of value, class, commodity, capital, interest, production forces, basis, superstructure etc. to see the whole monstrous absurdity of the assumption that it is possible to create any Marxist science while bypassing by Das Kapital. Psychology is in need of its own Das Kapital its own concepts of class, basis, value etc. in which it might express, describe and study its object. Likewise, we think that our efforts should be to build a Das Kapital of science education, building its own method, carrying out the very movement of the theory. In not considering this movement in the construction of the method, not ascending from the abstract to the concrete (Ilyenkov 2009), we see a crystallization of the praxis, dooming the theory to an ideal static picture of the reality. Nevertheless, the relationship between science education and dialectical materialism could be considered a battle that few would like to fight, taking into account the herculean theoretical task to be done. The niceties of this relationship are intricate, thus a dialectical synthesis is not always possible in short texts such as scientific papers. It is necessary to have more time, space, and wider and deeper discussions. References Bakhurst, D. (1991). Consciousness and revolution in Soviet philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Camillo, J., & Mattos, C. R. (in press). Making explicit some tensions in educational practice: Science Education in focus. Cultural-Historical Psychology.

7 Quasi-appropriation of dialectical materialism 589 Duarte, N. (2006). Vigotski e o aprender a aprender : crítica às apropriações neoliberais e pós-modernas da teoria Vigotskiana. Campinas: Autores Associados. Ilyenkov, E. V. (2008). The dialectics of the abstract and the concrete in Marx s capital. New Delhi: Aakar Books. Ilyenkov, E. V. (2009). The ideal in human activity: A selection of essays by Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov. Ohio: Marxists Internet Archive. Lefebvre, H. (1963). O Marxismo. J.Guinsburg (trad.). São Paulo: Difusão Européia do Livro. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2003). The communist manifesto. Bookmarks. Scribner, S. (1985). Vygotsky s uses of history. In J. Wertsch (Ed.). Culture, communication, and cognition. Vygotskian perspectives, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). Problems of the theory and history of psychology. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3 (pp ). New York: Plenum Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1988). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. USA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. USA: Oxford University Press. André Rodrigues is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Federal University of Juíz de Fora, Brazil. His research interests are Physics teacher education and concept formation with emphasis on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and developmental teaching. His doctoral thesis examines the role of Practicum in the teacher education program and the relation between university and school. He is member of Science Education and Complexity Research Group / Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciência e Complexidade (ECCo). Juliano Camillo is Ph.D. student at Inter-Unities Science Education Graduate Program at University of São Paulo. Camillo works on Science Education in a Cultural Historical Activity Theory perspective. More specifically he is investigating the possibilities to weave Paulo Freire s ideas with Leontiev s Activity Theory in order to understand what kind of educational presupposition should be considered to achieve praxis in Science Education as a source to overcome alienation of science production. Prior to becoming a Ph.D. student Camillo taught high school Physics for many year in Brazil. He took part of the CRADLE summer school (2011) and also ISCAR Summer University (2012). Camillo is member of Science Education and Complexity Research Group / Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciência e Complexidade (ECCo). Cristiano Mattos is an assistant professor of the Institute of Physics at University of São Paulo, Brazil. His current research interest is in Science Education based on the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, mainly addressing issues related to concept learning; models of dialogic interaction; complex conceptual profile and its relationship with context; and interdisciplinarity and complexity. He is the coordinator of Science Education and Complexity Research Group / Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciência e Complexidade (ECCo). Cristiano is head of the Inter-Unities Science Education Graduate Program at University of São Paulo and is the leader editor of the Brazilian Journal of Science Education.