Daniele Nunes Henrique Silva

"Pathology is the key to understanding development, while development is the key to understanding pathological changes". (Vygotskij, 2022, p. 236). This is the thread that runs through the proposal of this conference. To this end, we will begin with the defective texts written by Vygotskij between 1924 and 1935, dealing chronologically with the following concepts: 1. the quantitative and qualitative approach to disability; 2. the social dimension of the defect and its impact on personality formation; 3. supercompensatory processes and alternative developmental pathways in ontogeny; 4. the complex dimension of diagnosis, among others. In this context, the aim is to articulate these concepts with the epistemological foundations of Vygotskij's theory. These are : 1. the fundamental and structural transformations - according to which the process of development must be conceived -; 2. the laws of development of the higher psychic functions; 3. education as artificial development; 4. culture as a condition of development and; 5. the dialectical (and therefore contradictory) relationship between biological development, on hand, and psychic development, on the other. Finally, the aim is to show how Vygotsky's argumentative emphasis fits into a contemporary perspective of emancipation from an educational project based on historical-dialectical materialism and Spinoza's monism.