[Xmca-l] Re: Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4 article for discussion

[Wolff-Michael Roth]

Hi all,

The first thing I note in the text David sent is the attribution of ideas
to people. I think about this issue differently. Ideas, because abstract,
are not of people. They are aspects of discourses of our community. We
espouse such discourses and contribute to developing them, but they always
belong to us and never to me---recall the last paragraphs of *Thinking and
Speech: *the word is a reality for two but impossible for one.

So what the article I authored presents is an ordering of phenomena in
which *qualitatively* new forms arise. The description of the emergence of
*qualitatively* new forms is the very core of Thom's *catastrophe theory*.
This theory provides us with a way of classifying particular
phenomena---and in this way, it is as concrete an endeavor as any other
tied to our communal activities. Thus, unlike what the paragraph in bullet
(b) states, the published text is not about pure abstraction. It is about a
way of including Vygotsky's neoformation among other phenomena of
neoformations. Moreover , the article provides a way in which authors,
*concretely*, arrive at satisfying certain requirements for phenomena to be
developmental rather than merely incremental. In this way, the article
satisfies what bullet (a) states. It provides for the methodological steps
to be taken to be able to ascertain such phenomena. I cannot see any
attempts being made in the text to assimilate adult forms of development to
infant and child development. Instead, it makes all of these forms
empirical issues. How do you show that there is a change to a qualitatively
new form? This is the question the article answers.

I am surprised by bullet (c), which attributes something to me (my
phantasy?). I am particularly surprised that David, who knows his Vygotsky
so intimately, would subscribe to that idea. It was Vygotsky who defined
consciousness in this way: "Consciousness is the experience of experiences
just like experiences are simply experiences of objects" (Vygotsky, 1997
[vol 4], p. 71–72)----in Russian: "Сознание есть переживание переживаний,
точно таким же образом, как переживания просто суть переживания предметов"
(Vygotskij, 1982 [vol 1], p. 89). In the same text, Vygotsky refers to Marx
and the doubling of experience in human labor. Marx (in the *German
Ideology*) writes that his conception of history "does not explain praxis
based on the idea, [but] explains the formation of ideas out of material
praxis" (1978 [German], p. 38). Consciousness follows and arises from
praxis, it does not precede praxis. (see also L. Suchman's work on the
relation between [abstract] plans and situated action, and H. Garfinkel on
what it means to know an instruction, and my own work on the radical
uncertainty in scientific discovery work, where I show that even scientists
having done some procedure for 30 years still find themselves knowing what
they have done only [sometimes hours or days] after having done it).

That point Vygotsky makes about consciousness is the same that we find in
Marx, when he writes that consciousness [Bewußtsein] cannot ever be
anything else than conscious [bewußtes] being [Sein] (in *German Ideology*).
In the same vein, Heidegger distinguishes Being [Sein] from beings
[Seiendes]; and G.H. Mead does a similar move when he shows that
consciousness is the presence of the distant object only attained in the
future. I could continue the list with a series of French philosophers,
developing these ideas further. And, we can rally Bakhtin (the one of *The
Philosophy of the Act*) and Mead (*The Philosophy of the Act* [he,
too] and *The
Philosophy of the Present*).

I would never claim that consciousness is individual---the word itself
implies that consciousness is knowing [Lat. *scīre*] together [Lat.
*co[n,m]-*]. It would not be smart claiming it to be individual, given the
long history of scholars showing us why it has to be otherwise: Marx,
Il'enkov, Mamardashvili, Mead, and the list goes on.

Michael





Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor

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On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 3:08 AM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Alfredo:
>
> Actually, I think there are three threads we can twist together.
>
> a) Do adults develop? This is one of the major issues that divided Vygotsky
> from the "psycho-technicians" of his time (e.g. Isaac Spielrein). Vygotsky
> was consistent: the child is not a short adult, and the adult is not a
> senile child, so child development cannot be seen as a kind of dress
> rehearsal for adult development, nor can adult development be seen as
> continuing child development by other means: there is a qualitative
> difference between the adolescent and the young adult that does not exist
> even between the schoolchild and the adolescent.
>
> b) Did Vygotsky ever rise to the concrete? Should he even have tried? This
> is one of the issues that divides Sasha from Wolff-Michael, and also
> divides Wolff-Michael from me. Sasha believes that without rising to the
> concrete, we cannot speak of the Marxist method at all. To me that
> necessarily means making the concept of neoformation more specific and more
> age-dependent--but Wolff-Michael wants to make it much more general and
> consequently abstract.
>
> c)  What is "perezhivanie" (as a technical term) and what would it mean for
> it to change "dialectically"? Wolff-Michael has set a cat amongst the
> pigeons by defining consciousness itself as "perizhivanie of
> perizhivanie".  On the one hand, this seems to suggest that consciousness
> is an afterthought, and that children cannot have any consciousness at all;
> it also seems (to me) to imply that consciousness is essentially
> individual, the product of reflection upon reflections (and there is a
> similar argument being made, rather sloppily, by Michael Luntley in the
> current Educational Philosophical and Theory...
>
> Luntley, M. (2017) Forgetski Vygotsky, Educational Philosophy and Theory,
> 49:10, 957-970, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2016.1248341
>
> And yet there are two things about Wolff-Michael's formula that do appeal
> to me:
>
> 1. The idea that dialectical development is essentially differentiation and
> not replacement of one form by another. If consciousness is essentially
> perizhivanie turned back on itself (like language turned back on itself) it
> is easy to see how we develop--by unraveling it.
>
> 2. The idea that consciousness is the "meaning of meaning". Of course,
> that's not exactly what he said, but it is what I get when I turn it back
> on itself....
>
>
> David Kellogg
>
> Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
> Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
> Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
>
> Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 7:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > Just a reminder that the article for discussion on neoformation is now
> > open access at the MCA T&F pages.
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2016.1179327
> >
> > There recently were questions in this list concerning adult development.
> > There was then no mention to this article, which I think was already
> > published, but it turns out that it discusses a developmental turn-over
> in
> > the professional and everyday life of an adult teacher, using and
> > discussing the concept of neoformation and the associated law of
> transition
> > of quantity into quality. Vygotsky introduced the concept in writings
> about
> > child development, and so I assume there may be issues or challenges
> > specific to the extension of these notions beyond child development. I
> > wonder what others in this list and outside it think, how and whether
> those
> > interested in adult development find the contributions present in the
> > article relevant/appealing/problematic...
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > Sent: 07 December 2017 19:33
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4 article
> > for    discussion
> >
> > Steemed xmca'ers,
> >
> >
> > the year is close to its end and we have yet to discuss a selected
> article
> > from Issue 4. The choice this time is an article written by Wolff-Michael
> > Roth: "Neoformation: A Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change?".
> >
> >
> > The article, which is attached and will be made open access for a brief
> > time soon, brings up the concept of "neoformation", a Vygotskian notion
> > that has appeared more than once in xmca but which is not so common in
> the
> > literature, despite having quite a methodological import in Vygotsky's
> > writings.
> >
> >
> > I believe the topic is timely given parallel discussions and critiques to
> > Vygotsky in xmca and in recent literature. Moreover, the article brings
> > with it a companion, David's Kellogg commentary (which is open access
> right
> > now), and a response by Michael. So its a 3 for 1 treat!
> >
> >
> > The whole issue is published here:
> >
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/current?nav=tocList
> >
> >
> > Michael has kindly agreed to join the conversation in the coming days,
> and
> > I encourage you all to have a look at the paper and not to be shy
> bringing
> > in comments and questions. I think this is a unique opportunity we have
> for
> > digging into the different ways in which Vygotsky's legacy may live on in
> > current and future CHAT and CHAT-related research/literature.
> >
> >
> > Alfredo
> >
> >
>