L. S. Vygotsky and the Problem of Functional Localization

L. S. Vygotsky approached the problem of localizing mental functions from a well thought out, innovative viewpoint, which from the outset was opposed to the basic psychological and neurological tenets of the time. Vygotsky saw the way out of "the historical crisis of psychology" in a radical reappraisal of basic psychological concepts. The problem of localizing mental functions in the cerebral hemispheres underwent a period of acute crisis in the 1920s, reflecting to a large extent the general crisis in psychology. The idea of higher mental functions as social in origin, systematic in structure, and dynamic in development, which Vygotsky took as his starting point, naturally could not be contained in the patterns described: a new, radically reorganized approach to their cerebral localization was required. The study of systematic localization of higher mental functions thus removes the contradiction between the ideas of restricted localization and notions of the brain as a single entity.