Lecture 13. Language and Consciousness

摘要

In my previous lecture, I focused on two propositions. The first is that, with the transition to a human society based on labor, fundamental changes in the structure of activity take place. They consist primarily in the fact that in activity, the processes directed at the attainment of expected results, that is, goal-oriented processes, are singled out because the goal constitutes a representation of the result that must be attained. Thus, in activity a new "moment," or a new "formative" is separated out in the form of goal-oriented actions. Historically, the emergence of goal-oriented processes-of actions-in activity, was a consequence of the transition to a society based on labor. The activity of participants in a joint collective is stimulated by the product of this labor, which initially meets the needs of each of them. However, the simplest technical division of labor that arises during the first steps in the development of collective labor activity necessarily leads to the identification of what might be called intermediate results, partial results, attained by individual participants in the collective labor activity, but which, by themselves, are not able to satisfy their needs. Their need is satisfied not by these "intermediate" results, but by a share in the product of their joint activity received by every one of them due to the strength of the relationships that emerge in the process of labor that bind them together-that is, social relationships.