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The Heart of the Matter. Ilyenkov, Vygotsky and the Courage of Thought

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Published Apr 2023

David Bakhurst

Author: David Bakhurst
The Heart of the Matter explores the legacies of Ilyenkov and Vygotsky, two Russian thinkers who marshalled their passion for truth, enlightenment and independent thought to understand the human mind, not for the sake of knowledge alone, but to help create the conditions in which human flourishing can become a reality for all. The book renders their theories intelligible against the dramatic social and historical background in which they lived and worked, bringing their ideas into dialogue with themes and thinkers in Western philosophy to reveal how they illuminate philosophical issues of enduring significance.

Biographical Note

David Bakhurst, D.Phil (1989), Oxford University, is George Whalley Distinguished University Professor at Queen’s University, Canada. His writings include Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy (Cambridge, 1991) and The Formation of Reason (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Readership

Scholars, researchers and students in philosophy (especially history of philosophy, philosophical psychology, philosophy of education, epistemology and metaphysics), psychology (especially history of psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental and cultural psychology), Russian and Soviet Studies, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1 Beginnings

1 The Riddle of the Self Revisited

2 Social Being and the Human Essence: A Dialogue with F.T. Mikhailov, V.S. Bibler, V.A. Lektorsky, and V.V. Davydov

3 Social Memory in Soviet Thought

4 The Meshcheryakov Experiment: Soviet Work on the Education of Blind–Deaf Children

Part 2 Ilyenkov

5 Punks versus Zombies: Evald Ilyenkov and the Battle for Soviet Philosophy

6 Meaning, Normativity, and the Life of the Mind

7 Ilyenkov, Education, and Philosophy

8 Ilyenkov on Aesthetics: Realism, Imagination, and the End of Art

9 Ilyenkov’s Hegel

Part 3 Vygotsky

10 Vygotsky’s Demons

11 On the Concept of Mediation

12 Vygotsky’s Concept of Perezhivanie: Its Philosophical and Educational Significance

Part 4 Contemporary Applications

13 Memory, Identity, and the Future of Cultural Psychology

14 Minds, Brains, and Education

15 Reflections on Activity Theory

16 Activity and the Search for True Materialism

17 Activity, Action, and Self-Consciousness

18 Freedom and Second Nature in The Formation of Reason

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Bibliography
Index