[Xmca-l] Re: units of analysis? LSV versus ANL

[Huw Lloyd]

Neither paper are particularly clear throughout, but they do make some
salient verifiable points that one can sift out from whatever political
maelstroms they were written from within.

LSV says that the forms of "activity" (I assume he has no special meaning
of activity here) that we develop originate from our environment.

LSV says that the "emotional experience [*perezhivanie*] arising from any
situation or from any aspect of his environment, determines what kind of
influence this situation or this environment will have on the child".

ANL says that experience is secondary to activity (activity with a special
meaning).  ANL says that activity is the source of consciousness.

LSV simply said there is a psychological and sociological "form".  The
means by which LSV relates these forms is through experience.  He says that
"the essential factors which explain the influence of environment on the
psychological development of children, and on the development of their
conscious personalities, are made up of their emotional experiences".

Hence ANL is right to impute (metaphysical) idealistic tendencies to this
paper of LSV's.  Because to base the development on subjective emotional
experience is idealistic.  ANL, conversely, refers to the relativity of
experience upon activity.  It does not help that LSV refers to his norms as
ideals and that all of the examples he provides are about speech
communication.  It is ripe for misinterpretation as an idealistic paper.

Best,
Huw

On 18 October 2014 00:13, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
wrote:

> Thanks for the clarification, Huw.
>
> I am pointing out that in his texts LSV writes of consciousness prior to
> language (that is, in the preverbal infant), and of changes in
> consciousness when the child starts to speak. Presumably he would not have
> written such things if he believed that language is a necessary condition
> (ontogenetically) for consciousness. If ANL attributed such a view to LSV,
> he was incorrect, it seems to me.
>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 17, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The ANL's translation was:
> >
> > "The child, therefore, appears before us primarily as a subject of the
> > mate- rial process of life. In the process of his development, he
> > encounters ready- made, historically established conditions that
> determine
> > his existence as a social being. Among these conditions, he encounters
> the
> > fact of language, which is the medium of the “spiritual relations”
> > established with it and con- stitutes an essential condition for the
> > development of his social and intellec- tual consciousness. Thus,
> > Vygotsky’s proposition that consciousness is a product of the child’s
> > verbal communication under conditions of his activity and in relation to
> > the material reality that surrounds him must be turned around: the
> > consciousness of a child is a product of his human activity in relation
> to
> > objective reality, taking place *under conditions of language* and under
> > conditions of verbal communication."
> >
> > You (Martin) wrote:
> >
> >> I see a difference, Huw. I just don't see the difference that the
> >> difference makes.  And ANL cannot be correct: for one thing, in various
> >> texts LSV writes about the character of consciousness in preverbal
> >> children, and of how consciousness  is transformed by the acquisition of
> >> language. This would hardly be possible if language were a necessary
> >> condition for consciousness.
> >
> >
> > So you're saying: That transformation of consciousness would not be
> > possible if language were a necessary condition for consciousness.
> >
> > ANL is asserting that LSV is not being coherent in this paper with
> respect
> > to materialist formulations.  He is saying that it is weak.  He is also
> > saying that the word is not the source of consciousness.  So what are
> > saying that ANL cannot be right about?
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
>
>
>