224
29
The given facts fit readily in our physiological way of thinking. Our stimuli working from a distance
may rightly be termed and regarded as reflexes. When observing carefully it appears that the activity of
the salivary gland is always excited by some external phenomenon, i.e. that it is induced by external
stimuli like the usual physiological salivary reflex; only the second is evoked from the oral surface, the
first, however, from the eye or from the nose, etc. The difference between the two reflexes is firstly that
our old physiological reflex is constant, unconditioned, while the new reflex continually fluctuates and,
hence, is conditioned.
30
(...) tres conceptos fundamentales de nuestro estudio: el concepto de la función psíquica superior, el
concepto del desarrollo cultural de la conducta y el dominio de los propios procesos del comportamiento.
31
Materialist psychology requires us to do more than incorporate dialectical materialism’s basic tenets
into fundamental psychological problems or exemplify dialectical principles of concrete psychological
data: dialectical method must become the method of psychological analysis. In this sense, contemporary
psychology cannot rest content with simply interpreting its subject matter from the point of view of
dialectical data of old empirical psychology; it must actually study its material by means of dialectical
method, which must play the central role, dominating other, more specifics methods.
32
(...) la única aplicación legítima del marxismo en psicología sería la creación de una psicología general
cuyos conceptos se formulen en dependencia directa de la dialéctica general, porque esta psicología no
sería otra cosa que la dialéctica de la psicología; toda aplicación del marxismo a la psicología por otras
vías, o desde otros presupuestos, fuera de este planteamiento, conducirá inevitablemente a construcciones
escolásticas o verbalistas ya disolver la dialéctica en encuestas y tests; a razonar sobre las cosas
basándose en sus rasgos externos, casuales y secundarios; a la pérdida total e todo criterio objetivo y a
intentar negar todas las tendencias históricas en el desarrollo de la psicología; a una revolución
simplemente terminológica.
33
(…) the only path by which we can delve into the patterns of higher processes in sufficient depth (…)
34
[...] concrete experience is given to us twice, as it were: first, as unorganized, chaotic concreteness,
from which derive, in Marx’s words, the first frail abstractions, and second, experience as a concrete
reality standing at the end of the cognitive process, which has organized it, reconstructed it, and filled it
with its own content of a system of abstract concepts, i.e., theory.
35
Cualesquiera de los sistemas a que me refiero recorre tres etapas. Primero, la interpsicológica: yo
ordeno, usted lo ejecuta, después, la extrapsicológica: comienzo a decirme a mí mismo, y luego la
intrapsicológica: dos puntos del cerebro, que son estimulados desde fuera, tienen tendencia a actuar
dentro de un sistema único y se transforman en un punto intracortical.
36
(...) la naturaleza psíquica del hombre viene a ser un conjunto de relaciones sociales trasladadas al
interior y convertidas en funciones de la personalidad y en formas de su estructura.
37
Las formas inferiores no se aniquilan, sino se incluyen en la superior y continúan existiendo en ella
como instancia supeditada.
38
Thus, we have two methodological approaches to the study of memory: the one studies the
development of human memory by investigating and comparing its various forms, i.e., the various stages
in its development. The second studies the process of development itself, i.e., the transition from one form
to another, potentially contained in the preceding one, and the conditions enabling this transition, in
which new properties are acquired, to take place.
39
(...) modern man’s memory is the same product of his cultural, social development as his speech,
writing, or counting.
40
This memory is as direct as immediate perception with which it has not yet broken the direct
connection, and it arises from direct action of external impression on the person. From the point of view
of structure, the directness is the most important characteristic of the entire process as a whole, a