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

[Wolff-Michael Roth]

Huw,

As a physicist and physical chemist, and as an applied mathematician, I
don't have trouble other than the perhaps awkward formulation of quantity
into quality. There are many non-linear phenomena (Andy noted them) where
you observe this---take the Benard effect, where the water between two
planes at same temp is moving randomly. You heat one plate continuously,
and the order is the same until, all of a sudden and out of the continued
energy increase and temp difference between the plates, a new order emerges
in the water movement.

There are many social phenomena of this kind, and the Zeeman who uses
catastrophe theory has shown how you model some of them, like peace into
war conversation when trouble linearly increases. I guess arguments are of
that type, and David's story of how a living person ends up in a stinking
corpse---after beginning to argue with another to the point that the other
sticks a knife into his heart---would be a nice illustration of how
something innocuous slowly aggravates and then all of a sudden goes through
a qualitative change. Any phase change of a particular material shows this,
and physical chemists have nice diagrams to show the phase change that come
with continuous increases in some variable.

About the person-environment: If you take the universe, there are no forces
from the outside, everything is happening on the inside of it, including
our descriptions. If you go to Bateson or Dewey, they will tell you that
you need to take the description into account as well in the system.
Psychologists arbitrarily take the skin as the boundary. Vygotsky in
Myshlenie i resh' put it around thinking-speech (unit = word-meaning),
although in the same book he says that meaning is only the lowest level of
the more complex sense [smysl], which evolves and requires knowing the
whole world.

Any modern Spinozist will tell you that biology does not get us anywhere,
and epistemology (psychology) doesn't either. Il'enkov proposes the
thinking-body, but this is not a composition (addition, multiplication,
synthesis) of the biological body and the mind. Again, Spinozists will tell
you that the physical body and thought are manifestations of substance. You
will find similar discussions in the materialist philosophy of Michel Henry
(*Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair*), where life and the first,
originary body are invisible.

Concerning David's comment. My hunch would be that Vygotsky was on the
verge of developing a Marxian Spinozist psychology, but he was not there
yet. Ekaterina Yu. Zavershneva, based on reading LSV's notes, is convinced
that he realized his own intellectualism, and intellectualism is not
Marxist.

I would also think that LSV---I know David is a devotee---only went so far.
LSV writes: "I will die at the summit like Moses, having glimpsed the
prom[ised] land but without setting foot on it. Farewell, dear creations".
IN 1932 he writes: "Our def[i]c[ie]ncy is not a def[i]c[ie]ncy of facts,
but the untenability of the theory". (all quotations from Zaversheva, 2010,
in J Rus + East Europ Psych). He writes about his own theory as untenable.
We are allowed to put our feet into the promised land. We have the right to
go further, to the point of overturning what he had done.

Michael


Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor

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On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 1:17 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Michael,
>
> First, thanks for the references to both Holzkamp and Marx & Engels use of
> "leading activity".
>
> Regarding the espoused emphasis of the paper, neoformation, the focus seems
> to drift between a focus upon changes in qualitative behaviour that do not
> necessitate developmental change and towards those that do. By development
> I mean the formation of organised behaviours that were not previously
> accessible that also implicate a larger object of activity.
>
> Personally, I do not find the phrase "quantity into quality" useful beyond
> a priming for the relevant ingredients. The 'naive' description of one
> thing turning into another is a change of quality, i.e. one quality (not a
> quantity) turning into another quality. I suppose the original expression
> is concerned with a taken-for-granted quality that turns into a new quality
> ostensibly through the instrumentation of a change in quantity (to project
> a cause-effect model).
>
> Regarding a study of the empirical content within the appropriate
> dimensions, I would say that the account of the teacher changing his/her
> practices is indicative but not sufficient to identify this as a
> developmental change (in the sense I use it). Also without identifying the
> holistic character of the change(s) -- both macro and micro -- I think
> there is more scope for attributing the changes to things other than what
> you have identified, or to bring these into question. A way to show this
> would be in terms of the teacher's broadening of his/her object of
> activity/unit of analysis (which need not be larger materialistically, but
> in fidelity). In this vein it would be interesting to consider how this can
> be advanced upon fragmentally, i.e. from initial exposure to certain
> practices that achieve things that the teacher's present methods do not
> achieve progressing to a deeper considerations for how to achieve this
> holistically along with the newly encroaching limitations. Also within the
> teacher example, there is the implication that the previous methods were
> the teacher's own -- as we know this is not necessarily the case, they may
> be the methods unquestionably adopted under the assumption that
> institutional society knows what it is doing, hence without knowing more
> this could also be an awakening to the naive assumptions of a teaching
> institution.
>
> There is also potential confusion here between the internal of affect and
> the internal of thought-based action. The pointing to an assumed external
> source as a stimulus for development is, from my perspective, not
> necessarily the case either, whereby an internal dialogue may be maintained
> to realise something new (perhaps more attributable to an adult).  Either
> way, I would say the developee is sharing in this larger unit from the
> outset of their 'readiness', even if they are unable to articulate it --
> they know enough to afford their volitional heightened concentration to
> take them into (for them) unexplored territory (I can provide anecdotal
> examples if you want them).
>
> >From a cybernetic perspective the "subject-environment unit" can be
> misleading. Cybernetics would argue that it is all in the self-perpetuating
> processes of the agent (the complex organism), through which the
> environment manifests, i.e. the environment is only 'real' to agent to the
> extent that it is reflected in the agent's own individuality. I take
> Sasha's paper to be much supportive of this view, with perhaps some
> trailing legacies (from Ilyenkov's reinvigoration), such as imputing
> "material existence" to be of the same complexity (concreteness) of that
> which is achieved by the advanced technology of dialectics... it is, I
> believe, a fairly harmless transition to recognise that this concretely
> complex material existences is merely an unknown and hypothetically assumed
> to be that of the most sophisticated thought of the time.
>
> Also I appreciate that this can be quite exhausting work and that perhaps
> the way you are approaching it by imputing development to observations is
> an energetically stimulating manner of working into the subject and its
> problems. I also note that you have pulled in references from various
> sources (neoformation, leading activity, crisis, environment-subject,
> internal, moment) and it is quite easy for me to assume that your ideas
> here overlap with mine. Perhaps an equally important test is whether the
> paper is coherent for someone who doesn't have this background.
>
> Thanks for the opportunity to read and discuss the paper.
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
>
>
>
>
> On 16 December 2017 at 08:55, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Andy,
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > on behalf of Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > Sent: 16 December 2017 08:43
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4
> > article for discussion
> >
> > attached, Bill
> >
> > a
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> > On 16/12/2017 6:38 PM, Bill Kerr wrote:
> > > hi Alfredo,
> > > I downloaded Michael's first article and David's response. Is Michael's
> > > response to David (Looking back to the Future) still available as a
> free
> > > download? When I go to the site I get an invitation to login or
> purchase.
> > >
> > > Interested in this discussion.
> > > Thanks,
> > > Bill Kerr
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 4:03 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <
> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> 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
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>