Retrospection and Perspective of Genetic Method
The author reviews L.S. Vygotsky's idea of mediated nature of higher mental functions taking into consideration the relativity of the concepts 'immediate' and 'mediate'. The origin of higher mental functions is characterised by different kinds of mediation. Once formed and developed, these functions become immediate, using natural (in Vygotsky's sense) mental forms. Associations can serve as one of such forms; in contrast to the classical understanding, they appear in the last phases of higher mental functions development (and not in the beginning and not due to any mechanistic laws). The author suggests 'extending' the genetic method so that it would include the analysis of the origin of immediate forms in a developed mind that functions, in particular, in form of associations.