[Xmca-l] Re: In Defense of Fuzzy Things

[Andy Blunden]

Thanks for all that David. I take it that you are sticking to what I 
take to be a gross misunderstanding.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


David Kellogg wrote:
> Andy:
>
> Here's what Vygotsky says in Chapter One of "Thinking and Speech".
>
> Общение, основанное на разумном понимании и на намеренной передаче 
> мысли и переживаний, непременно требует известной системы средств, 
> прототипом которой была, есть и всегда останется человеческая речь, 
> возникшая из потребности в общении в процессе труда. Но до самого 
> последнего времени дело представлено сообразно с господствовавшим в 
> психологии взглядом в чрезвычайно упрощенном виде. Полагали, что 
> средством общения является знак, слово, звук. Между тем это 
> заблуждение проистекало только из неправильно применяемого к решению 
> всей проблемы речи анализа, разлагающего на элементы.
>
> That is:
>
> "Society, based on rational understanding and intentional transfer of 
> thinking and perizhivanie, requires without fail some system of means, 
> the prototype of which is, was, and will always remain that of human 
> speech, which arose of necessity through social conotact in the 
> process of labor. But until now the matter has been presented in 
> conformity with the dominating view in psychology, in an extremely 
> simplified way. It has been assumed that the means of contact is the 
> sign, the word, the sound. This error stems solely from the incorrect 
> use in the solution of the problem of speech an analysis which 
> decomposes speech into elements."
>
> Vygotsky then points out that this analysis is incorrect because it 
> does not take into account that each word is a generalization--an act 
> of thinking. He quotes a passage of Edward Sapir which has been cut 
> from the Soviet version int the Collected Works (but which Kozulin has 
> included in his update of the Hanfmann-Vakar translation).
>
> В сфере инстинктивного сознания, в котором господствует восприятие и 
> аффект, возможно только заражение, но не понимание и не общение в 
> собственном смысле этого слова. Эдвард Сэпир прекрасно выяснил это в 
> своих работах по психологии речи. ≪Элементарный язык, . говорит он, . 
> должен быть связан с целой группой, с определенным классом нашего 
> опыта. Мир опыта должен быть чрезвычайно упрощен и обобщен, чтобы 
> возможно было символизировать его. Только так становится возможной 
> коммуникация, ибо единичный опыт живет в единичном сознании и, строго 
> говоря, не сообщаем. Для того чтобы стать сообщаемым, он должен быть 
> отнесен к известному классу, который, по молчаливому соглашению, 
> рассматривается обществом как единство≫.
>
> "In the sphere of instinctive consciousness, in which rules perception 
> and passion, only infection and contagion is possible, not 
> understanding and social contact in the true sense of the word. Edward 
> Sapir has wonderfully explained this in his work on the psychology of 
> speech. Elements of language,” he says must be connected to an entire 
> group, to a defined class of our experience. “The world of our 
> experiences must be enormously simplified and generalized before it is 
> possible to make a symbolic inventory of all our experiences of things 
> and relations; and this inventory is imperative before we can convey 
> ideas. The elements of language, the symbols that ticket off 
> experience, must therefore be associated with whole groups, delimited 
> classes, of experience rather than with the single experiences 
> themselves. Only so is communication possible, for the single 
> experience lodges in an individual consciousness and is, strictly 
> speaking, incommunicable. To be communicated it needs to be referred 
> to a class which is tacitly accepted by the community as an identity.”
>
> Vygotsky concludes that a word meaning is a generalization, and that a 
> generalization is an act of thinking. Ergo, the rational and 
> intentional transfer of thinking and of perizhivanie requires an act 
> of thinking. The fact that the child has not yet fully internalized 
> that act of thinking does not make it any less an act of thinking.
>
>
> Nor does the fact that this view was criticized by Stalinists make it 
> any less true for me. Stalinists criticized Darwinism, you know!
>
>
> David Kellogg
>
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 16 July 2014 14:34, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net 
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     David, it may seem picky, but I can't agree with this formulation
>     below, in particular the use of "thinking". To interpret Vyotsky's
>     observation in terms of "thinking" is to *intellectualise*
>     Vygotsky, or to put it another way, to impute to Vygotsky an
>     intellectualisation of human life. This move was a principal line
>     of attack of Vygotsky during the Stalinist years after his death,
>     so it is important not to repeat it now. You correctly analysed
>     the difference for a child of having a drunk for a mother, rather
>     than for a father or a neighbour. But this was not a question of
>     what the child *thought* about these relations, but the real
>     significance of each relation for the child having its vital needs
>     met, within the horizon of consciousness of the child. And I use
>     "consciousness" here as a Marxist, to indicate the entirety of
>     subjective processes of the child which mediate between their
>     physiology and their behaviour, not as a synonym for the
>     intellect. The child will perceive their situation (and threats to
>     it) in the only way they can, that is, in an age-appropriate way.
>     And they will change their own activity in response to the
>     perceived threat also in an age- and circumstances-appropriate way
>     too. All of this - significance, perception, needs - are not to be
>     interpreted as categories of thinking, but categories of the
>     life-activity of living beings, that's all, not necessarily
>     thinking. But of course, the capacity for thinking - the use of
>     symbolic actions - and the capacity for extended reflection on an
>     experience, are additional resources and points of vulnerability,
>     over and above vital relations which do not imply intellectual
>     relations.
>     Andy
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Andy Blunden*
>     http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>     David Kellogg wrote: ...
>
>         It's not that nothing is real until thinking makes it so; it
>         is only that
>         meaning is made by thinking and not simply by experiencing. ...
>
>          
>
>
>