All human thinking is culturally organized. It takes place through mediating devices—signs, general heuristics, etc.,—and makes use of value-embedded beliefs and superstitions for guiding the mental processes. For the perspective of cultural psychology thinking is a higher psychological process where personal subjectivity of experience is constantly negotiated with societal norm systems. Human social surroundings for human thinking are purposefully suggestive—guiding the person toward some ways of feeling and thinking, and away from others. This guidance is accomplished by a great variety of meaning-organization tools. Proverbs, myths and counter-myths, fairy tales, supported by different social representations—all set up the social texture for human thinking. Thinking is guided both internally (through externalization of the person’s understanding of how to frame the here-and-now setting) and externally—some external social agent suggesting and demanding how the person might, should, or just must—think. Abduction here takes precedence over induction and deduction. The highly valued “freedom of thought” is a negotiated settlement, rather than a philosophical given. It operates in a social world filled with collective irrationalities (Moghaddam, 2025) which renders the variety of logics in thinking vulnerable to societal agendas. The richness’ of personal experiences in the World renders societies as necessarily collectively irrational. This brings with it both human suffering and creativity. Human innovations in any fields of activity need to be based on non-logic—breaking through the social conventions into new inventions.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Thinking as a Cultural Process

  • Jaan Valsiner

摘要

All human thinking is culturally organized. It takes place through mediating devices—signs, general heuristics, etc.,—and makes use of value-embedded beliefs and superstitions for guiding the mental processes. For the perspective of cultural psychology thinking is a higher psychological process where personal subjectivity of experience is constantly negotiated with societal norm systems. Human social surroundings for human thinking are purposefully suggestive—guiding the person toward some ways of feeling and thinking, and away from others. This guidance is accomplished by a great variety of meaning-organization tools. Proverbs, myths and counter-myths, fairy tales, supported by different social representations—all set up the social texture for human thinking. Thinking is guided both internally (through externalization of the person’s understanding of how to frame the here-and-now setting) and externally—some external social agent suggesting and demanding how the person might, should, or just must—think. Abduction here takes precedence over induction and deduction. The highly valued “freedom of thought” is a negotiated settlement, rather than a philosophical given. It operates in a social world filled with collective irrationalities (Moghaddam, 2025) which renders the variety of logics in thinking vulnerable to societal agendas. The richness’ of personal experiences in the World renders societies as necessarily collectively irrational. This brings with it both human suffering and creativity. Human innovations in any fields of activity need to be based on non-logic—breaking through the social conventions into new inventions.