E-book: Lev Vygotsky “A blind child. L.S

	“Leaving aside particulars and neglecting details, one can imagine the development of scientific views on the psychology of the blind in the form of one line that goes from ancient times to the present day, now lost in the darkness of false ideas, then reappearing with each new conquest of science. As a magnetic needle points to the north, so this line points to the truth and allows us to evaluate any historical error by the degree of its deviation from this path by the angle of curvature of the main line ... " Publisher: "Public Domain" (1934) eBook
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Biography

Daughter of L. S. Vygotsky - Gita Lvovna Vygotskaya- a well-known Soviet psychologist and defectologist.

Chronology of the most important events of life

1924 - report at the psycho-neurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
1925 - dissertation defense Psychology of art(On November 5, 1925, Vygotsky was awarded the title of senior researcher, equivalent to the modern degree of a candidate of sciences, due to illness without protection, a contract for the publication Psychology of art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published during Vygotsky's lifetime)
1925 - the first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectological conference; on the way to England, he traveled through Germany, France, where he met with local psychologists
November 21, 1925 to May 22, 1926 - tuberculosis, hospitalization in the Zakharyino sanatorium hospital, writes notes in the hospital, later published under the title The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis
1927 - employee of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, works with such prominent scientists as Luria, Bernstein, Artemov, Dobrynin, Leontiev
1929 - International Psychological Congress at Yale University; Luria presented two reports, one of which was co-authored with Vygotsky; Vygotsky himself did not go to the congress
1929, spring - Vygotsky lectures in Tashkent
1930 - report by L. S. Vygotsky on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research at the VI International Conference on Psychotechnics in Barcelona (April 23-27, 1930)
1930 October - report on psychological systems: the beginning of a new research program
1931 - entered the medical faculty at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied in absentia with Luria
1932, December - report on consciousness, formal disagreement with Leontiev's group in Kharkov
1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow on his way from the USA (through Japan), meetings with Vygotsky
1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was transferred to bed rest
1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

The formation of Vygotsky as a scientist coincided with the period of perestroika based on methodology, in which he took an active part. In search of methods for an objective study of complex forms of mental activity and behavior of the individual, Vygotsky subjected to critical analysis a number of philosophical and most of his contemporary psychological concepts (“The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”, manuscript), showing the futility of attempts to explain human behavior by reducing higher forms of behavior to lower elements.

Exploring verbal thinking, Vygotsky solves the problem of localization of higher mental functions as structural units of activity in a new way. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions on the material of children's, and, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that the structure is a dynamic semantic system of affective volitional and intellectual processes that are in unity.

Cultural-historical theory

The book “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (, publ.) gives a detailed presentation of the cultural-historical theory of the development of the psyche: according to Vygotsky, it is necessary to distinguish between lower and higher mental functions, and, accordingly, two plans of behavior - natural, natural (the result of the biological evolution of the animal world ) and cultural, socio-historical (the result of the historical development of society), merged in the development of the psyche.

The hypothesis put forward by Vygotsky offered a new solution to the problem of the relationship between lower (elementary) and higher mental functions. The main difference between them is the level of arbitrariness, i.e., natural mental processes cannot be regulated by a person, but people can consciously control. Vygotsky came to the conclusion that conscious regulation is associated with the mediated nature of higher mental functions. Between the influencing stimulus and the human reaction (both behavioral and mental), an additional connection arises through the mediating link - the stimulus-means, or.

The most convincing model of mediated activity that characterizes the manifestation and implementation of higher mental functions is "situation". This classical situation of uncertainty, or a problematic situation (a choice between two equal possibilities), interests Vygotsky primarily from the point of view of the means that make it possible to transform (solve) the situation that has arisen. By casting lots, a person "artificially introduces into the situation, changing it, new auxiliary stimuli that are not connected with it in any way." Thus, the cast die becomes, according to Vygotsky, a means of transforming and resolving the situation.

Thinking and speech

In the last years of his life, Vygotsky devoted most of his attention to the study of the relationship between thought and word in structure. His work "Thinking and Speech" (1934), devoted to the study of this problem, is fundamental for the Russian.

Genetic roots of thinking and speech

According to Vygotsky, the genetic roots of thinking and speech are different.

So, for example, experiments that discovered the ability of chimpanzees to solve complex problems showed that human-like intelligence and expressive speech (absent in monkeys) function independently.

The ratio of thinking and speech both in and in is a variable value. There is a pre-speech stage in the development of the intellect and a pre-intellectual stage in the development of speech. Only then thinking and speech intersect and merge.

The speech thinking that arises as a result of such a merger is not a natural, but a socio-historical form of behavior. It has specific (in comparison with natural forms of thinking and speech) properties. With the emergence of speech thinking, the biological type of development is replaced by a socio-historical one.

Research method

An adequate method for studying the relationship between thought and word, says Vygotsky, should be an analysis that dismembers the object under study - speech thinking - not into elements, but into units. A unit is the smallest part of a whole that has all its basic properties. Words are such a unit of speech thinking.

Levels of formation of thought in a word

The relation of thought to word is impermanent; This process, the movement from thought to word and vice versa, the formation of a thought in a word:

Thought motivation.
Thought.
Inner speech.
External speech.

Egocentric speech: against Piaget

Vygotsky came to the conclusion that egocentric speech is not an expression of intellectual egocentrism, as he claimed, but a transitional stage from external to internal speech. Egocentric speech initially accompanies practical activity.

Vygotsky-Sakharov study

In a classic experimental study, Vygotsky and his collaborator L. S. Sakharov, using , which is a modification, established types (they are also age stages of development) of concepts.

Worldly and scientific concepts

Exploring the development of concepts in childhood, L. S. Vygotsky wrote about worldly (spontaneous) And scientific concepts (“Thinking and speech”, ch. 6).

Everyday concepts are acquired and used in everyday life, in everyday communication, words like “table”, “cat”, “house”. Scientific concepts are words that a child learns in school, built into the knowledge system, associated with other terms.

When using spontaneous concepts, the child for a long time (up to 11-12 years old) is aware only of the object they point to, but not the concepts themselves, not them. This is expressed in the lack of the ability "to verbal definition of the concept, to the possibility in other words to give its verbal formulation, to the arbitrary use of this concept when establishing complex logical relationships between concepts."

Vygotsky suggested that the development of spontaneous and scientific concepts goes in opposite directions: spontaneous - towards a gradual realization of their meaning, scientific - in the opposite direction, because "just in the area where the concept of "brother" turns out to be a strong concept, that is, in the area of spontaneous use, its application to countless specific situations, the richness of its empirical content and connection with personal experience, the scientific concept of the schoolchild reveals its weakness. An analysis of the child's spontaneous concept convinces us that the child is much more aware of the object than the concept itself. The analysis of a scientific concept convinces us that the child at the very beginning is much better aware of the concept itself than the object represented in it.

The awareness of meanings that comes with age is deeply connected with the emerging concepts, that is, with the appearance, with the appearance of logical relations between them. A spontaneous concept is associated only with the object to which it refers. On the contrary, a mature concept is immersed in a hierarchical system, where logical relations connect it (already as a carrier of meaning) with many other concepts of a different level of generalization in relation to the given one. This completely changes the possibilities of the word as a cognitive tool. Outside the system, Vygotsky writes, only empirical connections, that is, relations between objects, can be expressed in concepts (in sentences). “Together with the system, relations of concepts to concepts arise, a mediated relation of concepts to objects through their relation to other concepts, a generally different relation of concepts to an object arises: supra-empirical connections become possible in concepts.” This finds expression, in particular, in the fact that the concept is no longer defined through the connections of the defined object with other objects (“the dog guards the house”), but through the relation of the defined concept to other concepts (“the dog is an animal”).

Well, since scientific concepts that a child learns in the process of learning fundamentally differ from everyday concepts precisely in that, by their very nature, they must be organized into a system, Vygotsky believes that their meanings are recognized first. The awareness of the meanings of scientific concepts is gradually spreading to everyday ones.

Developmental and educational psychology

Vygotsky based the periodization of the human life cycle on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence neoplasms. Thus, each stage of life opens with a crisis (accompanied by the appearance of certain neoplasms), followed by a period of stable development, when the neoplasms are mastered.

Neonatal crisis (0-2 months).

Infancy (2 months - 1 year).

Crisis of one year.

Early childhood (1-3 years).

Crisis of three years.

Preschool age (3-7 years).

Crisis of seven years.

School age (8-12 years).

Crisis of thirteen years.

Adolescence (pubertal) period (14-17 years).

The crisis of seventeen years.

Youth period (17-21 years).

During the years of Vygotsky's theory began to arouse interest in psychology. In the next decade, all the main works of Vygotsky were translated and formed, along with, the basis of modern educational psychology. In European psychology, he also develops the problems of social psychology ( social identity) and economic psychology ( second modernization) within the framework of Vygotsky's theory.

In contact with the external environment, a conflict arises caused by a mismatch of an insufficient organ or function with their tasks, which leads to an increased possibility of disease and mortality. This conflict creates both increased opportunities and incentives for overcompensation. The defect thus becomes the starting point and the main driving force in the mental development of the individual. If the struggle ends in victory for the organism, then it not only copes with the difficulties created by the defect, but also rises in its development to a higher level, creating talent out of insufficiency, ability out of defect, strength out of weakness, supervalue out of low value. So, N. Saunderson, blind from birth, compiled a textbook on geometry (A. Adler, 1927). What an enormous strain his psychic powers and the tendency to overcompensate must have reached in him, brought to life by a defect in vision, so that he could not only cope with the spatial limitation that blindness entails, but also master space in higher forms, accessible to mankind only in the scientific world. thinking, in geometric constructions. Where we have much lower degrees of this process, the basic law remains the same. It is curious that Adler found 70% of students with visual anomalies in schools of painting and the same number of students with speech defects in schools of dramatic art (A. Adler. In the book: Heilen und Bilder, 1914, p. 21). The vocation for painting, the ability for it grew out of defects in the eye, artistic talent - out of overcoming defects in the speech apparatus.

However, a happy outcome is by no means the only or even the most frequent result of the struggle to overcome a defect. It would be naive to think that every illness invariably ends happily, that every defect happily turns into a talent. Every fight has two outcomes. The second outcome is the failure of overcompensation, the complete victory of the feeling of weakness, asocial behavior, the creation of defensive positions from one's weakness, turning it into a weapon, a fictitious goal of existence, in essence, madness, the impossibility of a normal mental life of a person - flight into illness, neurosis. Between these two poles lies a huge and inexhaustible variety of different degrees of success and failure, giftedness and neurosis - from minimal to maximal. The existence of extreme points marks the limits of the phenomenon itself and gives an extreme expression of its essence and nature.

Blindness makes it difficult for a blind child to enter into life. Conflict flares up along this line. In fact, the defect is realized as a social dislocation. Blindness puts its wearer in a certain and difficult social position. Feelings of low value, insecurity and weakness arise as a result of the blind man's assessment of his position. As a reaction of the psychic apparatus, tendencies towards overcompensation develop.

They are aimed at the formation of a socially valuable personality, at gaining a position in public life. They are aimed at overcoming the conflict and, therefore, do not develop touch, hearing, etc., but capture the entire personality without a trace, starting from its innermost core; they seek not to replace vision, but to overcome and overcompensate for social conflict, psychological instability as a result of a physical defect. This is the essence of the new vision.

Lev Vygotsky

blind child

They (the blind. - L. V.) develop such features that we cannot notice in the sighted, and it must be assumed that in the case of exclusive communication between the blind and the blind, without any intercourse with the sighted, a special breed of people could arise.

K. Bürklen 1

In essence, the science of the blind man, in so far as it has been moving towards the truth, is all reduced to the unfolding of one central idea, which humanity has been trying to master for thousands of years, because it is not only an idea about the blind man, but also about the psychological nature of man in general. In the psychology of the blind, as in all knowledge, one can err in different ways, but there is only one way to go to the truth. This idea boils down to the fact that blindness is not only the absence of vision (a defect in a separate organ); it causes a profound restructuring of all the forces of the organism and personality.

Blindness, by creating a new, special make-up of personality, brings to life new forces, changes the normal directions of functions, creatively and organically recreates and shapes the human psyche. Consequently, blindness is not only a defect, a minus, a weakness, but also, in a certain sense, a source of the manifestation of abilities, a plus, a strength (however strange and similar to a paradox!).

This idea has gone through three main stages, from comparisons of which it becomes clear the direction, the trend of its development. The first era can be designated as mystical, the second - naive-biological and the third, modern - scientific or socio-psychological.

Christianity, which brought with it a reassessment of values, essentially changed only the moral content of this idea, but left the very essence unchanged. The “last ones here,” which, of course, included the blind, were promised to be “the first ones there.” In the Middle Ages, this was the most important dogma of the philosophy of blindness, in which, as in any deprivation, suffering, they saw a spiritual value; the church porch was given to the undivided possession of the blind. This signified both begging in earthly life and closeness to God. In a weak body, they said then, a lofty spirit lives. Again, in blindness, some mystical second side was revealed, some kind of spiritual value, some kind of positive meaning. This stage in the development of the psychology of the blind should be called mystical, not only because it was colored by religious ideas and beliefs, not only because the blind were brought closer to God in every possible way: those who are visible, but not seeing - to the one who sees, but invisible, as they said Jewish sages.

In fact, the abilities that were attributed to the blind were considered supersensible powers of the soul, their connection with blindness seemed mysterious, wonderful, incomprehensible. These views arose not from experience, not from the testimony of the blind themselves about themselves, not from the scientific study of the blind and his social role, but from the doctrine of the spirit and the body and faith in a disembodied spirit. And yet, although history has completely destroyed, and science has completely exposed the failure of this philosophy, a particle of truth was hidden in its deepest foundations.

Only the Age of Enlightenment (XVIII century) opened a new era in the understanding of blindness. In the place of mysticism, science was put, in the place of prejudice - experience and study. The greatest historical significance of this era for the problem we are considering lies in the fact that a new understanding of psychology created (as its direct consequence) the upbringing and education of the blind, introducing them to social life and opening up access to culture.

In theoretical terms, a new understanding was expressed in the doctrine of the vicariate of the senses. According to this view, the loss of one of the functions of perception, the lack of one organ is compensated by the increased functioning and development of other organs. As in the case of the absence or disease of one of the paired organs - for example, the kidney or lung, another, healthy organ develops compensatory, increases and takes the place of the patient, taking on part of its functions, so the visual defect causes an increased development of hearing, touch and other remaining senses. . Entire legends were created about the supernormal acuity of touch in the blind; they spoke of the wisdom of good nature, which with one hand takes away, and with the other gives back what is taken away and cares for its creatures; they believed that every blind man, thanks to this fact alone, is a blind musician, that is, a person gifted with heightened and exceptional hearing; discovered a new, special, inaccessible sixth sense for the sighted in the blind. All these legends were based on true observations and facts from the life of the blind, but falsely interpreted and therefore distorted beyond recognition. K. Burklen collected the opinions of various authors (X. A. Fritsche, L. Bachko, Stuke, X. V. Rotermund, I. V. Klein, etc.), who developed this idea in various forms (K. Burklen, 1924) . However, research very soon revealed the inconsistency of such a theory. They pointed out, as an irrevocably established fact, that there is no supernormal development of the functions of touch and hearing in the blind; that, on the contrary, very often these functions are less developed in the blind than in the sighted; finally, where we meet with an increased function of touch in comparison with the normal one, this phenomenon turns out to be secondary, dependent, derivative, rather a consequence of development than its cause. This phenomenon does not arise from direct physiological compensation for visual impairment (like an enlarged kidney), but by a very complex and indirect way of general socio-psychological compensation, without replacing the missing function and without taking the place of the missing organ.

Therefore, there can be no question of any vicariate of the sense organs. Luzardi rightly pointed out that the finger will never really teach the blind to see. E. Binder, following Appiah, showed that the functions of the sense organs are not transferred from one organ to another and that the expression "vicariate of the senses", that is, the substitution of the sense organs, is incorrectly used in physiology. Of decisive importance for the refutation of this dogma were the studies of Fisbach, published in the physiological archive of E. Pfluger and showing its inconsistency. The dispute was resolved by experimental psychology. She showed the way for a correct understanding of the facts that underlay this theory.

E. Meiman disputed Fisbach's position that with a defect in one sense, all senses suffer. He argued that in fact there is a kind of substitution of the functions of perception (E. Meumann, 1911). W. Wundt came to the conclusion that the replacement in the field of physiological functions is a special case of exercise and adaptation. Consequently, substitution should be understood not in the sense of direct acceptance by other organs of the physiological functions of the eye, but a complex restructuring of all mental activity caused by a violation of the most important function and directed through association, memory, attention to the creation and development of a new type of balance in the body to replace the disturbed one.

L. S. Vygotsky

blind child

They (the blind. - L.V.) develop such features that we cannot notice in the sighted, and it must be assumed that in the case of exclusive communication between the blind and the blind, without any intercourse with the sighted, a special breed of people could arise,
K. Bürklen*

Leaving particulars aside and neglecting the details, one can imagine the development of scientific views on the psychology of the blind in the form of one line that goes from ancient times to the present day, now lost in the darkness of false ideas, then reappearing with each new conquest of science. As a magnetic needle points to the north, so this line points to the truth and allows us to evaluate any historical error by the degree of its deviation from this path by the angle of curvature of the main line. ______________________ * K. Burklen, 1924. S. 3. ______________________ In essence, the science of a blind man, since it was moving towards the truth, all boils down to the development of one central idea, which humanity has been trying to master for thousands of years, because it is not only the idea of a blind man, but and in general about the psychological nature of man. In the psychology of the blind, as in all knowledge, one can err in different ways, but there is only one way to go to the truth. This idea boils down to the fact that blindness is not only the absence of vision (a defect in a separate organ); it causes a profound restructuring of all the forces of the organism and personality. Blindness, creating a new, special make-up of the personality, brings new forces to life, changes the normal directions of functions, creatively and organically recreates and forms the human psyche. Consequently, blindness is not only a defect, a minus, a weakness, but also, in a certain sense, a source of the manifestation of abilities, a plus, a strength (however strange and similar to a paradox!). This idea has gone through three main stages, from comparisons of which it becomes clear the direction, the trend of its development. The first era can be designated as mystical, the second - naive-biological and the third, modern - scientific or socio-psychological.

The first epoch encompasses antiquity, the Middle Ages, and a significant part of modern history. Until now, the remnants of this era are visible in popular views on the blind, in legends, fairy tales, proverbs. In blindness, they saw, first of all, a huge misfortune, which was treated with superstitious fear and respect. Along with the attitude towards the blind as a helpless, defenseless and abandoned being, there is a general belief that the blind develop the highest mystical powers of the soul, that spiritual knowledge and vision are available to them instead of the lost physical sight. Until now, many people still talk about the striving of the blind for spiritual light: apparently, there is some truth in this, although it is distorted by the fear and misunderstanding of the religiously thinking mind. The keepers of folk wisdom, singers, soothsayers of the future, according to legend, were often blind. Homer was blind. It is said of Democritus that he himself blinded himself in order to devote himself fully to philosophy. If this is not true, then at least it is indicative: the very possibility of such a tradition, which no one seemed absurd, testifies to such a view of blindness, according to which the philosophical gift can be strengthened with loss of sight. It is curious that the Talmud, which equates the blind, the lepers, and the childless with the dead, when speaking of the blind, uses the euphemistic expression "a man with an abundance of light." German folk sayings and sayings of traditional wisdom bear traces of the same view: "The blind man wants to see everything" or "Solomon found wisdom in the blind, because they do not take a step without examining the ground on which they walk." O. Vanechek (O. Wanecek, 1919) in his study of the blind in the saga, fairy tale and legend showed that folk art is characterized by the view of the blind as a person with awakened inner vision, gifted with spiritual knowledge, alien to other people. Christianity, which brought with it a reassessment of values, essentially changed only the moral content of this idea, but left the very essence unchanged. "The last ones here", which of course included the blind, were promised to be "the first ones there". In the Middle Ages, this was the most important dogma of the philosophy of blindness, in which, as in any deprivation, suffering, they saw a spiritual value; the church porch was given to the undivided possession of the blind. This signified both begging in earthly life and closeness to God. In a weak body, they said then, a lofty spirit lives. Again, in blindness, some mystical second side was revealed, some kind of spiritual value, some kind of positive meaning. This stage in the development of the psychology of the blind should be called mystical, not only because it was colored by religious ideas and beliefs, not only because the blind were brought closer to God in every possible way: those who are visible, but not seeing, to the one who sees, but invisible, as the Jewish sages said. In fact, the abilities that were attributed to the blind were considered supersensible powers of the soul, their connection with blindness seemed mysterious, wonderful, incomprehensible. These views arose not from experience, not from the testimony of the blind themselves about themselves, not from the scientific study of the blind and his social role, but from the doctrine of the spirit and the body and faith in a disembodied spirit. And yet, although history has completely destroyed, and science has completely exposed the failure of this philosophy, a particle of truth was hidden in its deepest foundations.

Only the Age of Enlightenment (XVIII century) opened a new era in the understanding of blindness. In place of mysticism, science was put, in place of prejudice, experience and study. The greatest historical significance of this era for the problem we are considering lies in the fact that a new understanding of psychology created (as its direct consequence) the upbringing and education of the blind, introducing them to social life and opening up access to culture. In theoretical terms, a new understanding was expressed in the doctrine of the vicariate of the senses. According to this view, the loss of one of the functions of perception, the lack of one organ is compensated by the increased functioning and development of other organs. As in the case of the absence or disease of one of the paired organs - for example, the kidney or lung, another, healthy organ develops compensatory, increases and takes the place of the patient, taking on part of its functions, so a visual defect causes an increased development of hearing, touch and other remaining feelings. Entire legends were created about the supernormal acuity of touch in the blind; they spoke of the wisdom of good nature, which with one hand takes away, and with the other gives back what is taken away and cares for its creatures; they believed that every blind man, thanks to this fact alone, is a blind musician, that is, a person gifted with heightened and exceptional hearing; discovered a new, special, inaccessible sixth sense for the sighted in the blind. All these legends were based on true observations and facts from the life of the blind, but falsely interpreted and therefore distorted beyond recognition. K. Burklen collected the opinions of various authors (X. A. Fritsche, L. Bachko, Stuke, X. V. Rotermund, I. V. Klein, etc.), who developed this idea in various forms (K. Burklen, 1924) . However, research very soon revealed the inconsistency of such a theory. They pointed out, as an irrevocably established fact, that there is no supernormal development of the functions of touch and hearing in the blind; that, on the contrary, very often these functions are less developed in the blind than in the sighted; finally, where we meet with an increased function of touch in comparison with the normal one, this phenomenon turns out to be secondary, dependent, derivative, rather a consequence of development than its cause. This phenomenon does not arise from direct physiological compensation for visual impairment (like an enlarged kidney), but by a very complex and indirect way of general socio-psychological compensation, without replacing the missing function and without taking the place of the missing organ. Therefore, there can be no question of any vicariate of the sense organs. Luzardi rightly pointed out that the finger will never really teach the blind to see. E. Binder, following Appiah, showed that the functions of the sense organs are not transferred from one organ to another and that the expression "vicariate of the senses", i.e. substitution of sense organs is misused in physiology. Of decisive importance for the refutation of this dogma were the studies of Fisbach, published in the physiological archive of E. Pfluger and showing its inconsistency. The dispute was resolved by experimental psychology. She showed the way for a correct understanding of the facts that underlay this theory. E. Meiman disputed Fisbach's position that with a defect in one sense, all senses suffer. He argued that in fact there is a kind of substitution of the functions of perception (E. Meumann, 1911). W. Wundt came to the conclusion that the replacement in the field of physiological functions is a special case of exercise and adaptation. Consequently, substitution should be understood not in the sense of direct acceptance by other organs of the physiological functions of the eye, but a complex restructuring of all mental activity caused by a violation of the most important function and directed through association, memory, attention to the creation and development of a new type of balance in the body to replace the disturbed one. But even if such a naive biological concept turned out to be wrong and was forced to give way to another theory, nevertheless it made a huge step forward towards the conquest of scientific truth about blindness. For the first time, with the criterion of scientific observation and with the criterion of experience, she approached the fact that blindness is not only a defect, only insufficiency, but also calls into life and activity new forces, new functions and performs some kind of creative and creative organic work, although this theory could not specify what exactly such work consisted of. How enormous and great the practical significance of such a step towards the truth can be judged by the fact that this era created the education and education of the blind. One Braille dot has done more for the blind than thousands of benefactors; the ability to read and write was more important than the "sixth sense" and the sophistication of touch and hearing. On the monument to V. Hayuy, the founder of the education of the blind, the words addressed to a blind child are written: "You will find light in education and in work." Gajuy saw in knowledge and work the resolution of the tragedy of blindness and by this indicated the path we are now following. The age of Gaju gave education to the blind; our epoch must give them work.

The science of modern times has come closer to mastering the truth about the psychology of a blind person. The school of the Viennese psychiatrist A. Adler, which develops the method of individual psychology, i.e. social psychology of the individual, pointed to the significance and psychological role of an organic defect in the process of development and formation of personality. If any organ, due to morphological or functional inferiority, does not fully cope with its work, then the central nervous system and the mental apparatus take on the task of compensating for the hampered functioning of the organ. They create a psychic superstructure over an organ or function of little value, which seeks to provide the organism at a weak and threatened point. In contact with the external environment, a conflict arises caused by a mismatch of an insufficient organ or function with their tasks, which leads to an increased possibility of disease and mortality. This conflict creates both increased opportunities and incentives for overcompensation. The defect thus becomes the starting point and the main driving force in the mental development of the individual. If the struggle ends in victory for the organism, then it not only copes with the difficulties created by the defect, but also rises in its development to a higher level, creating talent out of insufficiency, ability out of defect, strength out of weakness, supervalue out of low value. . So, N. Saunderson, blind from birth, compiled a textbook on geometry (A. Adler, 1927). What an enormous strain his psychic powers and the tendency to overcompensate must have reached in him, brought to life by a defect in vision, so that he could not only cope with the spatial limitation that blindness entails, but also master space in higher forms, accessible to mankind only in the scientific world. thinking, in geometric constructions. Where we have much lower degrees of this process, the basic law remains the same. It is curious that Adler found 70% of students with visual anomalies in schools of painting and the same number of students with speech defects in schools of dramatic art (A. Adler. In the book: Heilen und Bilder, 1914, p. 21). The vocation for painting, the ability for it grew out of defects in the eye, artistic talent - out of overcoming defects in the speech apparatus. However, a happy outcome is by no means the only or even the most frequent result of the struggle to overcome a defect. It would be naive to think that every illness invariably ends happily, that every defect happily turns into a talent. Every fight has two outcomes. The second outcome is the failure of overcompensation, the complete victory of the feeling of weakness, asocial behavior, the creation of defensive positions from one's weakness, turning it into a weapon, a fictitious goal of existence, in essence, madness, the impossibility of a normal mental life of the individual - flight into illness, neurosis. Between these two poles there is a huge and inexhaustible variety of different degrees of success and failure, giftedness and neurosis - from the minimum to the maximum. The existence of extreme points marks the limits of the phenomenon itself and gives an extreme expression of its essence and nature. Blindness makes it difficult for a blind child to enter into life. Conflict flares up along this line. In fact, the defect is realized as a social dislocation. Blindness puts its wearer in a certain and difficult social position. Feelings of low value, insecurity and weakness arise as a result of the blind man's assessment of his position. As a reaction of the psychic apparatus, tendencies towards overcompensation develop. They are aimed at the formation of a socially valuable personality, at gaining a position in public life. They are aimed at overcoming the conflict and, therefore, do not develop touch, hearing, etc., but capture the entire personality without a trace, starting from its innermost core; they seek not to replace vision, but to overcome and overcompensate for social conflict, psychological instability as a result of a physical defect. This is the essence of the new vision. It used to be thought that a blind child's entire life and development would follow the line of his blindness. The new law says they will go against that line. Anyone who wants to understand the psychology of the personality of a blind person directly from the fact of blindness, as directly determined by this fact, will understand it just as wrongly as one who sees only the disease in the inoculation of smallpox. It is true that the inoculation of smallpox is the inoculation of disease, but in essence it is the inoculation of superhealth. In the light of this law, all particular psychological observations of the blind are explained in their relation to the developmental lineage, to a single life plan, to the ultimate goal, to the “fifth act,” as Adler puts it. Separate psychological phenomena and processes must be understood not in connection with the past, but with a focus on the future. To fully understand all the features of a blind person, we must reveal the tendencies inherent in his psychology, the germs of the future. In essence, these are the general requirements of dialectical thinking in science: in order to fully elucidate a phenomenon, it is necessary to consider it in connection with its past and future. This is the perspective of the future that Adler introduces into psychology.

Psychologists have long noted the fact that a blind man does not experience his blindness at all, contrary to the current opinion that he constantly feels himself immersed in darkness. According to the beautiful expression of A.V. Birilev, a highly educated blind man, a blind man does not see the light differently than a blindfolded sighted man. A blind man does not see the light just as a sighted person does not see it with his hand, i.e. he does not feel and does not feel directly that which is deprived of sight. “I could not directly feel my physical handicap,” testifies A.M. Shcherbina (1916, p. 10). The basis of the psyche of the blind is not an "instinctive organic attraction to the light", not the desire to "get rid of the gloomy veil", as V.G. Korolenko in the famous story "The Blind Musician". The ability to see the light for the blind has a practical and pragmatic significance, and not an instinctively organic one, i.e. the blind only indirectly, reflected, only in social consequences feels his defect. It would be a naive mistake of a sighted person to believe that we will find blindness in the psyche of a blind person or its psychic shadow, projection, reflection; in his psyche there is nothing but tendencies to overcome blindness (desires for overcompensation) of attempts to win a social position. Almost all researchers agree, for example, that in the blind we generally find a higher development of memory than in the sighted. The last comparative study by E. Kretschmer (1928) showed that the blind have better verbal, mechanical and rational memory. A. Petzeld cites the same fact, established by a number of studies (A. Petzeld, 1925). Burklen collected the opinions of many authors who agree on one thing - in the assertion of a special power of development in the blind memory, which usually surpasses the memory of the sighted (K. Burklen, 1924). Adler would ask: why do the blind have a strong memory, that is, what is the reason for this overdevelopment, what functions in the behavior of the personality does it fulfill, what needs does it meet? It would be more correct to say that the blind have a tendency to an increased development of memory; develop: whether it is actually very high - it depends on many complex circumstances. The trend, established with certainty in the mind of the blind, becomes perfectly explicable in the light of compensation. In order to win a position in public life, a blind person is forced to develop all his compensatory functions. The memory of the blind develops under the pressure of tendencies to compensate for the low value created by blindness. This can be seen from the fact that it develops in a completely specific way, determined by the ultimate goal of this process. There are various and conflicting data on the attention of the blind. Some authors (K. Stumpf and others) are inclined to see an increased activity of attention in a blind person; others (Schroeder, F. Zech), and mainly teachers of the blind, who observe the behavior of students during classes, assert that the attention of the blind is less developed than that of the sighted. However, it is wrong to raise the question of the comparative development of mental functions in the blind and the sighted as a quantitative problem. It is necessary to ask not about the quantitative, but about the qualitative, functional difference between the same activity in the blind and the sighted. In what direction does the attention of a blind person develop? Here's how to ask. And here, in establishing qualitative features, everyone agrees. Just as the blind person has a tendency to develop memory in a specific way, so he has a tendency to develop attention in a specific way. Or rather: both one and the other process is taken over by a general tendency to compensate for blindness and gives them both one direction. The peculiarity of attention in a blind person lies in the special power of concentration of hearing and touch stimuli that sequentially enter the field of consciousness, in contrast to simultaneously, that is, visual sensations that immediately enter the field of vision, causing a quick change and dispersion of attention due to the competition of many simultaneous stimuli. When we want to collect our attention, according to K. Stumpf, we close our eyes and artificially turn into blind people (1913). In this regard, there is also an opposite, balancing and limiting feature of attention in a blind person: complete concentration on one object until complete forgetfulness of the environment, complete immersion in the object (which we find in the sighted) cannot be in the blind; the blind man is forced under all circumstances to maintain a certain contact with the outside world through the ear, and therefore, to a certain extent, he must always distribute his auditory attention to the detriment of his concentration (Ibid.). It would be possible to show in each chapter of the psychology of the blind the same thing that we have just outlined in the examples of memory and attention. Both emotions, and feelings, and fantasy, and thinking, and other processes of the psyche of a blind person are subject to one general tendency to compensate for blindness. Adler calls this unity of the entire goal-oriented life orientation the life line - a single life plan, which is unconsciously carried out in outwardly fragmentary episodes and periods and permeates them as a common thread, serving as the basis for a personality biographer. Since over time all mental functions proceed in a chosen direction, all mental processes receive their typical expression, insofar as a sum of tactics, aspirations and abilities are formed, which cover the outline of a determined life plan. This is what we call character "(O. Ruhle, 1926. p. 12). Contrary to Kretschmer's theory, for which character development is only a passive deployment of that basic biological type that is innately inherent in man, Adler's teaching derives and explains the structure of character and personality not from a passive deployment of the past, but from an active adaptation to the future. Hence the basic rule for the psychology of the blind: not from the parts the whole can be explained and understood, but from the whole its parts can be comprehended. The psychology of the blind can not be constructed from the sum of individual features, particular deviations, individual signs of a particular function, but these features and deviations themselves become understandable only when we start from a single and whole life plan, from the blind line of the blind and determine the place and significance of each feature and individual sign in this whole and in connection with it, i.e., with all the other signs.Until now, science has very few attempts to investigate the personality of a blind person as a whole, to unravel his leitline. Researchers approached the issue for the most part in summary and studied particulars. Among such synthetic experiments, the most successful, is the work of A. Petzeld mentioned above. Its main position: in the blind, in the first place there is a limitation in freedom of movement, helplessness in relation to space, which, unlike the deaf-mutes, allows you to immediately recognize the blind. On the other hand, the rest of the powers and abilities of the blind can fully function to the extent that we cannot notice this in the deaf and dumb. The most characteristic thing in the personality of a blind person is the contradiction between relative helplessness in terms of space and the possibility through speech of complete and completely adequate communication and mutual understanding with the sighted (A. Petzeld, 1925), which fits perfectly into the psychological scheme of defect and compensation. This example is a special case of the opposition that the basic dialectical law of psychology establishes between organically given insufficiency and mental aspirations. The source of compensation for blindness is not the development of touch or the refinement of hearing, but speech - the use of social experience, communication with the sighted. Petzeld mockingly cites the opinion of the eye doctor M. Dufour, that the blind should be made helmsmen on ships, since, due to their refined hearing, they should catch any danger in the fog. For Petzeld (1925) it is impossible to seriously seek compensation for blindness in the development of hearing or other individual functions. On the basis of a psychological analysis of the spatial representations of the blind and the nature of our vision, he comes to the conclusion that the main driving force of blindness compensation - approaching the social experience of the sighted through speech - has no natural limits for its development, contained in the very nature of blindness. Is there something that a blind man cannot know because of his blindness, he asks, and comes to a conclusion that is of great fundamental importance for the entire psychology and pedagogy of the blind: the blind man’s ability to know is the ability to know everything, his understanding is basically the ability to to the understanding of everything (Ibid.). This means that the blind have the opportunity to achieve social value to the fullest. It is very instructive to compare the psychology and developmental possibilities of the blind and the deaf. From a purely organic point of view, deafness is a lesser defect than blindness. A blind animal is probably more helpless than a deaf one. The natural world enters us through the eye more than through the ear. Our world is organized more like a visual phenomenon than a sound one. There are almost no biologically important functions that are affected by deafness; with blindness, spatial orientation and freedom of movement decrease, i.e. essential animal function. So, on the biological side, the blind have lost more than the deaf. But for a person whose artificial, social, technical functions come to the fore, deafness means a much greater disadvantage than blindness. Deafness causes dumbness, deprivation of speech, isolates a person, turns him off from social contact based on speech. Deafness as an organism, as a body, has greater potential for development than blindness, but the blind as a person, as a social being: the unit is in an immeasurably more favorable position: he has speech, and with it the possibility of social usefulness. Thus, the leitline in the psychology of a blind person is corrected for overcoming the defect through its social compensation, through familiarization with the experience of the sighted, through speech. Blindness is conquered by the word.

Now we can turn to the main question outlined in the epigraph: is the blind in the eyes of science a representative of a special breed of people? If not, what are the limits, sizes and meanings of all the features of his personality? How does a blind person take part in social and cultural life? In the main, we answered this question with everything said above. In essence, it is already given in the limiting condition of the epigraph itself: if the processes of compensation were not directed by communication with the sighted and the demand to adapt to social life, if the blind lived only among the blind, only in this case could a special type of human being be developed from him. . Neither in the final point towards which the development of a blind child is directed, nor in the very mechanism that sets in motion the forces of development, is there a fundamental difference between a sighted and a blind child. This is the most important position of the psychology and pedagogy of the blind. Every child is endowed with a relative organic inferiority in the society of adults in which he grows up (A. Adler, 1927). This allows us to consider any childhood as an age of uncertainty, low value, and any development as aimed at overcoming this state through compensation. So, the end point of development is the conquest of a social position, and the whole process of development is the same for a blind and a sighted child. Psychologists and physiologists alike recognize the dialectical character of psychological acts and reflexes. The need to overcome, to overcome an obstacle causes an increase in energy and strength. Let us imagine a being who is absolutely adapted, encountering absolutely no obstacles to life's functions. Such a being will necessarily be incapable of development, enhancement of its functions and movement forward, for what will impel it to such advancement? Therefore, it is precisely in the inability of childhood that the source of enormous developmental opportunities lies. These phenomena are so elementary, common to all forms of behavior, from the lowest to the highest, that they can by no means be considered some kind of exceptional property of the mind of the blind, his peculiarity. The opposite is true: the increased development of these processes in the behavior of a blind person is a special case of a general law. Already in the instinctive, i.e. In the simplest forms of behavior, we meet with both features that we described above as the main features of the psyche of a blind person: with the purposefulness of psychological acts and their growth in the presence of obstacles. So the focus on the future is not an exclusive property of the psyche of the blind, but is a general form of behavior. I.P. Pavlov, studying the most elementary conditional connections, stumbled upon this fact in his research and described it, calling it the goal reflex. With this seemingly paradoxical expression, he wants to point out two points: 1) that these processes proceed according to the type of a reflex act; 2) that they are directed to the future, in connection with which they can be understood. It remains to add that not only the end point and the paths of development leading to it are common to the blind and the sighted, but also the main source from which this development draws its content is the same for both - language. We have already cited Petzeld's opinion above that it is precisely language, the use of speech, that is the instrument for overcoming the consequences of blindness. He also established that the process of using speech is fundamentally the same for the blind and for the sighted: at the same time, he explained the theory of surrogate representations of F. Gitschman: “Red for the blind,” he says, “the same relation of meaning as for the sighted, although it can only be an object of meaning for him, and not of perception.Black and white in his understanding are the same opposites as those of a sighted person, and their significance as relations of objects is no less others only in the world of the blind. Dufour is right when he says that a language created by the blind would bear little resemblance to ours, But we cannot agree with him when he says: "I saw that in essence the blind think in one language, and speak a different language"" (A. Petzeld, 1925). So, the main source from which compensation draws its strength is again the same for the blind and the sighted. Considering the process of raising a blind child from the point of view of the doctrine of conditioned reflexes, we came to the following in due time: from the physiological point of view, there is no fundamental difference between the upbringing of a blind and a sighted child. Such a coincidence should not surprise us, since we should have expected in advance that the physiological basis of behavior would reveal the same structure as the psychological superstructure. So from two different ends we come to the same thing. The coincidence of physiological and psychological data should further convince us of the correctness of the main conclusion. We can formulate it this way: blindness as an organic inferiority gives impetus to compensation processes, leading to the formation of a number of features in the psychology of the blind and restructuring all separate, particular functions from the angle of the main life task. Each individual function of the mental apparatus of a blind person presents its own characteristics, often very significant in comparison with the sighted; left to itself, this biological process of formation and accumulation of peculiarities and deviations from the normal type aside, in the case of a blind man living in the world of the blind, would inevitably lead to the creation of a special breed of people. Under the pressure of the social demands of the sighted, the processes of overcompensation and the use of speech, which are the same for the blind and the sighted, the entire development of these features develops in such a way that the personality structure of the blind as a whole tends to achieve a certain normal social type. With partial deviations, we can have a normal personality type in general. The merit of establishing this fact belongs to Stern (W. Stern, 1921). He accepted the doctrine of compensation and explained how strength is born from weakness, dignity from shortcomings. In a blind person, the ability to distinguish by touch becomes compensatory - not through a real increase in nervous excitability, but through exercises in observing, evaluating and understanding differences. Similarly, in the field of the psyche, the low value of one of some properties can be partially or completely replaced by the enhanced development of another. Weak memory, for example, is balanced by the development of understanding, which is put at the service of observation and memorization; weakness of will and lack of initiative can be compensated by suggestibility and a tendency to imitate, etc. A similar view is reinforced in medicine: the only criterion for health and disease is the expedient or inappropriate functioning of the whole organism, and partial deviations are evaluated only insofar as they are compensated or not compensated other bodily functions. Against the "microscopically refined analysis of abnormalities" Stern puts forward the position: particular functions may represent a significant deviation from the norm, and yet the person or the organism as a whole may be completely normal. A child with a defect is not necessarily a defective child. From the outcome of the compensation, i.e. the degree of his defectiveness and normality depends on the final formation of his personality as a whole. K. Byurklen outlines two main types of the blind: one seeks to minimize and nullify the abyss that separates the blind from the sighted; the other, on the contrary, emphasizes differences and requires the recognition of a special form of personality that corresponds to the experiences of the blind. Stern believes that this opposition is also of a psychological nature; both blind people probably belong to two different types (K. Burklen, 1924). Both types in our understanding mean two extreme outcomes of compensation; the success and failure of this basic process. That in itself this process, regardless of the bad outcome, does not contain anything exceptional, inherent only in the psychology of the blind, we have already said. We will only add that such an elementary and basic function for all forms of activity and development as exercise is considered by modern psychotechnics as a special case of compensation. Therefore, it is equally wrong to classify a blind person as a special type of person on the basis of the presence and dominance of this process in his psyche, as it is to turn a blind eye to those profound features that characterize this general process in the blind. V. Steinberg rightly disputes the walking slogan of the blind: "We are not blind, we just cannot see" (K. Burklen, 1924, p. 8). All functions, all properties are restructured under the special conditions of the development of the blind: it is impossible to reduce all differences to one point. But at the same time, the personality as a whole of a blind person and a sighted person can belong to the same type. It is rightly said that the blind understand the world of the sighted more than the sighted understand the world of the blind. Such an understanding would be impossible if the blind person did not approach the type of a normal person in development. Questions arise: what explains the existence of two types of the blind? Is this due to organic or psychological reasons? Does this not refute the provisions put forward above, or, at least, does it introduce significant restrictions and amendments to them? In some blind people, as Shcherbina beautifully described, a defect is organically compensated, “a kind of second nature is created” (1916, p. 10), and they find in life, with all the difficulties associated with blindness, a peculiar charm that they cannot refuse. would agree for any personal benefit. This means that in the blind the mental superstructure so harmoniously compensated for their low value that it became the basis of their personality; to give it up would mean for them to give up themselves. These cases fully confirm the doctrine of compensation. As for cases of failure of compensation, here the psychological problem turns into a social problem: do healthy children of the vast masses of humanity achieve everything that they could and should have achieved in terms of psychophysiological structure?

Our review is over; we are on the coast. It was not our task to shed any light on the psychology of the blind; we only wanted to outline the central point of the problem, the knot in which all the threads of their psychology are tied. We found this knot in the scientific idea of compensation. What separates the scientific conception of this problem from the prescientific one? If the ancient world and Christianity saw the solution of the problem of blindness in the mystical powers of the spirit, if the naive biological theory saw it in automatic organic compensation, then the scientific expression of the same idea formulates the problem of the solution of blindness as social and psychological. To a superficial glance, it may easily seem that the idea of compensation brings us back to the Christian-medieval view of the positive role of suffering, the weakness of the flesh. In fact, two more opposing theories cannot be imagined. The new teaching positively evaluates not blindness in itself, not a defect, but the forces contained in it, the sources for overcoming it, and incentives for development. Not simply weakness, but weakness as a path to strength is marked here with a positive sign. Ideas, like people, are best known by their deeds. Scientific theories must be judged by the practical results they lead to. What is the practical side of all the theories mentioned above? According to the correct remark of Petzeld, the reassessment of blindness in theory created in practice Homer, Tiresias, Oedipus as living evidence of the boundlessness and infinity of the development of a blind person. The ancient world created the idea and real type of the great blind man. In the Middle Ages, on the contrary, the idea of underestimating blindness was embodied in the practice of charity for the blind. According to the true German expression: "Verehrt - ernahrt" - antiquity revered the blind, the Middle Ages fed them. Both were expressions of the inability of pre-scientific thinking to rise above the one-sided concept of educating blindness: it was recognized as either strength or weakness, but the fact that blindness is both, that is, weakness leading to strength, this thought was alien to that era. The beginning of a scientific approach to the problem of blindness was marked in practice by an attempt to create a systematic education for every blind person. This was a great era in the history of the blind. But Petzeld correctly said: "The very fact that it was possible to quantify the question of the viability of the remaining senses in a blind person and to investigate them experimentally in this sense indicates in principle the same nature of the state of the problem that was inherent in antiquity and the Middle Ages" (A. Petzeld, 1925. S. 30). In the same era, Dufour advised making helmsmen out of the blind. This era tried to rise above the one-sidedness of antiquity and the Middle Ages, for the first time to combine both ideas about blindness - hence the necessity (out of weakness) and the possibility (out of strength) of the education of the blind; but then they failed to connect them dialectically and represented the connection of strength and weakness purely mechanically. Finally, our era understands the problem of blindness as a socio-psychological one and has in its practice three types of weapons to combat blindness and its consequences. True, in our time, thoughts about the possibility of a direct victory over blindness often emerge. People do not want to part with that ancient promise that the blind will see. Quite recently we have witnessed the resurrection of deceived hopes that science will restore sight to the blind. In such outbursts of unfulfilled hopes, in essence, dilapidated remnants of ancient times and a thirst for a miracle come to life. They do not contain the new word of our epoch, which, as has been said, has at its disposal three types of weapons: social prevention, social education, and social labor of the blind—these are the three practical pillars on which the modern science of the blind man stands. All these forms of struggle must be completed by science, bringing to the end what is healthy that was created in this direction by previous epochs. The idea of preventing blindness must be instilled in the vast masses of the people. It is also necessary to eliminate the isolated and disabled education of the blind and to erase the line between special and normal schools: the education of a blind child must be organized as the education of a child capable of normal development; education should really create a normal, socially valuable person out of a blind person and eradicate the word and the concept of "defective" in application to the blind. And finally, modern science should give the blind the right to social labor not in its humiliating, philanthropic and invalid forms (as it has been cultivated until now), but in forms that correspond to the true essence of labor, the only one capable of creating the necessary social position for the individual. But is it not clear that all these three tasks set by blindness are by nature social tasks and that only a new society can finally solve them? The new society creates a new type of blind person. The first stones of a new society are now being laid in the USSR and, therefore, the first features of this new type are taking shape. First published: Sobr. op. In 6 vol. M.: Pedagogy, 1983. T. 5. S. 86-100. Source:http://dugward.ru/library/vygotskiy/vygotskiy_slopoy_rebonok.html

“Leaving aside particulars and neglecting details, one can imagine the development of scientific views on the psychology of the blind in the form of one line that goes from ancient times to the present day, now lost in the darkness of false ideas, then reappearing with each new conquest of science. As a magnetic needle points to the north, so this line points to the truth and allows us to evaluate any historical error by the degree of its deviation from this path by the angle of curvature of the main line ... "

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