Causal Explanation Does Not Compromise

Vygotsy, known as the Mozart in psychological circles, is one of the most important psychologists in the 20th century. The purpose of his life-time research is to establish a "scientific psychology", which insists upon the principle of causality and intends to explain consistently, ie, using only one kind of principles, all the human psychological phenomena which include reason,will,emotions and so on.Vygotsky thinks that the main contradiction which is embodied in the crisis of modern psychology is the confront between the problem of explanation and the one of description. And in order to understand such a crisis, we must begin with exploring the philosophical foundation which lies under the overall historical development of modern psychology.Vygotsky begins his philosophical exploration with an historical retrospection of theories of emotions. After a retrospective research of the James-Lange Theory, the Cannon-Bard Theory, Descartes' philosophy and Spinoza's philosophy, which represent Vygotsky's own philosophical idea, Vygotsky finds the origin of the crisis of modern psychology in the philosophy of Descartes' and he is inspired to escape from the dilemma of Descartes' dualism and get out of the crisis of modern psychology by Spinoza's philosophy. With such a research, Vygotsky diagnoses the pathogeny of earlier theories of emotioins and tries to succeed in explaining human emotions in his scientific way.In order to explain more adequately the function of human emotions, consulting some experimental fruits which are gained by modern psychologists, Vygotsky studies the phenomena of emotions creatively in the point view of "psychological structure", which is composed by many layers, understanding,will and other factors included. Vygosky insists in using one kind of causal principles to explain this structure. And in this new scientific constructive activities, the human behavior which is guided by "language thought" is counted as the final cause to explain the function of emotions. It is just because Vygotsky finds the role of "language-thought" to shape the human mentality that he can combines his research of human emotions with his famous theory of human language-thought. Vygotsky always insists upon using a sole principle of causality to explain human emotions and other related psychological activities, and we can consider his research of human advanced psychological function-human language-thought-as the natural effect of such an effort to establish a scientific psychology.The theory of language-thought is a theory of social culture and history, It claims that human mentality develops in the process of human practical activity facing nature and the intercourse in the society; in this process, the language, which is taken as the instrument of human intercourse, experiences an process of internalization from the social culture into human individual mentality. It is just because the thought which is combined by the language takes the most important role in human psychological activity that human advanced psychological functions can be different from animals'. This advanced psychological function of human beings' which is characteristic of language-thought experiences different stages for development in the process of the interaction between human individuals and the environment. Such a historical introspection of the developing process of human individual advanced psychological functions can show adequately the essence of the development of concepts which lie in the core-position of human thoughts. We think that such a psychological theory can also help us to solve some important problems of philosophy.