THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTS - EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN VYGOTSKYS THINKING

A major theme of Vygotsky's research in the Inner part of his life was the theme of concept formation or conceptual development in child dev elopment. He argued that the acquisition of mature scientific (academi c) concepts forms the crowning achievement of adolescsence. Mature con ceptual thinking positively influences the cognitive domain but also t he aesthetic reactions and emotions. Conversely, the breakdown of conc eptual thinking in pathology will lead to severe intellectual impairme nt but also to emotional dullness etc. In this paper it is claimed tha t this view is highly interesting but a number of criticisms are raise d. Specifically, it is argued that (1) the resulting view is overly ra tionalistic; (2) the notion of scientific concepts seems to imply a so mewhat static view of science; and (3) Vygotsky was perhaps too optimi stic about the possibility of transfer of scientific (conceptual) thin king to other domains.