[Xmca-l] Re: is the mind a function of the brain?

[Greg Thompson]

Jose,
I've always thought a strength of SCT/CHAT has been the commitment to a
non-dualist ontology - meaning that mind and body (ideal and material) are
not split apart. In some ways this sounds similar to SFL, but I would also
suspect that the SFL approach is more of a materialist approach, but I may
be wrong about that. SCT's other great strength is that it isn't
reductively materialist. Rather, SCT/CHAT includes the social and
historical in the mind/brain.

But having said that, you could probably talk to 10 different SCT/CHAT
folks and get 10 different theories of mind.

One of my favorite explanations, though, can be found in Martin Packer's
book The Science of Qualitative Research. In it you will find an engagement
with the long history of dualist and non-dualist ontologies. There isn't as
much explicitly about mind in the book, but it's in there.

-greg



On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 7:47 AM, jose david herazo <jherazo4@hotmail.com>wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I'm writing the final chapter of my PhD dissertation about the role of
> academic concepts in students' oral production and development of a second
> language (L2 ). Since my study is grounded on both sociocultural theory and
> systemic functional linguistics (SFL), one of my committee members
> suggested a possible contradiction in what each theory views as mind.
> SFLers, for instance, consider that there is no need for something called
> the mind that is different from the brain. They prefer to talk in terms of
> 'higher order semiotic consciousness' (HAlliday, 2004: The language of
> science) rather than mind. On their terms, the mind is a function of the
> brain. What is the mind for SCT? Is it the inner plane, consciousness? Has
> anybody discussed what this concept refers to in sociocultural theory?
>
> Any suggestions and comments are welcome,
>
> JOSE DAVID HERAZO RIVERA
>
> Foreign Languages Department, Universidad de Córdoba
> (Montería - Colombia)
>
> Carrera 6 No. 76-103. Tel:  7860500 - 7909800
>
> www.unicordoba.edu.co




-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson