Roth Wolff-Michael, Jornet Alfredo
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2019 Jun;53(2):323-343. doi: 10.1007/s12124-016-9376-0.
Mediation is one of the most often cited concepts in current cultural-historical theory literature, in which cultural actions and artifacts are often characterized as mediators standing between situational stimuli and behavioral responses. Most often presented as a means to overcome Cartesian dualism between subject and object, and between individual and society, some scholars have nonetheless raised criticism suggesting that such mediators are problematic for a dialectical psychology that takes a unit analysis (monist) approach. In fact, Spinoza develops a monist theory of mind and body that goes without and even excludes every form of mediation. In this study, we follow up on the latter criticisms and explore what we consider to be problematic uses of the notion of mediation as an analytical construct in the literature. We elaborate an empirically grounded discussion on the ways the concept of mediation may lead to dualistic readings; and we offer an alternative account where the notion of mediator is not needed. We conclude discussing prospects for and implications of a cultural-historical theory where the notion of mediation no longer is invoked to account for human action and development.
中介是当前文化历史理论文献中最常被引用的概念之一，在这些文献中，文化行为和人工制品常被描述为介于情境刺激和行为反应之间的中介。中介通常被视为克服主体与客体、个体与社会之间笛卡尔二元论的一种手段，然而，一些学者提出了批评，认为这种中介对于采用单元分析（一元论）方法的辩证心理学来说是有问题的。事实上，斯宾诺莎发展了一种身心一元论，它摒弃甚至排除了一切形式的中介。在本研究中，我们跟进了后者的批评，并探讨了我们认为文献中作为分析结构的中介概念的有问题的用法。我们详细阐述了基于实证的关于中介概念可能导致二元解读的方式的讨论；并且我们提供了一种不需要中介概念的替代解释。我们在讨论中总结了一种文化历史理论的前景和影响，在这种理论中，不再援引中介概念来解释人类行为和发展。
