[Xmca-l] Re: Volkelt's diagram (LSV's HMF Vol 4)

[Huw Lloyd]

How delightful. :) Thanks Martin.



On 11 January 2016 at 14:07, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
wrote:

> Hi Huw,
>
> As I said, the blog offers a simple and accessible account.  If you want
> something more detailed, you could try this:
>
> Smith, B. (Ed.), Parts and moments studies in logic and formal ontology.
> Munich: Philosophia Verlag.
>
> <http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/book/P&M/>
>
> Martin
>
> On Jan 11, 2016, at 6:23 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Martin,
> >
> > I don't think the usage of 'moment' in the link connects in a
> > straightforward way with its usage in the HMF volume.
> >
> > I would also like to say that this notion of wholes and moments presented
> > in the blog is incomplete and incorrect.  For example, the assertion "You
> > don’t take the color away from the mac mouse to study it in another room"
> > is obviously false in the sense that you can walk into another room and
> > recall the experience of its colour.  Likewise the notion of a 'whole'
> that
> > is presented is rather crass, as if being an object that one can heft
> > somehow qualified it as being independent.
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11 January 2016 at 01:20, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> The term "moment" has been used extensively in phenomenology.  Here is
> an
> >> accessible account of the basics:
> >>
> >> <
> >>
> https://barebonescommunication.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/kleingeld-phenomenology-pieces-and-moments/
> >>>
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >> On Jan 10, 2016, at 7:23 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The theoretical point seems interesting and worth clarifying. The
> >> differing
> >>> interpretations have quite different implications.
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Actually, Hegel does not use "moment" as meaning a stage, phase or
> step,
> >>>> David. He tends to use phase, category, stage or division for those
> >>>> concepts.
> >>>>
> >>>> Individual, Particular and Universal are typical examples of "moments"
> >> but
> >>>> these are not steps, phases or stages of the concepts, even though
> they
> >> are
> >>>> also exhibited in this way. Every concrete concept has all three
> >> moments.
> >>>> In a trade union, the members, the branches/divisions and the general
> >>>> secretary are individual, universal and particular moments. We cannot
> >>>> conceive of a union developing from an individual to a branch to a
> >> general
> >>>> secretary, can we?
> >>>>
> >>>> I will look into the origins of this expression. I have always just
> >>>> presumed it came from mathematics, as in the first, second, third, ...
> >>>> moments of a function, and I know Hegel did study this branch of
> >>>> mathematics, because he gives a lot of space to it in the Science of
> >> Logic
> >>>> in his critique of calculus. But I am probably quite wrong. I'll
> check.
> >>>>
> >>>> Andy
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >>>> On 11/01/2016 4:32 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Huw:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes, Vygotsky uses "instants" and even more often "moments", and the
> >> word
> >>>>> "moment" sometimes means a stage, or a phase, or a step (as in the
> >> three
> >>>>> "moments" of the formation of the concept in Hegel, as in "in
> itself",
> >>>>> "for
> >>>>> others", "for myself".
> >>>>>
> >>>>> One of the most difficult problems we had to solve in translating the
> >>>>> Lectures on Pedology was that Vygotsky very clearly distinguishes
> three
> >>>>> moments of speech development: indicative, nominative, and
> signifying.
> >>>>> "Indicative" is often non-verbal, e.g. a pointing gesture.
> >> "Nominating" is
> >>>>> ipso facto verbal, because it is the naming function: "every thing
> has
> >> a
> >>>>> name". But "signifying" is much harder to pin down, and in one place
> >>>>> Vygotsky actually says that it is synonymous with the adult
> >> understanding
> >>>>> that anything can be named. So what is the difference between knowing
> >> that
> >>>>> everything has a name and the knowledge that any thing can be named?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think that the distinction is just as subtle and just as
> significant
> >>>>> as the distinction between pointing to something with a gesture,
> >> pointing
> >>>>> to something with a word like "this" or "that", and pointing to
> >> something
> >>>>> with a word like "apple" or "pear". If I say that "everything has a
> >> name",
> >>>>> the name could be extremely general ("everything" or "thing") or it
> >> could
> >>>>> be highly specific ("Huw" or "this computer"). But I don't yet have
> the
> >>>>> idea that names are invented, and that therefore it is possible to
> name
> >>>>> objects which do not exist, and therefore to bring into existence
> >> modes of
> >>>>> pure abstract thinking through language. That's signifying, and it is
> >>>>> indeed a new moment, or a new instant, in the lifelong process of
> >> speech
> >>>>> development.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> David Kellogg
> >>>>> Macquarie University
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:04 PM, Huw Lloyd <
> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thank you, David. That helps to explain a particular aspect that I
> >> thought
> >>>>>> Vygotsky was overlooking in the narrative, which is that stimuli can
> >> not
> >>>>>> only signify but also symbolise, i.e. they afford the kind of
> dynamics
> >>>>>> you
> >>>>>> have elucidated from Volkelt's schema.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I have also noted that the translation of phrases like "instances
> of a
> >>>>>> process" is probably off the mark too.  What is really meant, I
> >> believe,
> >>>>>> is
> >>>>>> "instants of a process".  These have two rather different meanings
> >> from
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>> perspective of thinking about processes.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Best,
> >>>>>> Huw
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 10 January 2016 at 06:02, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Huw:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Here's what Vygotsky really says:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Если задача не превышает естественных сил ребенка, он справляется с
> >> ней
> >>>>>>> непосредственным или примитивным способом. В этих случаях структура
> >> его
> >>>>>>> поведения совершенно напоминает схему, нарисованную Фолькельтом.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> (Russian
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Collected Works, p. 117).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> This means (as nearly as I can make out): "If the task did not go
> >> beyond
> >>>>>>> the natural capability of the child, he could deal with it in an
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> unmediated
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> or primitive method. In this cases, the structure of his behavior
> >> would
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> be
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> completely similar to the scheme as presented by Volkelt".
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I think there is no diagramme, at least not in the sense of a two
> >>>>>>> dimensional graphic one can have a copy of. What Vygotsky is
> >> referring
> >>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>> is Volkelt's attempt to explain all child behavior as the result of
> >> an
> >>>>>>> affectively tinged FUSION of perception and behavior, an
> affectively
> >>>>>>> colored, unanalyzable, whole  in which perception and behavior were
> >>>>>>> absolutely inseparable. This was what Hans Volkelt concluded from a
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> series
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> of experiments that Vygotsky refers to repeatedly, both in HDHMF
> and
> >> in
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Lectures on Pedology and elswhere.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> What Volkelt did was this: he had four baby bottles: one shaped
> like
> >> a
> >>>>>>> triangle, one like a violin, one like a square, etc. They were all
> >>>>>>> different colors as well. But three of them didn't have holes in
> the
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> teat:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> you could see and smell the milk but you couldn't drink it. One
> did.
> >> He
> >>>>>>> taught the infants to associate the drinking of milk and the
> feeling
> >> of
> >>>>>>> satiation with one particular bottle, so that they would actually
> >> ignore
> >>>>>>> the bottle unless it had all the characteristics: triangularity,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> blueness,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> etc. So Volkelt argued that from the child's point of view, he was
> >> not
> >>>>>>> drinking milk but triangular blue milk. This kind of "affectively
> >>>>>>> colored
> >>>>>>> whole" is what Vygotsky refers to as "Volkelt's scheme", or
> >> "Volkelt's
> >>>>>>> schemata".
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Volkelt's scheme came to a bad end. He eventually decided that we
> >> never
> >>>>>>> grow out of unanalyzable affectively colored perception-behavior
> >> wholes,
> >>>>>>> and this would explain the indivisible and inseparable devotion of
> >> the
> >>>>>>> German volk to their Fuhrer. So in later work Vygotsky is very
> >> careful
> >>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>> distance himself from Volkelt even in his explanations of infant
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> behavior:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> in the Lectures on Pedology he argues that ALL THREE layers of
> >> behavior
> >>>>>>> (that is, instinct, habit, and intelligence) are present in
> infancy.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> David Kellogg
> >>>>>>> Macquarie University
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 10:50 PM, Huw Lloyd <
> >> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> >>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Does anyone have a copy of "Volkelt's diagram" to hand that is
> >> referred
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> in The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions
> (1997,
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> p.85
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> and onwards in ch. 4)?  I don't think a reference is given.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Best,
> >>>>>>>> Huw
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> >>> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>