The The River of my Hamlet and Sakharov's Blocks - Formation of everyday and scientific concepts in Vygotsky's "Thought and Language"

Abstract

Among the higher mental functions studied by L.  S. Vygotsky  (LSV),  the  concept  formation has been awakening the most vivid interest in psychology  and  education  in  Brazil  since  the 70’s.     This     theoretical     article     aims     to present/systematize a didactic synthesis of the concept  formation  as  it  is  presented  in  LSV ́s book  "Thought  and  Language"  (1934).  This book reports collaborative research carried out by its author together with L. Sakharov and J. Shif.  The  present  paper  gives  priority  to  the presentation  and  discussion  of  examples  by Vygotsky, as well as elaborated by the authors of  this  work,  when  necessary  to  clarify  LSV ́s ideas. We address the following issues set out in   "Thought   and   Language":   (1)   research program developed;   (2)   the   nature   of   the concept formation, and the generalization as a meeting point between thought and language; (3)     the     strenghts     and     weaknesses     of Sakharov’s  method  in  the  study  of  "artificial concepts",  in  addition  to  its  contributions  to the definition  of  stages  (sincrets [sinkretov] complexes [kompleksov] and concepts [poniatii]) and phases of concept formation; (4) the   formation   of   everyday   and   scientific concepts  as  a  single  process,  despite  their similarities    and    differences.    We    briefly connect     Sakharov ́s     results     with     Shif’s research on "real concepts".