Emotions and Vygotsky's materialist semiotics: reply to Oittinen / Las emociones y la semiótica materialista de Vygotski: respuesta a Oittinen

In a recent article on Vygotsky's reading of Spinoza, Vesa Oittinen argues that Lev Vygotsky took a 'semantic turn' late in his career, leading him to dualism and intellectualism. Oittinen characterizes Vygotsky's interest in sign-meaning as a problematic break from prior interests in material practice. In this paper, I challenge this common view. I argue that Vygotsky has a materialist Marxist theory of sign-meaning, enriched by his engagement with contemporaneous empirical science. I then suggest some ways in which signs play a role in the development of emotions. I elaborate aspects of Vygotsky's project by drawing on Charles Sanders Peirce, Wilfrid Sellars and related thinkers.