A.R.Amistad
29th July 2010, 22:07
I've always thought that Ivan Pavlov's contributions to psychology were quite a breakthrough, and were rooted in materialism. One of my new heroes in the realm of psychology, Lev Vygotsky, seems to have been influenced by Pavlov as much as Marx. I read a funny little personal story about Pavlov's rocky and somewhat whining-childish relationship with the Bolsheviks:
Pavlov's relationship with the Bolsheviks after the Revolution is of considerable interest. On the one hand, Pavlov was soneone totally focussed on his science, but with a passionate commitment to pursuit of truth and a concern for precision and professionalism in his work which bordered on the obsessive; on the other hand, the Bolsheviks valued the rich inheritance of science from the old order, where science was the only way open to an ordinary citizen into high society, a practice which had created a scientific community superior to many in Western Europe. Conditions in Petrograd were desperate beyond belief by 1921-2, and Pavlov requested permission from Lenin to transfer his laboratory abroad. Lenin denied the request, and Pavlov refued personal privileges offered to him while his staff worked in near-starvation conditions. After returning from a visit to the US in 1923, he publicly denounced the Revolution, saying For the kind of social experiment that you are making, I would not sacrifice a frog's hind legs! After Stalin came to power in 1924, he resigned his post saying, I also am the son of a priest, and if you expel the others I will go too! See his Lecture on the Cerebral Hemisphere (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ru/pavlov.htm), from this period.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm
But of course this is just a personal story and has nothing really to do with his contributions.
Pavlov's relationship with the Bolsheviks after the Revolution is of considerable interest. On the one hand, Pavlov was soneone totally focussed on his science, but with a passionate commitment to pursuit of truth and a concern for precision and professionalism in his work which bordered on the obsessive; on the other hand, the Bolsheviks valued the rich inheritance of science from the old order, where science was the only way open to an ordinary citizen into high society, a practice which had created a scientific community superior to many in Western Europe. Conditions in Petrograd were desperate beyond belief by 1921-2, and Pavlov requested permission from Lenin to transfer his laboratory abroad. Lenin denied the request, and Pavlov refued personal privileges offered to him while his staff worked in near-starvation conditions. After returning from a visit to the US in 1923, he publicly denounced the Revolution, saying For the kind of social experiment that you are making, I would not sacrifice a frog's hind legs! After Stalin came to power in 1924, he resigned his post saying, I also am the son of a priest, and if you expel the others I will go too! See his Lecture on the Cerebral Hemisphere (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ru/pavlov.htm), from this period.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/p/a.htm
But of course this is just a personal story and has nothing really to do with his contributions.