September 13, 2023, a theoretical seminar "Nurture and nature: lessons from the Zagorsk experiment" was held at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Speaker: Maidansky Andrey Dmitrievich, Professor of the Department of Philosophy of the Belgorod State National Research University, Associate Researcher of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Summary:
The report highlights the problem of the formation of human personality based on an experiment involving deaf-blind children. L.S. Vygotsky argued that experimental work with deaf-blind children makes it possible to reveal the patterns of upbringing of an ordinary child, just as the artificial synthesis of chemical substances in laboratory conditions makes it possible to understand the processes of their formation in nature. According to E.V. Ilyenkov and A.I. Meshcheryakova, the Zagorsk experiment proved that personality arises in the process of “business communication,” or jointly shared activity related to cultural objects. At the same time, the personality itself is understood as an “ensemble of social relations” (Marx), internalized or turned into the body and psyche of the individual. The report discusses the strengths and weaknesses of this interpretation of the experiment.