Spinoza in the Science of Object-Oriented Activity

ABSTRACT

Vygotsky and Ilyenkov were like-minded in their desire to create a materialistic psychology. They were also brought together by the understanding that their dream can be realized only on the basis of Spinozism. However, both theorists understood Spinoza differently. Ilyenkov considered the core of Spinozism to be the principle of object-oriented activity (materialistic monism). By contrast, Vygotsky tried to deduce his theory from the idea of affect, understanding affect not as a subject-oriented activity, but as independent “psychological” entity. Thus, instead of the desired new “Spinozian psychology,” Vygotsky involuntary returned to the classical understanding of life as a mechanical process.

Acknowledgments

I express my deep gratitude to Alfredo Jornet, for his big and patient aid in editing of this article. I am sure that without his cooperation, without his friendly and profound advice and comments, the article would have lost an essential part of its credibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. “Not to laugh at, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.”

2. Ilyenkov called his last speech at the Institute of Psychology at the Davydov’ Seminar (Simakin & Surmava, 2018) “The Principle of Historicism in Psychological Science” (Ilyenkov, 2018a).

3. Nikolai Bernshtein was the first physiologist and biologist who sharply opposed the idea of subject-orientedness—the Cartesian scheme of the reflex, the idea of activity—the idea of reactivity, Spinozism—to Cartesianism.

4. It is our deep conviction that Ivan Pavlov, as a positivist theorist, stood infinitely far from Descartes’s genius.