Ontogenesis of the Human Psyche and Language in the Works of Evald Ilyenkov

Ilyenkov explores the evolution of the psyche and language in the frame of cultural-historical and activity approach, testing his theory on the material of the Zagorsk experiment with deaf-blind children. The value of this experiment is that psyche appears in a “stratified” form. The sequence of those psychological “formations”, which at healthy children very quickly develop and mix one with another, becomes visible here. Ilyenkov examines the technology of interiorization of ideal cultural forms by an individual “soul”. Following Vygotsky, he considers signs to be the psychological instruments of ideas interiorization. Through signs (words, first and foremost) a child acquires the ability to distinguish himself and his actions from the objects of activity. Behind every sign, a socially developed system of values, or “the ideal”, stands. Ilyenkov begins with analysis of gesture, in which he sees a kind of language’s “germ cell”, the primary form of language communication. Gesture is a component of the jointly divided activity, by means of which the interiorization of human culture into the psyche of an individual is performed. Gradually, gesture becomes a conventional sign of action. The genesis of semiotic forms in deaf-blind persons proceeds from gesture towards the word in its dactyl, written and, finally, vocal form. Focusing on communication within the objective activity, Ilyenkov overlooks the preceding, emotional forms of communication and does not take into account the affective nature of human language. Spinoza and, after him, Lev Vygotsky considered affect to be the elementary “germ cell” of psyche. Affect is the peculiar state of a living body that arises as a result of its own activity, or the reverse reflection of activity in the acting body itself. Ilyenkov regards psyche only as a form of cognitive (or “searching”, “research”, “orienting”) activity, completely ignoring the emotional, affective activity. Yet, the latter is the primary basis for human communication. In the affective communication, both the objective-practical actions and the objects as such begin to perform signal functions, in addition to their direct purpose. A child’s affective actions are perceived by adults as signals for cultural responses, and the infant masters this affective signal system already by the middle of the first year of life, trying to control the behaviour of adults, mainly through sounds and expressive movements. According to Daniil Elkonin, another student of Vygotsky, emotional communication is the leading type of activity in infancy. Ilyenkov, on the other hand, considers communication only from a cognitive perspective, as a process of circulation of ideas in human culture. The problem of the relationship of ideas and affects was first posed by Spinoza; according to Vygotsky, it is a specific psychological formulation of the problem of freedom. The “height psychology” is designed to teach man to think and live freely, “under the guidance of reason”, freeing his body and soul from destructive passions. Ilyenkov passed by in silence this Spinoza problem.

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