[Xmca-l] Re: An Abstract Question

[Andy Blunden]

Apparentlt today is Vygotsky's birthday, so it might be an occasion to 
remember his words:

    "The structures of higher mental functions represent a cast of
    social relations between people. These structures are nothing other
    than a transfer into the personality of a inward relation of a
    social order that constitutes the basis of the social structure of
    the human personality." (LSVCW, v. 5, p. 169-70)

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.mira.net/~andy/


valerie A. Wilkinson wrote:
> Thank you, Andy. Individually we have a conceptual tool-box for sorting and
> then there is the institutional level and the national and the transnational
> or global "tool box".  At the individual level, my tool could be a Swiss
> Army Knife, but an international standard would look different and have
> various professional teams working out the precedents or applications in the
> present day.  So individually we have to keep working on it and keep in
> touch with those who are working on it. Sort of.  Thank you very much for
> the guided tour!  
> Valerie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 7:53 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: An Abstract Question
>
> I do recognise my own words in there Valerie, including the typo. :)
>
> I don't think it matters whether you call it classification, mapping,
> sorting or indexing, once you have recognised the object, if all that is at
> issue is which pigeonhole, class or map you put it into or point to, it's
> all the same.
>
> The fact that I can recognise the statue of the Virgin Mary outside the
> local Catholic Church as "the Virgin Mary" does not at all mean that I have
> the concept of "the virgin mary". The fact that when Barak Obama comes on
> tele I recognise him as President, does not mean I have the concept of
> president either. I might think that Joe Bloggs is a criminal, but the only
> characteristic of Joe that I could name to unambiguously justify my
> allegation is "criminality," so that would hardly clarify anything. (That's
> why police are not supposed to do "racial profiling".)
>
> The process of provisionally recognising something, and knowing "which box
> to put it in," is quite a different thing from constructing the boxes in the
> first place, and it is that latter process which, in my view, is the
> important one. That's one of the reasons that legislative bodies in every
> country in the world spend every day amending legislation, and have been
> doing that for centuries, not really because the community has changed its
> mind about something, but because bureaucratic procedures continually
> confound themselves with the task of putting people, situations and events
> in the right box, and the rules have to be continuously rewritten.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>
>
> valerie A. Wilkinson wrote:
>   
>> Dear XMCA colleagues,
>>
>>  
>>
>> Something like a year ago, we were having an interesting discussion 
>> which was quite a bit over my head. I apologize for clipping in the 
>> following bit without saying who said it, but perhaps my esteemed 
>> colleague recognizes his own words?:
>>
>>  
>>
>> My note to myself says [a grain of sand in the oyster is the assertion 
>> by Scholar A that there are only two candidates for the "Ur-Act", the 
>> basic, elementary act of human intellectual life.  He says, "I know of 
>> only two answers to this question, relevant to concepts.  The abstract 
>> answer given by mediaeval logic, Linnaeus, the psychology of concepts, 
>> all sorts of present-day continental philosophy is:  pigeon-holing, 
>> The concrete answer given by Hegel, Vygotsky, Activity Theory, Thomas
>>     
> Kuhn, and me is:
>   
>> problem-solving."] I couldn't work out what "pigeon-holing" is, so I 
>> didn't ask.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Would it be a possible interpretation of these two answers to call them:
>>
>> Classification and Mapping?
>>
>> Or "sorting" and "trouble shooting"?
>>
>> "Indexing" and "pathfinding".
>>
>>  
>>
>> I hate to display my woeful ignorance and I should have asked at the 
>> time, but I am unable to classify Kant, of whom I have only read bits, 
>> Merleau Ponty of whom I read Phenomelogy of Perception, on the 
>> continental side, and Peirce and Dewey of whom I have read a bit more 
>> on the other (obviously it is not about this or that side of the 
>> Atlantic, but.).  Graduate school reading during one's pre-service 
>> education in philosophy and criticism, even if it is for a doctorate 
>> in comparative literature, leaves one "out there in the field" using 
>> what one learned at school to continue the study of the problems that 
>> life presents. Is "either/or" and preference a possible elementary 
>> act.  Can sorting be done either mathematically (symbolic logic) or 
>> analogically (language), raising the digital vs. analog question? I 
>> wouldn't have dared ask this question last year, but the most recent 
>> conversations, about play and educational environment and praxis have 
>> brought out tons of extremely deep and learned discussion which I am 
>> trying to "grok". Existence or process. Difference. Indeterminacy and
>>     
> incompleteness. Abstract and applied.
>   
>> Valerie
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>
>
>