[Xmca-l] Re: Continue with Hegle, and the Social through Greg

[David Kellogg]

Larry:

I'm afraid I sometimes lose the practical thread in my own predilection for
decorating. I was trying to make the case that semiosis and sociality have
different genetic roots. This is really just a way of saying that speech
and (practical) thinking have different genetic roots.

So in Antarctica, whales socialize for a definite purpose, and that purpose
determines the size of the social group (around twelve whales). But when
they migrate past our shores, they are very far from that purpose. They are
not feeding, they are not mating, but they are communicating: this is where
we find "songs" as distinct from echo-locating clicks. It is also where we
find dyads and triads--apparently for engaging in dialogues and trialogues.
This is not simply sociality for the sake of reproducing the material
conditions of life; it is an exuberant semiosis for the sheer hell of it.
Admittedly, ALL sociality and ALL semiosis among humans is a mixture of the
transactional and the expressive, but the arc of most conversation, if not
of history itself, seems to bend inevitably from the former to the latter.

Heidegger's idea that there is an "ur-Life" which has to assent to every
instant of living seems to me precisely ass-backwards (as Vygotsky likes to
say). It is like the ridiculous notion that in order to create language
people called a kind of global congress in which the precise terms of the
language contract were hammered out, without, of course, using any language
at all.

Take (please!) the various accounts that we humans create of the end of the
world by flooding. They go all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh, where
the gods basically turned the taps on mankind because they were making too
much noise down there. Then, in Revelation, there is more emphasis on sea
monsters; by the time we get to the Middle Ages, the world is going to end
in water-born plagues. But it's only since 1945 that there has been an
emphasis on volitional apocalypse--that is, the flooding of the earth by
humans themselves (Kevin Costner and "Waterworld" and its various
derivatives).

It's possible, I suppose, to see this as a Hegelian philosophy of history.
You know, man unconscious of his ability to end the world as we know it,
first ascribing it to arbitrary whims of the gods, then to nature, then to
human diseases and sin and only in our own time a "true concept" of global
warming. But it is also possible to see the development of concept as the
outcome of human practices such as flood-based agriculture, living in
proximity to Nile crocodiles, the medieval scourges of the black death, and
the premeditated design and thoughtless use of nuclear weapons in World War
II. The latter possibility has the advantage of including more tangible
data if not always ocular proof.

Ruqaiya Hasan says:

"Design is not an expression of field alone (that is, it is not simply an
expression of "what is going on"--DK). It is associated with the social
process as a whole *i.e. as a contextual configuration of the values
pertaining to field, tenor ("who is taking part"--DK) and mode ("how is
language brought in?"--DK) and is independent of any one individual's
desires, intentions, and/or decisions, having been negotiated between at
least two interactants. These designs have come about because through the
long history of the communal living of life, in every culture there have
evolved recognizable ways of being, doing and saying that are communally
deemed relevant to those occasions where social subjects have co-acted. The
design of a social practice is nothing other than a near ritualization of
ways of doing something with others by using such semiotic systems as are
at the community's disposal: the more culturally significant a social
process, the more ritualized it gets. It is in this sense that specific
social processes have become the raison d'etre of specific designs."

-- 
David Kellogg
Macquarie University

"The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit:
Narrative and Dialogue in Story-telling with
Vygotsky, Halliday, and Shakespeare"

Free Chapters Downloadable at:

https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2096-the-great-globe-and-all-who-it-inherit.pdf

Recent Article: Thinking of feeling: Hasan, Vygotsky, and Some Ruminations
on the Development of Narrative in Korean Children

Free E-print Downloadable at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8Vaq4HpJMi55DzsAyFCf/full





On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 1:23 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> David opened with exploration of whales and how they learn to co-ordinate
> their movements in order to herd schools of fish into a shape that assists
> setting the "table" before feasting..  David mentioned in passing that
> whales must *learn* to create this shared small group working in 'concert"
> and added that this learning takes 27 years to develop.
> I will not add to this line of inquiry [whales and semiosis]  but I hope
> what I add will at some point return to [semiosis and whales] and this
> theme will be revived, after my multiple detours.
>
> My particular swerve follows  through Greg Thompson and his posting the
> Notre Dame Philosophical Review [NDPR} book review of the  edited book Andy
> is reading.. [and this 2nd text  includes a 1983 essay by Charles Taylor on
> the basic premise of Hegel's Philosophy].
>
> So my comments will be focused upon this Notre Dame text written in the
> format of a book review that explores  two intersecting TEXTS written 27
> years between their writings]
>
> [Taylor wrote the 1983 essay & also was the editor of the 1st text]  &
> [the 2nd text is the  2010 edited text which republishes Taylor's 1983 text
> as the introductory essay.
>
> Now to focus attention specifically on the NDPR  book review and what this
> 3rd text is contributing to the 1st and 2nd text. My comments are now
> echoing the "insights" of the book review by highlighting what caught my
> attention.  I will list some *insights* in point form. [note the symbol *
> can be read AS -insight- or -point of view -]
>
> * For Taylor - Hegel's concept of action is approached  through a
> particular and specific  hermeneutical lens [or lenses] and Taylor is
> producing or projecting a particular [paradigm or model] through which to
> *read* Hegel's Theory of Action. Taylor writes that through this
> hermeneutical lens that it becomes possible to *open up* Hegel's SYSTEM of
> philosophy. In particular Hegel's "architecture" and Hegel's concepts can
> be *revealed* within Taylor's hermeneutical movements. This specific
> movement/orientation/approach can be considered a [discipline] in its own
> right through textual analysis.
>
> *The "basic" or "grounding" aspect of Hegel's [system] is *logic*.  The
> logic articulates [as text] the patterns showing up in the other
> philosophical "sciences":
> 1) philosophy of Nature 2) Philosophy of Religion. Essays in the 1983 text
> also covered 3) theory of Poltical Action and 4) Theory of Ethical Life.
> This "insight" [point of view] outlines the 1983 texts's "intent" [its
> materiality and its "spirit/meaning"
>
> * the 2nd text [2010 text] is both narrower in scope and wider in scope.
> The 2010 text is narrower in the sense that this text focuses on Hegel's
> "Philosophy of Right" and the intended "[revealing / unearthing /
> extracting"] Hegel's insights on:  - freedom, agency, imputability, and
> responsibility - This intent of the text is outlined in 8 essays. In this
> narrowed scope there is NO essays on Hegel's "Logic*  / the basic grounding
> text  from Taylor's hermeneutical approach &  movement] .What else is
> "excluded" [concealed] is the text exploring the Philosophy of Religion and
> meta-physical themes. In the 2010 narrowed scope the focus of attention
> remains reading texts on *action* WITHIN the broad WORLD / framework of a
> particular discipline - Anthroplogy -
> AS a discipline. Notice that this narrowing focus is now concentrating in
> 2010 on one particular [disciplinary practice] and is "bounded" by this
> limitation in 2010.
> What is still included within this narrowed disciplinary focus is ABSTRACT
> explorations of: - right, morality, ethical life in groups,-  read WITHIN
> this disciplinary WORLD /framework.
> Notice this narrowed focus is occurring within textual materiality &
> spirituality narrowed to a specific discipline.
>
> * At the same time as this narrowing in the sense above , this  2010 2nd
> text has a "wider" focus" than Taylor's 1983 intention.
> The 2010 edited book of "essays" is Promoting or Projecting a focus *on*
> disciplinary anthropological action exploration  WITHIN  discourse /
> communication  [discourse as face to face dialogue & discourse as textual
> readings]  This 2010 edited text is encouraging both aspects of discourse
> [disciplinary face to face dialogicality] &  [reading textual "workings"
> within the anthropological  disciplinary focus].
> The particular aspect of anthropology is the sub-discipline of [Philosophy
> of Action].
>
> * So to weave together the above insights from the NDPR "text" :
> The 1st volume supports Taylor's hermeneutical claim that for Hegel the
> "qualitative" theory of action is BOTH 'basic" and "pervasive" and that the
> basic disciplinary focus is "LOGIC" o f Hegel's "SYSTEM" as a particular
> and specific "discipline". This basic discipline then articulates "other"
> philosophical "systems" [i.e philosophy of Nature / philosophy of Spirit]
> that are dependent upon Hegel successfully unfolding the more "basic" and
> "pervasive" qualitative theory of action.
> NOTE: This focus of Taylor's 1983 text is not the intended focus of the
> 2010 edited text. Therefore the *insights* generated will be altered when
> the intent becomes both narrowed and widened in the ways summarized above.
>
> This leaves open a further line of inquiry: The difference between
> *situations* and *worlds* of being. Paul Ricouer has something to tell us
> in this regard
>