A Possible Source of the Final Piece of Vygotsky’s Thinking and Speech

Abstract

Vygotsky’s final statement in Thinking and Speech (‘Consciousness is reflected in the word like the sun is reflected in a droplet of water’) appears to echo a similar analogy used in 1913 by the philosopher and poet Vjačeslav I. Ivanov. The influence of Russian culture at the beginning of the nineteenth century on Vygotsky’s thought should deserve a more in-depth analysis.