The Heart of the Matter explores the legacies of Ilyenkov and Vygotsky, two Russian thinkers who marshalled their passion for truth, enlightenment and independent thought to understand the human mind, not for the sake of knowledge alone, but to help create the conditions in which human flourishing can become a reality for all. The book renders their theories intelligible against the dramatic social and historical background in which they lived and worked, bringing their ideas into dialogue with themes and thinkers in Western philosophy to reveal how they illuminate philosophical issues of enduring significance.
David Bakhurst, D.Phil (1989), Oxford University, is George Whalley Distinguished University Professor at Queen’s University, Canada. His writings include Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy (Cambridge, 1991) and The Formation of Reason (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Preface
Part 1 Beginnings
1 The Riddle of the Self Revisited
2 Social Being and the Human Essence: A Dialogue with F.T. Mikhailov, V.S. Bibler, V.A. Lektorsky, and V.V. Davydov
3 Social Memory in Soviet Thought
4 The Meshcheryakov Experiment: Soviet Work on the Education of Blind–Deaf Children
Part 2 Ilyenkov
5 Punks versus Zombies: Evald Ilyenkov and the Battle for Soviet Philosophy
6 Meaning, Normativity, and the Life of the Mind
7 Ilyenkov, Education, and Philosophy
8 Ilyenkov on Aesthetics: Realism, Imagination, and the End of Art
9 Ilyenkov’s Hegel
Part 3 Vygotsky
10 Vygotsky’s Demons
11 On the Concept of Mediation
12 Vygotsky’s Concept of Perezhivanie: Its Philosophical and Educational Significance
Part 4 Contemporary Applications
13 Memory, Identity, and the Future of Cultural Psychology
14 Minds, Brains, and Education
15 Reflections on Activity Theory
16 Activity and the Search for True Materialism
17 Activity, Action, and Self-Consciousness
18 Freedom and Second Nature in The Formation of Reason
Permissions Bibliography Index
Scholars, researchers and students in philosophy (especially history of philosophy, philosophical psychology, philosophy of education, epistemology and metaphysics), psychology (especially history of psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental and cultural psychology), Russian and Soviet Studies, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.