Abstract
In the last fifteen years, new theoretical topics developed by different Soviet psychology authors in different moments of its development have been elucidated. Among these topics, Vygotsky’s concepts of perezhivanie and sense are particularly relevant because these signalised questions were not in focus in Soviet times; these concepts have remained in shadow for decades. These topics permit advancements in new psychological and complex systems, such as consciousness, personality and subjectivity , that are based on a new foundation. However, this advancement presupposes new epistemological and methodological challenges that, until today, have not been developed within this theoretical account. The present paper discusses the Qualitative Epistemology on which the basis of a constructive interpretative methodology is developed as a path for the study of subjectivity from a cultural–historical standpoint. This paper discusses one case study to make explicit the procedures that rule the construction of knowledge in this methodology.
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Notes
- 1.
This text originally was published by Vygotsky in 1928.
- 2.
In this paper, Epistemology is defined as the needs and qualities that theoretical construction demands for consideration as “valid” as knowledge. The Theory for us is a system that enables the generations of intelligibility about the studied subject of a question that has a cultural, subjective and historical character.
- 3.
Subjective senses are the symbolical emotional units within which one of these processes evokes the other without becoming its cause. These subjective senses represent the way in which the historical experiences of the person become present in a presently lived situation. The subjective configurations represent the organisation of these subjective senses that define the emotions and the general psychological states that are dominant in each human experience.
- 4.
Despite the fact that those concepts have been widely defined in my other works, we would like to point out that the subjective senses are the flux of the symbolic-emotional process that defined the subjective character of any human experience; meanwhile, the subjective configurations are the organisations that emerge on the course of that flux in the course of human experiences through which are defined the main subjective states that characterise any human relation or performance in a particular moment of its development. The subjective configurations characterise both the social and individual subjective processes in such a manner that during any individual action within one concrete social space subjective senses configured, simultaneously, reciprocally and differently in social and individual subjectivity.
- 5.
The study of the subjective configuration of obesity is one of our lines of research and psychotherapy related to health.
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González Rey, F., Mitjáns Martinez, A. (2017). Epistemological and Methodological Issues Related to the New Challenges of a Cultural–Historical-Based Psychology. In: Fleer, M., González Rey, F., Veresov, N. (eds) Perezhivanie, Emotions and Subjectivity. Perspectives in Cultural-Historical Research, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4534-9_10
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