Abstract
This paper reconstructs L.S. Vygotsky’s account of anthropogenesis with respect to the work of anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan and late philosopher Bernard Stiegler, situating Vygotsky as a forerunner to recent theories that posit cultural scaffolding and niche construction as the main drivers of human cognitive evolution. One might think there is an immediate affinity between Vygotsky and the techno-centric accounts of Leroi-Gourhan and Stiegler. Following Leroi-Gourhan, Stiegler argues that “technics” is the main driver in the anthropogenic development of “reflective consciousness.” Vygotsky likewise claims that “psychological tools” are responsible for the development of uniquely human forms of consciousness. However, closer inspection reveals deep disparities between Vygotsky and the French thinkers. In Stiegler’s philosophical redeployment of Leroi-Gourhan’s anthropology, “reflective” cognition is the product of a prehistorical rupture in which some threshold of technical-cortical complexification is breached. For Vygotsky, on the other hand, the inverse scenario obtains. Technical development initially proceeds in tandem with the complexification of biologically based signaling behavior until the introduction of signs, which then radically restructure the cognitive apparatus. Due to inconsistencies regarding the equivalency of the technical and semiotic in Stiegler and Leroi-Gourhan, I advance a Vygotskian account where anthropogenesis is the result of semiotic rather than technical intervention. This aims to establish Vygotsky’s “Cultural Historical” approach, and the Marxian-dialectical tradition from which he draws, as not only presaging recent naturalistic accounts of development, but offering a relevant theoretical program that may continue to inspire contemporary enculturated accounts of anthropogenesis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Code availability
Not applicable.
Notes
For Leroi-Gourhan, reflective intelligence is that “which not only grasps the relationship between different phenomena but is capable of externalizing a symbolic representation of that relationship” (1993, p. 107). It is opposed to merely “technical intelligence” that is still partially determined by instinct (Stiegler, 1998, p. 162).
The only reference, to my knowledge, is in Stiegler’s recent The Neganthropocene (2018, p. 87), where Vygotsky gets a single mention in the context of a discussion of “mental intermediaries” (signs, tools, writing, and other cultural technologies) and their role in the formation of intersubjective meaning. Here, Vygotsky’s notion of mediation in ontogenesis is taken as a precursor to Gilbert Simondon’s idea of the “transindividual” (1992). Stiegler, however, fails to appreciate Vygotsky’s distinction between internally and externally directed tools, which contribute to the phylogenetic development of two discrete psychological systems. This second point is explained later in this paper.
For Leroi-Gourhan, “Arcanthropians” followed “Zinjanthropians” (Paranthropus boisei) and preceded the “Paleoanthropians” (Homo neanderthalensis) and Neanthropians (Homo sapiens). In this paper I follow Ingold’s (2013) reclassification of Leroi-Gourhan’s idiosyncratic term “Arcanthropian” as Homo erectus.
That non-human animals have foresight is not a terribly original proposition in the history of philosophy. Aristotle suggests as much in De Anima iii.3 (Barnes, 1984), as does Hobbes (1994) in Chapter III of Leviathan. A recent, more sophisticated, defense of the claim is Tomasello (2014), who argues that making use of schematized perceptual data, and thus engaging in “abstract” cognition, is an ability not unique to humans. Individually intentional great apes, according to Tomasello, make both social and practical inferences, but do so on the basis of competition rather than cooperation.
The “miraculous” need not be Biblically ordained. Chomsky, for instance, argues that that natural language emerged from an internal “language of thought” with no “direct reference to the outside world” and thus “emerged from some single and singular event causing a rewiring… of the brain” (Corballis, 2011, p. xii).
This means that, for Stiegler, ape “tools” are not manufactured and are merely found objects that serve a functional role in the acquisition of a goal (or simply “afford” to be used in such a manner). To the point that that they are discarded after each use, Vygotsky (1997b) would agree. This position is controversial, however. See Bräuer & Call (2015) for the converse. For a supporting account, see Vaesen (2012) and the peer commentary of Cachel (2012).
The “activity” model Stiegler has in mind stipulates that, fundamentally, language functions to coordinate social activity and that word meaning is grounded on such activity rather than some mechanism of reference or correspondence (Winograd & Flores, 1986, p. 17).
Vygotsky is referring here to the work of Kurt Koffka (1921), which he addresses at length in “The Problem of Development in Structural Psychology” (Vygotsky, 1997b)—his preface to the Russian translation of Koffka’s Die grundlagen der psychischen entwicklung (1921). There Vygotsky points out that Koffka, while surely correct in labeling chimpanzee tool use as somewhere in between instinctual and volitional, mischaracterizes it as intelligent behavior of the same type as shown in humans. The difference for Vygotsky, which Köhler as much points out (1925, 1929), must be sought in the planning function specific to humans only. And for Vygotsky, this comes about only through the mediation of signs.
According to Köhler, chimpanzees are capable of “insight” [Einsicht] in that they can solve a technical problem “once and for all” with the “appearance of a complex solution with reference to the whole layout of the field” (Köhler, 1925, p. 190).
In the semiology put forth in Vygotsky’s notebooks, to have the capacity to be an “interpretant” of a relevant aspect of a situation is common occurrence in the animal kingdom. Under this view, the behavior of cats, dogs, anthropoid apes, and Homo sapiens is symbolically mediated. However, in the extant editions of his 1930 Tool and Sign in the Development of the Child, Vygotsky treats the introduction of symbolic operations into the field of activity as something specifically human and integral in the formation of “any intentions” whatsoever, i.e., “in creating free action independent of the direct situation” (Vygotsky, 1999, p. 36). Still, we should not take Vygotsky’s apparent shift in terminology to indicate a collapse in the distinction between symbol and sign. In the 1930 account (which is quoted in Sect. 2.2 above), whatever Vygotsky means by “symbolic” corresponds to what in his 1926 sketch is reserved for the higher mental functions of sign users.
Bücher (1899) does describe several methods of rhythmic-tonal tool use, though Vygotsky’s example of the “clicking stick”—which he claims is found “On the islands of Borneo and Celebes” seems to be a confabulation. The Russian version of Vygotsky’s text does not include quotation marks (Kellogg & Yasnitsky, 2011), and is most likely being recollected from memory.
As Wagoner (2011) points out, Vygotsky has a conservative notion of memory, operating under the traditional “storehouse model.” While philosophers as far back as Plotinus have taken issue with such a passive and monocausal account of memorialization as “impression” and memory as “retrieval” (see Ennead IV.6 in MacKenna, 1992), the “storehouse model” was still favored by a host of early twentieth century psychologists. Most notable was Ebbinghaus, whose associationist theories of learning Vygotsky cites approvingly with respect to infant development (e.g., Vygotsky, 1998). It does not seem that Vygotsky was aware of Bartlett’s (1932) groundbreaking research which “provided a radical alternative to Ebbinhaus” (Wagoner 2011, p. 107)—even though, being published in 1932, it was in theory accessible to Vygotsky. Suffice to say, Vygotsky betrays a rather naïve understanding of memory formation, which most contemporary researchers today claim is plastic, reconstructive, and involves active pattern-completion (Campbell, 2004).
Vygotsky obviously follows Marx and Engels (1978) in centralizing the role of “objectifying” activity in the emergence of the human species. But Vygotsky especially prioritizes Engels (1946), who posits that concomitant to objectification is the emergence of socialized communication. In Vygotsky’s reading of Engels, joint activity in labor gives rise to the variegation and differentiation of vocalized and embodied acts of signification from once animal acts of signalization. The emergence of signs, in conjunction with tool use and objectification, provides the intersubjective platform from which the cognitive capacities of proto-sapiens can develop into those of Homo sapiens. See also Vygotsky (1997c, p. 182).
For Anderson, “neural reuse” explains how “neural circuits established for one purpose [are] exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and [] put to different uses, often without losing their original functions” (2010, p. 245). See Anderson (2014) for more on neural reuse and brain functions, especially Sect. 1.2.1–1.2.5. Regarding the effects of culture on such neural “exaptation,” Vygotsky’s position is close to Farina’s (2016) recent account of “dynamic enskillment,” which takes cortical structures to be radically malleable and sensitive to cultural learning at all phases in a subject’s development (i.e., not just in early childhood).
In more recent work, Sterelny opts for “hominin” instead of “hominid.” But in this passage, he is still referring to what he later explains those “descendants in our branch of the last common ancestor of humans and chimps” (2012, 199).
References
Anderson, M. (2010). Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(4), 245–266.
Anderson, M. (2014). After phrenology. MIT Press.
Audouze, F. (2002). Leroi-Gourhan, a philosopher of technique and evolution. Journal of Archaeological Research, 10(4), 277–306.
Barnes, J. (Ed.). (1984). The complete works of Aristotle. Princeton University Press.
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press.
Bergson, H. (1911). Creative evolution (A. Mitchell, Trans.). Henry Holt and Company.
Bickerton, D. (1998). Catastrophic evolution: The case for a single step from protolanguage to full human language. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy, & C. Knight (Eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language (pp. 341–358). Cambridge University Press.
Bräuer, J., & Call, J. (2015). Apes produce tools for future use. American Journal of Primatology, 77(3), 254–263. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22341
Bücher, K. (1899). Arbeit und Rhythmus. B. G. Teubner. http://archive.org/details/arbeitundrhythm00bcgoog
Cachel, S. (2012). Human tool behavior is species-specific and remains unique. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 222.
Campbell, S. (2004). Models of minds and memory activities. In P. DesAutels & M. U. Walker (Eds.), Moral psychology: Feminist ethics and social theory (pp. 119–137). Rowman & Littlefield.
Caporael, L. R., Griesemer, J. R., & Wimsatt, W. C. (2014). Develo** scaffolds: An introduction. In L. R. Caporael, J. R. Griesemer, & W. C. Wimsatt (Eds.), Develo** scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition (pp. 1–20). MIT Press.
Carruthers, P. (1996). Language, thought and consciousness. Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and problems of knowledge. MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (2012). The science of language: Interviews with James McGilvray. Cambridge University Press.
Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence. Oxford University Press.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.
Corballis, M. C. (2011). The recursive mind: The origins of human language, thought, and civilization. Princeton University Press.
Crogan, P. (2010). Bernard Stiegler: Philosophy, technics, and activism. Cultural Politics, 6(2), 133–156. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174310X12672016548162
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Little Brown and Company.
Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind. Harvard University Press.
Engels, F. (1946). The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man. In C. Dutt (Ed. & Trans.), Dialectics of nature (pp. 279–296). Lawrence & Wishart.
Farina, M. (2016). Three approaches to human cognitive development: Neo-nativism, neuroconstructivism, and dynamic enskillment. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 67(2), 617–641. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axu026
Forest, D. (2014). Neuroconstructivism: A developmental turn in cognitive neuroscience? In C. T. Wolfe (Ed.), Brain theory (pp. 68–87). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230369580_5
Heidegger, M. (2006). Sein und Zeit. Max Niemeyer.
Hobbes, T. (1994). Leviathan (E. Curley, Ed.). Hackett.
Hutchins, E. (2011). Enculturating the supersized mind. Philosophical Studies, 152(3), 437–446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9599-8
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.
Iriki, A., & Taoka, M. (2012). Triadic (ecological, neural, cognitive) niche construction: A scenario of human brain evolution extrapolating tool use and language from the control of reaching actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1585), 10–23. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0190
Johnson, C. (2013). The prehistory of technology: On the contribution of Leroi-Gourhan. In C. Howells & G. Moore (Eds.), Stiegler and technics (pp. 34–52). Edinburgh University Press.
Kellogg, D., & Yasnitsky, A. (2011). The differences between the Russian and English texts of tool and symbol in child development. Supplementary and analytic materials. PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 98–158.
Koffka, K. (1921). Die Grundlagen der psychischen Entwicklung: Eine Einführung in die Kinderpsychologie [the fundmentals of psychological development: An introduction to child psychology]. A. W. Zickfeldt. http://archive.org/details/b29818965
Köhler, W. (1925). The mentality of apes (E. Winter, Trans.). Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company. http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187610
Köhler, W. (1929). La perception humaine [Human perception]. Journal De Psychologie, 27, 5–30.
Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky’s psychology: A biography of ideas. Harvard University Press.
Laland, K., Matthews, B., & Feldman, M. W. (2016). An introduction to niche construction theory. Evolutionary Ecology, 30, 191–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-016-9821-z
Leontyev, A. N. (1977). Activity and consciousness. In R. Daglish (Trans.), Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of dialectical materialism (pp. 180–202). Progress Publishers.
Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1993). Gesture and speech (R. White, Trans.). MIT Press.
Luria, A. R. (1966). Higher cortical functions in man (B. Haigh, Trans.). Basic Books.
MacKenna, S. (Ed.). (1992). Plotinus: The enneads. Larson Publications.
Malafouris, L. (2013). In How things shape the mind: A theory of material engagement. MIT Press.
Malafouris, L. (2012). Prosthetic gestures: How the tool shapes the mind. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 230–231. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X11001919
Marx, K. (1965). Pre-capitalist economic formations (E. Hobsbawm, Ed., J. Cohen, Trans.). International Publishers.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1978). The German ideology: Part 1. In R. C. Tucker (Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader. Norton.
Menary, R., & Gillett, A. (2022). The tools of enculturation. Topics in Cognitive Science, 14(2), 363–387. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12604
Miller, R. (2011). Vygotsky in perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Mithen, S. (1996). The prehistory of mind. Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Moore, G. (2017). On the origin of aisthesis by means of artificial selection; or, the preservation of favored traces in the struggle for existence. Boundary 2, 44(1), 191–212. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-3725941
Progovac, L. (2019). Sudden (saltationist) approaches to language evolution. In L. Progovac (Ed.), A critical introduction to language evolution: Current controversies and future prospects (pp. 15–29). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03235-7_2
Simondon, G. (1992). The genesis of the individual (M. Cohen & S. Kwinter, Trans.) In J. Crary & S. Kwinter (Eds.), Incorporations (pp. 297–319). Zone Books.
Sinha, C. (2015). Language and other artifacts: Socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(1601), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01601
Sperber, D. (2000). Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective. In D. Sperber (Ed.), Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective (pp. 219–234). Oxford University Press.
Sterelny, K. (2003). Thought in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition. Blackwell.
Sterelny, K. (2010). Minds: Extended or scaffolded? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9174-y
Sterelny, K. (2012). The evolved apprentice: How evolution made humans unique. MIT.
Sterelny, K. (2018). Culture and the extended phenotype: Cognition and material culture in deep time. In A. Newen, L. de Bruin, & S. Gallagher (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition (pp. 773–791). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.013.41
Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time: The fault of Epimetheus (R. Beardsworth & G. Collins, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
Stiegler, B. (2009). Technics and time, 2: Disorientation (S. Barker, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
Stiegler, B. (2018). The neganthropocene (D. Ross, Trans.). Open Humanities Press.
Sutton, J. (2015). Scaffolding memory: Themes, taxonomies, puzzles. In C. Stone & L. Bietti (Eds.), Contextualizing human memory: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding how individuals and groups remember the past (pp. 187–206). Taylor and Francis.
Theiner, G., & Drain, C. (2017). What’s the matter with cognition? A ‘Vygotskian’ perspective on material engagement theory. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 16(5), 837–862. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-016-9482-y
Tomasello, M. (2014). A natural history of human thinking. MIT Press.
Vaesen, K. (2012). The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X11001452
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997d). On psychological systems. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 3, 91–107. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997e). Psychology and the theory of the localization of mental functions. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 3, 139–144. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997c). Preface to Köhler. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 3, 175–194. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The history of the development of the higher mental functions. In R. W. Rieber, (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 4, 1–259. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997b). The problem of development in structural psychology. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 3, 195–232. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1998). The crisis of the first year. In R. W. Rieber, (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 5, 243–259. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1999). Tool and sign in the development of the child. In R. W. Rieber, (Ed.) & M. J. Hall, (Trans.) The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, 6, 3–68. Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L.S., Luria, A., Knox, J. E., & Golod, V. I. (2016). Studies on the history of behavior: Ape, primitive, and child. Routledge.
Vygotsky, L. S. (2018). From the Zakharino hospital. In E. Zavershneva & R. van der Veer (Eds.), Vygotsky’s notebooks: A selection 71–106. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4625-4
Vygotsky, L. S. (2012). Thought and language (revised and expanded edition). MIT Press.
Wagoner, B. (2011). Meaning construction in remembering: A synthesis of Bartlett and Vygotsky. In P. Stenner, J. Cromby, J. Motzkau, & J. Yen (Eds.), Theoretical psychology: Global transformations and challenges (pp. 105–114). Captus Press.
Winograd, T., & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Ablex Publishing.
Woolfson, C. (2010). The labour theory of culture: A re-examination of Engel’s theory of human origins. Routledge.
Yamagata-Lynch, L. C. (2010). Activity systems analysis methods: Understanding complex learning environments. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6321-5
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Amrit Mandzak-Heer, Charlie Strong, and Georg Theiner for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Funding
No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Not applicable.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interests
None.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Drain, C. Technics and signs: anthropogenesis in Vygotsky, Leroi-Gourhan, and Stiegler. HPLS 44, 53 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-022-00539-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-022-00539-2