Phenomenological factors in Vygotsky's mature psychology

This article examines some of the phenomenological features in Lev Vygotsky 's mature psychological theory, especially in Thinking and Speech and The C urrent Crisis in Psychology. It traces the complex literary and philosophic al influences in 1920s Moscow on Vygotsky's thought, through Gustav Shpet's seminars on Husserl and the inner form of the word, Chelpanov's seminars o n phenomenology, Bakhtin's theory of the production of inner speech, and th e theoretical insights of the early Gestalt psychologists. It begins with a n exposition of two central Husserlian schemas: part-whole theory and the t hesis of the naive standpoint, both of which Vygotsky was clearly familiar with. This is followed by an account of the reception of phenomenology in e arly Soviet Russia. The article's central sections are concerned with a car eful unpacking and critique of Vygotsky's employment of Husserlian method a nd analysis in his later doctrine of the 'inner plane of speech', his use o f part-whole theory, and his identification of Husserl's position with an u ntenable version of idealism. The article closes with the contention that V ygotsky misrepresents the phenomenological analysis of meaning formation an d appropriates basic Husserlian conceptual terms in his elaboration of the 'inner form of the word'; but Vygotsky does so in such a way that he enrich es our descriptive access to the individual development of humans' dynamic use of language.