Abstract
Vygotsky begins the last part of the course with a contradiction: how do we describe the unity of physical and mental development in lectures which treat physical systems such as the endocrine glands and the nervous system as separate from the mind? The answer he proposes is to first consider each system in its unity and then to show that it is part of a larger system: the body. By the end of the course, students will see that this larger system too is part of a larger system and that the development of this larger system is the proper object of pedology.
The title of this chapter is from the 1996 version of Korotaeva’s book (in Vygotsky’s lifetime, the lectures were simply numbered, as explained in “Setting the Scene”). In the later 2001 version, Korotaeva calls this lecture simply “Laws of the physical development of the child”. We have chosen the 1996 title for the chapter as a whole for two reasons. First of all, it is more precise: the endocrine system is the topic of the chapter and not the physical development of the child in general. Secondly, this title makes the parallel with Chapter Seven more explicit.
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Notes
- 1.
Korotaeva says that the original stenogramme read “как все равно” (“just as always” or “as in any other case”) rather than “подобно тому, как” (“just as when”). Note that Vygotsky doesn’t manage to discuss the neurological system in this lecture. The next and final lecture in this book concerns the neurological system. This suggests that Vygotsky is speaking ex tempore and very often plans to cover more in a single lecture than he actually does.
- 2.
Arthur Biedl (1869–1933) was a Hungarian pathologist, considered the founder of modern endocrinology. He demonstrated that many diverse syndromes such as polydactyly (many-fingeredness), hypogonadism (interrupted puberty), and retinitis pigmentosa (tunnel vision) are related to endocrine imbalances of various kinds. Vygotsky uses Biedl’s study of the development of the endocrine system in his own theory for periodizing adolescence in Pedology of the Adolescent (1929).
- 3.
Vygotsky uses the term “vegetative” in distinction to “animal”—that is, functions like respiration, metabolism, and growth which we share with plants as opposed to functions like volition, mobility, and sociality that we share with animals.
- 4.
Vygotsky is right that puberty does not simply start with the maturation of the sexual glands. But while thyroid function and thyroid volume do increase during puberty, the hyperfunctioning of the thyroid doesn’t seem to play an important instigating role. The accepted explanation today is that it is the hypothalamus, not the thyroid, which releases GnRH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone). This in turn stimulates the pituitary to emit hormones which begin the process in the gonads.
- 5.
Note that this paragraph only gives one “page” in the three pages of the great drama of puberty described by Biedl: first, the struggle between the sexual glands on the one hand and the thyroid and pituitary on the other. Second, the production of “vegetative” changes (e.g. changes in sleep, changes in appetite, appearance of pubic hair, breasts, menstrual periods in girls, and ejaculation of semen in boys). Third, the “withering away” of one set of glands has been displaced by another. The second and third pages follow in the immediately following paragraphs.
- 6.
Primary hypothyroidism means that the thyroid is functioning below normal level and the problem is with the thyroid itself (secondary hypothyroidism means that the thyroid is functioning below normal level, but the poor performance is caused by some other organ, e.g. the pituitary).
- 7.
Vygotsky uses величина, literally “magnitude” in English. The meaning is the value, the variable, but the literal translation “magnitude” better captures Vygotsky’s idea of relative specific gravity, so we are leaving it in this somewhat un-English form and (once again) asking the reader to think in a somewhat writerly, Russian, manner.
- 8.
Korotaeva inserts the word выводами (conclusions, findings) as a direct object here (2001: 121).
- 9.
Vygotsky uses the word доминант (“the dominant”, i.e. the dominating source of stimuli in a group of competing stimuli). Sherrington had noted that when stimuli compete, there appear to be some which dominate, but he simply compared this to a funnel, where the order of emergence is not predetermined. In contrast, Ukhtomsky, in replicating Pavlovian experiments with cats, noted that a cat on the verge of defecation could not be stopped with an electric shock, and in fact, the shock seemed to increase cat output. He theorized that the dominant was situation sensitive and then theorized that it was sensitive to the social situation of development as well, e.g. an infant cannot be distracted from nursing, but a toddler can (Ukhtomsky was a devout Christian and thought that the highest “dominant” was the recognition of the needs of others). Here Vygotsky takes Ukhtomsky’s idea still further, applying it not to stimuli but to the underlying systems. See Hardcastle (2005) for a fuller account.
- 10.
When Vygotsky refers to “all three of the aspects”, he apparently means the law of disproportionality, the law of alternating epochs of evolution and involution, and a law of reciprocal stimulation and suppression. As we’ve seen, the different glands of the endocrines system develop at different rates, with the thymus developing early and the sexual glands late. We have also seen that certain glands evolve, while others wither away. Finally, we’ve seen that the rise of one gland can instigate and even necessitate the decline of another. In this way, the development of the endocrine system demonstrates all three laws introduced at the beginning.
- 11.
Korotaeva (2001: 124) inserts the word обуславливают (“stipulate”, “determine”, “decree”) in square brackets. Vygotsky has “pubertas praecox’” in the original Latin, misspelt as pubertas ргаесех (2001: 123). He was an artful lecturer, keenly appreciated by his students. He is doing more than drawing a final conclusion here. He is planting the seed for his differentiation of the lower and higher nervous system in the next lecture (and of course the higher nervous system is the physiological basis of the higher, sociocultural, psychological functions that are specific to humans).
But why does Vygotsky consider that the sexual glands are “higher” glands within the endocrine system? It cannot simply be that they are late developing, since that would make his final conclusion here circular. But the fact that the sexual glands are late developing does show us that they are not immediately necessary for life the way that, for example, glands that regulate metabolism are. So, they are functionally higher.
They are also far more differentiated. Not only do the sexual glands involve many organs and many systems (including, of course, the nervous system), they are actually differentiated between people. And since differentiation is always a sign of higher development, Vygotsky considers them to be a higher part of the endocrine system.
- 12.
Vygotsky begins by saying that contrary to both biologistic and intellectualistic accounts of development, the endocrine system is not a homunculus driving development down a track (able to go faster and slower but not change direction). On the one hand, the endocrine system is itself driven, both by external forces and by other systems within the body. And on the other, the direction of development can and does change. Vygotsky accounts for these two points by the concept of mutual dependency, and he illustrates this mutual dependency using the endocrine system and the nervous system. The first part of this paragraph, then, illustrates the dependency of the nervous system on the endocrine system, and the second part of the paragraph illustrates the dependency of the endocrine system on the nervous system.
Vygotsky is probably referring to the work of Ceni (1931). As Vygotsky says, he was the foremost expert in this field of his day. He started as the director of the institute of psychiatry in Reggio Emilia, and then became a professor at the University of Modena and the University of Cagliari, before moving to Bologna. Ceni is the source of much of what Vygotsky says in the next lecture about the “upward transfer” of functions to the cortex. Ceni believed that basic sensorimotor perceptions were not only represented in but actually controlled by the cortex.
- 13.
“Maslow” does not refer to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (who created the idea of a pyramid of hierarchically ordered needs crowned by self-actualization) but rather to the Russian paediatrician, Mikhail Stepanovich Maslov: Маслов, Михаил Степанович (1885–1961). He published clinical lectures on childhood illness in 1924, and Vygotsky cites him in his work on belly button formation in neonates (1998: 214).
- 14.
In chemistry, “specific gravity” refers to the relationship between the weight of one substance and some reference substance (usually water). So if the specific gravity of something is more than one, it sinks; if less than one, it floats. Vygotsky says that the “specific gravity” of gland changes. So the specific gravity of the pituitary gland is more than the sexual glands before puberty and less afterwards. But he also says that the specific gravity of gland changes with respect to itself. So the specific gravity of the pituitary gland after puberty when it is “withering away” is less than the specific gravity of the pituitary gland before puberty.
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Vygotsky, L.S. (2019). The General Laws of Physical Development in the Child: The Endocrine System. In: L. S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works. Perspectives in Cultural-Historical Research, vol 7. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0528-7_6
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