Heart of the Matter

David Bakhurst is George Whalley Distinguished University Professor at Queen's University, Canada. His writings include Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy and The Formation of Reason. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

• PrefacePart 1 Beginnings1 The Riddle of the Self Revisited2 Social Being and the Human Essence: A Dialogue with F.T. Mikhailov, V.S. Bibler, V.A. Lektorsky, and V.V. Davydov3 Social Memory in Soviet Thought4 The Meshcheryakov Experiment: Soviet Work on the Education of Blind–Deaf ChildrenPart 2 Ilyenkov5 Punks versus Zombies: Evald Ilyenkov and the Battle for Soviet Philosophy6 Meaning, Normativity, and the Life of the Mind7 Ilyenkov, Education, and Philosophy8 Ilyenkov on Aesthetics: Realism, Imagination, and the End of Art9 Ilyenkov’s HegelPart 3 Vygotsky10 Vygotsky’s Demons11 On the Concept of Mediation12 Vygotsky’s Concept of Perezhivanie: Its Philosophical and Educational SignificancePart 4 Contemporary Applications13 Memory, Identity, and the Future of Cultural Psychology14 Minds, Brains, and Education15 Reflections on Activity Theory16 Activity and the Search for True Materialism17 Activity, Action, and Self-Consciousness18 Freedom and Second Nature in The Formation of ReasonPermissionsBibliographyIndex

“At a time when the masters of Big Tech and far-right authoritarians seek to swamp the world with alt-truth and destroy humanist, objective forms of thought and education, taking forward the work of [Ilyenkov and Vygotsky] is vital.”—Corinna Lotz, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books