ABSTRACT
Packer pointed out that when Vygotsky's works first appeared in English, cultural-historical psychologists observed a connection with Marx's analysis of capitalist society; however, before long, extensive mention of Marx's influence disappeared from their scholarship. In what follows, the author addresses specific features of Vygotsky's general methodological framework grounded in Marx's analytical approach and implications of this framework for how Vygotsky conceived of concrete research procedures and what counted as scientific explanation. Vygotsky recognized that crisis in psychology constituted two interrelated problems-one ontological and the other epistemological. Marx argued that "reality may be in one piece when lived, but to be thought about and communicated it must be parceled out". Modern psychology, along with AL, highly values quantification as the sine qua non of scientific research. While qualitative research has attained a modicum of cachet, it is still seen as narrow, anecdotal, and lacking in generalizability. Hence, the gold standard of AL research is controlled quantitative experimental research that seeks generalizability.
