[Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
HENRY SHONERD
hshonerd@gmail.com
Wed Jul 29 19:50:48 PDT 2015
Larry,
You have made me think of an (I believe) 2009 interview by Diane Rehm of the novelist E.L. Doctorow (e.g. Ragtime) on Ms. Rehm’s great talk radio program. It was a re-broadcast honoring the Doctorow, who just died. He said that sometimes, when he was really locked into the writing process, he experienced his own writing as if he were the reader of his writing as he wrote. This maybe would count as a phenomenogical construal of a boundary object, in this case a novel in the making.
Henry
> On Jul 29, 2015, at 10:00 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A further thought about "boundary objects" which shares qualities with the notion of Winnicott's "transitional" objects using Dewey's insights.
>
> Art/product in its form unites the very same relation of doing and undergoing, outgoing and incoming energy, that makes an experience to be an experience. Because of elimination of all that does not contribute to mutual organization of the factors of BOTH action and perception INTO ONE ANOTHER and because of selection of just the aspects and traits that contribute to their INTERPENETRATION OF EACH OTHER, the art/product is a work of aesthetic art. The doing or making is artistic when the perceived result is of SUCH A NATURE that its QUALITIES AS PERCEIVED have controlled the QUESTION OF production. The act of producing that is directed by intent to produce something that is enjoyed in the immediate experience OF PERCEIVING has qualities that a spontaneous or uncontrolled activity does not have. The artist/producer EMBODIES IN HIMSELF THE ATTITUDE (the disposition) of the perceived while he works.
> Doing to be artistic in the FINAL SENSE must be "loving"; it must CARE DEEPLY for the subject matter upon which artistic skill is exercised.
>
> These are Dewey's words indicating a relation to boundary objects that develops.
>
> To "perceive" this relation requires intelligence that is always felt experience. It also emphasizes "development" of attitude/disposition/style. Not particular "positions" taken and held constant BUT a position on positions. Meta-positions as an attitude towards positions. Always both doing and undergoing linked through spaces of adventure that always INTERPENETRATE EACH OTHER.
>
> Boundary objects embody this adventure.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Rolf Steier" <rolfsteier@gmail.com>
> Sent: 2015-07-29 1:59 AM
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
> Thank you to everyone for such an engaging conversation! This thread has
> developed into a really rich resource and I'm looking forward to returning
> to it over the coming year as there is quite a bit to unpack.
> Rolf
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 1:00 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
>> It is great of you to lead us in a wrap up of your paper, Alfredo. The
>> discussion sits in my active arena of attention because it opened up and
>> enriched so many different concerns.
>>
>> We had a thread not that long ago focused on imagination. It might not be a
>> bad idea to return to those threads and pick them up to see what can be
>> woven from them now. I, for example, have always considered the 5th D
>> Dimension as a boundary object even as I have
>> written about it as a tertiary artifact, or, for that matter, a personal
>> experience. In fact, i believe it could be said to be a terrific boundary
>> object for joint exploration among those who, like
>> myself, believe imagination to THE core process in human
>> experience/perezhivanie. But I think we could find the time to look back,
>> at this long thread, we would see that the word imagination (and
>> experience!) are used in somewhat different ways/have slightly different
>> meanings (if we could settle on what we meant by meaning!
>>
>> How could all of that happen if imagination were not there picking up
>> dropped threads, making new ones, and then trying to "make something of it"
>> ?
>>
>> (Of course, now I have to imagine I can remember how to find that prior
>> discussion!)
>>
>> A great learning experience for me.
>>
>> Thanks for the two of you for taking the time to create the discussion.
>> That must be our record long thread.
>>
>> mike
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks all for having brought this discussion to these heights. I am
>>> personally learning a lot, although it's been hard to keep up with it and
>>> deal with other everyday tasks.
>>>
>>> Thanks, Ritva, for emphasizing the links between the discussion and the
>>> article when they may had seemed to be no longer there. I just want to
>> wrap
>>> up in a think-aloud fashion, and from my view, how the issues that have
>>> arisen in the discussion relate, but also expand, on the ideas in our
>>> article; as a learning exercise.
>>>
>>> In the last entry, Larry notes that we need to include an "imaginal"
>>> aspect, not just actions, as part of the larger units of experience(s)
>> that
>>> bring both forth. So the challenge is to think, theorize, research both
>>> action and imagination as aspects of a common unit, and one that is not
>>> only psychological, but also and at the same time societal.
>>>
>>> Following that line of thinking, I want to bring attention back to
>>> "bodies" and "space", which feature prominently in our paper, by means
>> of a
>>> quotation from Nancy (Corpus, 2008):
>>>
>>> "With thoughts about the body, the body always forces us to think
>> farther,
>>> always too far: too far to carry on as thought, but never far enough to
>>> become a body" (p. 37).
>>>
>>> That is, doing, being a body, carries us "too far to carry on (only) as
>>> thought, but never far enough to become (only, purely) body." Thus, there
>>> is not a real division between body and thinking, but a delay, which is
>> but
>>> feature of their unity. In this regard, Nancy argues that bodies are
>> about
>>> spacing (which is another way to say that being is about making place).
>>> Again space crops up as (subject) matter here. Dewey (1929, nature and
>>> experience) refers to that space between the doing and the undergoing in
>>> terms of "an adventure," where "the old self is put off and the new self
>> is
>>> only forming."
>>>
>>> So, if my thinking here makes sense, the challenge is to link this
>>> characterization of being as going through an adventure (an "advening"
>>> (from "advenire") of oneself to oneself, to use Claude Romano's terms)
>> with
>>> that of activity (or collaborative projects) as collective and historical
>>> achievements that provide for the possibility of any experience to go on.
>>> David writes: "In a very important sense the ideal image of the painting
>>> exists long before any action at all is taken." So, although we may take
>>> the first-time-through perspective of the one (body) who goes through an
>>> experience, there is something on place (is on "place" the right word?)
>>> before she does/undergoes it. As Andy notes, playing is done in and
>> through
>>> actions, although play, or the game, is not reducible to any single
>> action.
>>> So play, as a societal feature or category, is larger; it is a method of
>>> organization. And, not many e-mails ago, we did notice Dewey's and
>>> Bentley's reference of experience as precisely that: a method of
>>> organization. But experience and activity are not the same thing; how are
>>> they different?
>>>
>>> So, it seems to me, the difference is not about substance. They both are
>>> about actions, concrete and material. The difference (between experience
>>> and activity) might be then about time. The notion of heterochrony that
>>> Lemke brought in his 2000 paper "scales of time" seems most appealing to
>> me
>>> here, although I do not know of much work that has continued to develop
>>> research in terms of the diachronies and delays that may exist between
>>> history and experiences thereof (or rather there is lots of literature I
>>> don't yet know/understand properly). In any case, these loose ideas seem
>>> relevant for further understanding how creativity and imagination develop
>>> as part of (design, teaching/learning, etc) activities.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Alfredo
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
>>> Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 26 July 2015 16:55
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; Andy Blunden
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> This answer to my struggle shifts or slants everything.
>>>
>>> If we cannot "reduce" or "abstract" actions from "having an experience"
>>> then to be explicit and clear we must also include some other factor that
>>> is "beyond" reducing having "an" experience to just actions. This other
>>> factor is "construal" or "imaginal" phenomena. Having an experience is an
>>> INTEGRAL EXPERIENCE including both the imaginal and actions.
>>>
>>> David the other relation is the unity of "construing" and
>>> "disclosing"/"undergoing" an experience (as a unity or integral
>> phenomena.)
>>>
>>> The relation(s) of the imaginal to action and the slant from which we
>>> approach THIS unity (that cannot be reduced or abstracted) from having an
>>> experience.
>>> How we understand THIS integral phenomena that is extending "beyond"
>>> actions but must necessarily INCLUDE actions
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: "David Kellogg" <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 2015-07-25 10:58 PM
>>> To: "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,
>>> Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>>>
>>> I think that the word Vygotsky uses here is not so much "image" as
>>> "imagination" or perhaps "construal". Or rather, it is "image" but it
>> isn't
>>> image in the sense of a photographic image but more in the sense of a
>>> Russian icon. That's why you can have an image of a game, and it's also
>> why
>>> it is really only half true to say that the concept is built through
>>> actions. Painting isn't reducible to actions, and in a very important
>> sense
>>> the ideal image of the painting exists long before any action at all is
>>> taken.
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 12:30 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wow! Nice quote Larry! I must add that to my collection of Hegel
>>> citations
>>>> (though actually I think it is an Engels quote)! I am not the only one
>>> who
>>>> insists that a concept is a unity of individual, universal and
>>> particular!
>>>>
>>>> The thing is, Larry, if we think of the concept of "game", how does the
>>>> child come to use "game" in a way that adults will understand and in
>> turn
>>>> be able to react when adults use it? This is of course a protracted
>>> process
>>>> but it is through actions. In Thinking and Speech, Vygotsky explains
>>>> concept formation only in terms of actions, not any kind of
>> hypothetical
>>>> mental images or dictionaries or mental filing systems or whatever. It
>> is
>>>> all actions which are in one way or another organised around some
>>> artefact,
>>>> and in particular a word. At the most elementary level when an adult
>>> points
>>>> and says "That is a game!" that point-and-name is an action. But it is
>> in
>>>> the whole bundle of actions around the word "game" that a child or an
>>> adult
>>>> learns to use the word correctly, to utter the word meaningfully and
>>>> coordinate their own actions with respect to the word. The words on
>> their
>>>> own are nothing. They acquire meaning only through their use in
>>>> collaborative activity in which the learner participates in some way.
>> The
>>>> problem is, of course, that not everyone in the world uses the word in
>> a
>>>> uniform, consistent way.
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>>>> On 25/07/2015 1:13 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This "confusing struggle of different meanings" is of course nothing
>>>>> other than activity. That is how signs and situations acquire
>>> psychological
>>>>> meanings.
>>>>>
>>>>> In my continuing struggle that is definitely confusing I will share
>>>>> Vygotsky's own words on what a concept is:
>>>>>
>>>>> "A real concept is an IMAGE of an objective thing in all its
>> complexity.
>>>>> Only when we recognize the thing in all its connections and relations,
>>> only
>>>>> when this diversity is synthesized in a word in an INTEGRAL IMAGE
>>> through a
>>>>> multitude of determinations, do we develop a concept. According to
>> the
>>>>> teaching of dialectical logic, a concept INCLUDES not only the general
>>> but
>>>>> also the individual and particular.
>>>>> In contrast to contemplation, to direct knowledge of an object, a
>>>>> concept is filled with definitions of the object; it is the RESULT of
>>>>> rational processing of our existence AND it is mediated knowledge of
>> the
>>>>> object. To think of some object with the help of a concept MEANS TO
>>>>> INCLUDE the GIVEN object in a complex SYSTEM of mediating connection
>> and
>>>>> relations DISCLOSED in determinations of the concept"
>>>>> [Vygotsky, The Collected Works, Volume 5, Child Psychology, page 53]
>>>>>
>>>>> I felt my struggle I am going through may be relevant to others. In
>>>>> particular "when we recognize the thing in all its connections and
>>>>> relations .... THROUGH a multitude of DETERMINATIONS".
>>>>> THIS [thing] is synthesized "in a word" IN AN INTEGRAL IMAGE".
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>>> <mailto:
>>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks Manfred. I think we are on the same page.
>>>>> This "confusing struggle of different meanings" is of
>>>>> course nothing other than activity. That is how signs
>>>>> and situations acquire psychological meanings, and
>>>>> children learn not only by observing but by
>>>>> participating in those activities.
>>>>> Andy
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>>>>> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>>>>> On 25/07/2015 5:50 AM, Holodynski, Manfred wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Andy,
>>>>> thanks for your clarification. I now think I have
>>>>> understood your message. You are "travelling" in
>>>>> the social world and discussing Leontyev's
>>>>> understanding of the concept of objective meaning.
>>>>> I can now understand your critique that he might
>>>>> believe that something like an objective meaning
>>>>> may exist or can be extracted from an analysis of
>>>>> social interactions. Ok, if one is going to
>>>>> analyze what the essence of an "objective meaning"
>>>>> e.g. of the word "dog" is (and all the more of
>>>>> abstract terms such as feminism, social justice),
>>>>> then one will find oneself in a confusing struggle
>>>>> of different meanings that are also changing with
>>>>> time. So, the objective meaning of a word or
>>>>> concept is fuzzy and of many voices. Nevertheless,
>>>>> people are sometimes (:-) ) able to communicate
>>>>> their personal sense by using words and concepts.
>>>>> This is not a hopeless endeavor although it
>>>>> sometimes and for some people fails miserably.
>>>>> Your construction of a theory of collaborative
>>>>> projects is indeed a noteworthy proposal to deal
>>>>> with the societal emergence and change of the
>>>>> objective meanings of concepts that maintain the
>>>>> link between the social and psychological plane.
>>>>> Best Manfred
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Prof. Dr. Manfred Holodynski
>>>>> Institut für Psychologie in Bildung und Erziehung
>>>>> Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
>>>>> Fliednerstr. 21
>>>>> D-48149 Münster
>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34311 <tel:%2B49-%280%29-251-83-34311>
>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34310
>>>>> <tel:%2B49-%280%29-251-83-34310> (Sekretariat)
>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34314
>>>>> <tel:%2B49-%280%29-251-83-34314> (Fax)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>> http://wwwpsy.uni-muenster.de/Psychologie.inst5/AEHolodynski/index.html
>>>>> manfred.holodynski@uni-muenster.de
>>>>> <mailto:manfred.holodynski@uni-muenster.de>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>>>>> Von:
>>>>> xmca-l-bounces+manfred.holodynski=
>>>>> uni-muenster.de@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>>> <mailto:uni-muenster.de@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+manfred.holodynski
>>>>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmanfred.holodynski>=
>>>>> uni-muenster.de@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>>> <mailto:uni-muenster.de@mailman.ucsd.edu>] Im
>>>>> Auftrag von Andy Blunden
>>>>> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 23. Juli 2015 16:26
>>>>> An: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>> Betreff: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary
>>>>> Objects
>>>>>
>>>>> Er: "macro-unit of activity", not "macro-unity".
>>>>> :( Andy
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>>>>> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 24/07/2015 12:10 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Manfred, I am delighted to hear your voice
>>>>> again on this list.
>>>>> I understand what you are saying. I will try
>>>>> to better explain how I
>>>>> stand with A N Leontyev.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am a social theorist, that is I am
>>>>> interested in changing societal
>>>>> arrangements (to put it very politely), and I
>>>>> am one of few social
>>>>> theorists, properly so-called, who base
>>>>> themselves on Vygotsky's
>>>>> theories, and use Activity Theory as well. My
>>>>> position is a
>>>>> contradictory one because Vygotsky and
>>>>> Leontyev were psychologists
>>>>> (like
>>>>> you) and not social theorists. Social
>>>>> Theorists and Psychologists
>>>>> generally live in different buildings on the
>>>>> university campus, in
>>>>> different departments, publish in different
>>>>> journals, refer to
>>>>> different founding theorists, and altogether
>>>>> inhabit different
>>>>> universes. Social theorists have ideas about
>>>>> psychology, but generally
>>>>> not scientific ones, and vice versa.
>>>>> In my opinion, Vygotsky's ideas provide an
>>>>> excellent foundation for
>>>>> social theory because he introduced into human
>>>>> development and every
>>>>> interaction between two individuals a
>>>>> culturally produced sign. But he
>>>>> only went so far. He showed how people acted
>>>>> and developed within
>>>>> their social situation, but he did not tackle
>>>>> the problem of how that
>>>>> situation arose. Leontyev, by his discovery of
>>>>> the Activity as a
>>>>> macro-unity of activity, made an epoch-making
>>>>> development which opened
>>>>> CHAT to become a fully developed
>>>>> social-and-psychological theory. But
>>>>> what he said himself on questions of social
>>>>> theory was of very poor
>>>>> quality, as I said, "Neanderthal." Not the
>>>>> sort of ideas that would
>>>>> win any following among social theorists
>>>>> today. But he was after all a
>>>>> Psychologist and not a Social Theorist, so he
>>>>> is forgiven.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, to your point. If I am not mistaken
>>>>> "objective meaning" is not a
>>>>> psychological category at all for Leontyev.
>>>>> Yes? And personal sense
>>>>> is, as you eloquently explain, a fundamental
>>>>> Psychological category.
>>>>> So if what I said were to be interpreted to
>>>>> say that personal sense is
>>>>> a subset of objective meaning, that would be
>>>>> quite wrong. While I
>>>>> accept (as I must) a categorical difference
>>>>> between material
>>>>> objects/processes and their reflection in my
>>>>> mind, I do not at all
>>>>> understand societal processes as
>>>>> nonpsychological processes. I try to
>>>>> conceive of them together in one unit, and I
>>>>> think I am on my own
>>>>> there (some Freudian/Phenomenologists aside).
>>>>> There remains of course the distinction
>>>>> between the individual
>>>>> (Einzeln) and the universal (Allgemein),
>>>>> mediated by the particular
>>>>> (Besonder). A human individual is something
>>>>> radically different from a
>>>>> number of individuals. For the human
>>>>> individual and how they erleben a
>>>>> social situation, I rely on my friends and
>>>>> collaborator-psychologists.
>>>>> I am interested in how the Activities go. In
>>>>> small part to avoid
>>>>> having arguments with followers of Leontyev I
>>>>> call activities
>>>>> "projects."
>>>>> So I reserve the right to say things about
>>>>>
>
>
> [The entire original message is not included.]
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