[Xmca-l] Re: INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE

[Larry Purss]

I am going to add some further *commentary* to John's particular
exploration of aspects of wayfinding.  I do this in the spirit of
hermeneutics AS an open circle.  I notice a famiy *resemblance* between
John's writings and the preface to Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit"
exploring similar themes.

Hegel wrote:

"The spirit however BECOMES an object, for the spirit IS this movement of
becoming something OTHER for itself i.e. and object for its self, AND THEN
to sublimate THIS otherhood.  And EXPERIENCE is the NAME we give to this
MOVEMENT in which the immediate, the unexperienced, i.e. the astract,
whether of sensible BEING or of a bare, simple THOUGHT, becomes estranged
and then RETURNS to itself FROM estrangement, and is only then PRESENTED in
its actuality and truth and BECOMES the property of consciousness."

I *read* John as offering further commentary on THIS movement within fluid
dynamic open circles AS *intra*-actions in contrast to *inter*-actions.

As an aside, Alex Kozulin wrote this reflection on the GENRE of commentary:

"The genre of this book [Vygotsky's Psychology A Biography of Ideas] can be
defined as that of a commentary. If not the only acceptable form of
scholary trestise, the genre of commentary in the last century fell into
disrepute and was pushed aside by experimental monographs and SYSTEMATIC
surveys of literature. There is a good reason for such a fate. To start
with a good commentary always takes as its subject a corpus of writings of
a superior quality, and there are not many of those nowadays. Second, the
very idea of commentary is incompatible with the popular view of human
knowledge AS a temporalized progression from inaccurate facts to accurate
ones. Commentary always aims [orients] as a DIALOGUE, with a superior text,
the outcome of which is a NEW READING of this text and thus, by
implication, a conception of the NEW one."

I hope John's article will be *read* in the spirit of commentary AS
*wayfinding*.

Larry


On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:26 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> Thanks for the suggestion to invite john to respond. I am including him
> using an address different from the one you used.
>
> John,
>  Here is Mike's response which included you in the address:
>
> Hi Larry-- I still have not read John's paper. But at least dealing with
> email I could not answer owing to local consequences of getting some of the
> rain
> we asked for.
>
> Firstly, here we have a clear case where John should be asked to join the
> discussion. He is a long-admired colleague with whom we have far too little
> interaction, speaking personally.
>
> So, here is a part of answering. Perhaps off topic. I hope not. I believe
> that the principle of the retrospective construction of meaning is a
> foundational part of the problem under discussion and fictive stories about
> how cognition and emotion are a dance between the frontal lobe and the
> limbic system. In so far as emotion is effected AT ALL by experience, it is
> retrospective, and hence, constructive. the "tools" of that construction
> are, in the aggregate, human culture.
>
> Cultural cognition is always, in principle, non-linear -- a sequences of
> vicious circles and spirals of development.
>
> As a routine practice, I used to spend a lot of time with undergraduates at
> a local housing project. There the students engaged in a variety of
> mutually valued practices -- a hybrid idioculture-- and learned through
> empathy. It was all about growing ourselves by participating in the
> development of others.
>
> Finding socio-cultural-historical niches where such settings can be
> sustained is quite a different matter. I am particularly interested in how
> fragile and pre- occupying they are.o you and myself:
>
>
> Mike,
>
> Yes, I understand John indicating that an ASPECT of performative practices
> [always emotive] is the *mode* of retrospective constructions. I understand
> THIS mode as captured by John using the concept *text*  Mike you in quotes
> mention THIS mode as using *tools* of that retrospective construction.  I
> believe John is using the concept *tools* in a more limited sense as
> existing as *relata* [in relation to *prosthetics*]  When
> performative practices use *prosthetics* our experience is EXTENDED but AS
> prosthetics the use is transparent and our performances are expressed
> THROUGH the use of the prosthetics from the subjective side of performative
> practices. However, when the use of the prosthetics is disrupted in use
> THEN we become aware [conscious] that we are using prosthetics and in this
> awareness the prosthetics BECOME opaque [and become conscious AS *tools*.
>
> If I have read John as he intended then *texts* *prosthetics* and *tools*
> are various ASPECTS [not parts] of a dynamic FLUID *intra*-action which is
> always AMBIGUOUS and moving within our performative practices. In other
> words AS retrospective constructions we are foregrounding the *text aspect*
> within the *prosthetic-tool-text* ambiguity.
>
> In other words the multiple *aspects* of our orienting [wayfinding] to our
> surroundings express fluidly flowing *modes* of awareness which cannot be
> pre-determined  AS pre-existing subjective and objective aspects of
> performative practices.  The differentiation into prosthetics, tools, and
> texts come into existence WITHIN our practices. [NOT prior to which is an
> *inter*-action picture] The radical phenomena John is asking us to focus on
> is the *felt tendency* PRIOR TO differentiating this fluid *intra*-action
> AS INVOLVING *prosthetics*, tools*, or *texts*. THIS fluidity is always in
> fact *ambiguous* and cannot ever be finalized.
>
> Mike, I hope John will add his voice to my *reading* and elaborate on the
> *text* aspect which is so prominent in Gadamer's project of philosophical
> hermeneutics. John is exploring *wayfinding* within our *intra*-actions
>  and discusses *prosthetics* *tools* and *texts* AS moments within our WAYS
> of orienting.  ALWAYS fluid, flowing dynamic phenomena,  ALWAYS
> ambiguous, ALWAYS partially open, and involving multiple *aspects*
> including prosthetics, tools, and texts.
>
> John, if I have mis-read your intent I ask others to read your
> article. This article is participating in [and extending using text] a
> tradition which also includes James, Dewey, Gadamer, Merleau-Ponty, Gibson,
> Wittgenstein, and Karen Barard.  XMCA incarnates this *spirit* and I hope
> we generate further participation within this textual tradition.
>
> Larry
>