[Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Ilyenkov, Marx, & Spinoza
Wolff-Michael Roth
wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
Thu Jul 27 05:58:50 PDT 2017
There are scholars out there that have a take that differs from Andy's.
Thus appears to be the case of Antonio Negri (*The Power of Spinoza's
Metaphysics and Politics*), a Marxian scholar. Especially about the dualism
there is a different perception. I have read other works that take a stand
similar to Negri.
Vygotsky (2010, "Fragments") writes that he was going to "bring Spinozism
to life in Marxist psychology." This statement allows to be read as
Spinozism through a Marxian lens, and the kind of avenue that LSV might
have taken may be similar to that of Negri.
LSV also does not say he is applying Spinoza, but that the "lightening
bolts of Spinoza's thought *illuminate* our inquiry" (my emphasis).
Michael
Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
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University of Victoria
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On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 5:39 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> Alfredo, there is indeed clear textual evidence that Vygotsky maintained
> an intense interest in Spinoza. My guess is that it was Spinoza's place in
> the history of philosophy as the first person to attempt to overcome
> Descartes' dualism by building a monist, material philosophy, based on
> Descartes' "geometric" method, which held Vygotsky's interest and respect.
> This effort, for which Spinoza was persecuted, inspired many philosophers
> despite Spinoza being banned across Europe for more than a century.
>
> However, I see no evidence that Vygotsky entertained for a moment
> Spinoza's "solution", viz., a single substance, a.k.a., God or Nature, or
> anything else you want to call it, with infinitely many attributes, one
> being extension and another being thought and the infinitely many others
> being God knows what. I see plenty of evidence that Vygotsky followed the
> idealist Hegel in conceiving of that one substance as Activity - for Hegel
> under the name of "Spirit."
>
> As a free-thinking philosopher, Spinoza's works are full of insightful
> aphorisms and so on. His basic project (a monist materialism) is right. But
> his solution is hopeless and I have not met a single soul who has usefully
> appropriated this substance with infinite attributes. Apart from its
> mysticism, it is (as Vygotsky notes) *determinist* and rules out free will,
> and is a thinly disguised dualism: one substance with two attributes
> instead of two substances. Any attempt to deploy Spinozan ontology in
> experimental Psychology is a charade.
>
> In the 21st century, Spinoza is no longer a dead dog, but he is a dead end.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> On 27/07/2017 8:29 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>
>> Hi Alexander,
>>
>> a very interesting text, written in brilliant prose. I very much
>> appreciate your observations that 'the psychophysical (and not the
>> psychophysiological) ... poses a REAL task akin to that which arose in the
>> course of the evolution of living and mobile beings', and that 'intelligent
>> action ... is itself ... congruent with the real corporeal form of some
>> other body'. These propositions interest me a lot. Indeed, and led by W-M
>> Roth, we did last year co-author a book where we entertained such
>> propositions with respect to educational psychology (front matter attached,
>> link here: ).
>>
>> Like you, in that book, we are critical to Vygotsky's ways of writing
>> about signs, specially in the works you cite. Yet, upon reading your
>> article, on the whole, I wondered whether your characterisation was fair to
>> Vygotsky's actual legacy. You describe Vygotsky's position as this:
>>
>> 'an unfree, essentially mechanical puppet acquires freedom through
>> overcoming natural determination (the SR reaction, the mechanical
>> triggering of a response by an external stimulus) in the act of mediation
>> by a cultural sign'
>>
>> I agree that Vygotsky clearly uses the term 'sign' in many instances in
>> the conventional sense you refer to. But this way of writing sharply
>> contrasts with other important tenets and arguments in his legacy. When I
>> read Vygotsky's characterisations of the 'word' in Thinking and Speech, for
>> example, I do not think he 'understands the word unambiguously as an
>> arbitrary, conventional sign', as you suggest in your article (p. 40). In
>> chapter 7, and paraphrasing Feuerbach, he writes that 'the word is what
>> ... is absolutely impossible for one person but possible for two. The word
>> is the most direct manifestation of the historical nature of human
>> consciousness' (English Vol. 1, p. 285). To me, that suggests a very
>> different view of words as signs than simply conventional, arbitrary (as if
>> unconstrained and magic) means.
>>
>> In other places, he also writes that, 'Freedom, as the opposite of
>> nature, cannot find a place in [Spinoza's system]. Freedom may be only an
>> element of that nature, not an opposite to natural necessity but only one
>> of the forms of this necessity' (English Collected works, vol. 6, p. 172).
>> Coming from someone who would also write that any higher psychological
>> function was first a societal relation (and what is action if not a
>> societal relation?), how could he believe that the solution to the problem
>> of freedom was arbitrariness, being as he was committed to
>> social-historical necessity, to human needs?
>>
>> In our book, we try to address these kind of contradictions by imagining
>> what a Vygotskyan (educational) psychology would be if Vygotsky would have
>> indeed pursued the Spinozist quest he did not finish. I think there may be
>> more common ground between Vygotsky and Ilyenkov than your article allows,
>> but this is surely not very much explored in mainstream uptakes. I am only
>> a student on these matters, and I can not know in advance how far we will
>> come with this integrative program, but it seems to me that neither
>> discarding semiotics for the primacy of action, nor discarding action for
>> the primacy of semiotics are promising paths.
>>
>> In the hope to sustain productive dialogue,
>> Alfredo
>>
>>
>>
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Alexandre Sourmava <avramus@gmail.com>
>> Sent: 26 July 2017 00:27
>> To: ablunden@mira.net; Larry Purss; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Отв: Re: Ilyenkov, Marx, & Spinoza
>>
>> Hi, Larry!
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for your attentionto the article.
>> Your retelling of the topic is quite correct.
>> However, I think it can be useful to add my little comment concerning the
>> topicunder discussion.
>> Bernstein’s position is substantially spinozian and thereby antisemiotic.
>> Evidently, he bluntly contradicts to Vygotsky’sattempts to use arbitrary
>> sign as a magic key designed to solve the problem of freedom (independence
>> from mechanical causality).
>> Thus Vygotsky insisted that
>> ”Looking from the very broad philosophical perspective the whole realm
>> ofhistory, culture, and language is the realm of arbitrariness. So the
>> method ofconditional reflex acquires a very broad meaning of a
>> natural-historical methodconcerning human, of a tie that binds history and
>> evolution together.”
>> («В самом широком философском смысле этого терминавесь мир истории,
>> культуры, языка — это царство условности. В этом смысле методусловных
>> рефлексов приобретает широчайшее значение методаприродно-исторического в
>> применении к человеку, узла, который связывает историюи эволюцию»
>>
>> ВыготскийЛ. С. Психологическая наука в СССР. В кн.: «Общественные науки в
>> СССР(1917-1927 гг.)». М., 1928, с. 30.)
>>
>> There exists a prejudice that so called “Cultural-historical theory”
>> withits arbitrary signs is a sophisticated antithesis to coarse Pavlov’s
>> mechanicalapproach. Alas, that is far from reality. In fact, these two
>> theories are identical.That is the reason why Nicolai Bernstein who was
>> Vygotsky’s good friend had neverreferred to his ideas.
>>
>> Sasha Surmava
>>
>> вторник, 25 июля 2017 4:29 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>> писал(а):
>>
>>
>> I see.
>>
>> This is a slightly different context. The original meaning
>> of "paradigm," before the popularisation of Thomas Kuhn's
>> work, was a "founding exemplar."
>> "Exemplar" presumably has the same etymology as "example."
>>
>> The idea of "an example" as being one of numerous instances
>> of a process is a different concept, the opposite really.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>
>> On 25/07/2017 2:01 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>
>>> Andy,
>>> I will reference where I got the notion of linking
>>> [example] and [framework]. If this becomes interesting
>>> will open another thread.
>>> From David L. Marshall titled : "Historical and
>>> Philosophical Stances: Max Harold Fisch, a Paradigm for
>>> Intellectual Historians" -2009-
>>>
>>> PAGE 270:
>>>
>>> "Max Fisch constitutes an alternative to any intellectual
>>> historical method insisting that practiontioners remain
>>> agnostics about the value of the ideas they study. It is
>>> the chief contention of this essay that he is a 'paradigm'
>>> for intellectual historians, a paradigm in the original
>>> Greek sense of an *example* and in the DERIVED
>>> contemporary sense of a *framework* within which the
>>> community of research can proceed. Indeed it is just such
>>> *doubling* of the philological object qua example into a
>>> carapace for ongoing action and thought that Fisch
>>> explored in a variety of ways during his half century of
>>> creative intellectual work. "
>>>
>>>
>>> Andy, not sure if this is adequate context, but the
>>> relationality of [example : framework] through the concept
>>> *paradigm* seemed generative??
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 7:21 AM, Andy Blunden
>>> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> "actions" or "an action" ... no extra word is needed.
>>> Extra words like "singular," "individual" or "single"
>>> only confuse the matter. "Examples" is too vague.
>>>
>>> Cannot make sense of the rest of your message at all,
>>> Larry.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Andy Blunden
>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-
>>> collective-decision-making
>>> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-
>>> decision-making>
>>>
>>> On 25/07/2017 12:17 AM, Lplarry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Andy,
>>>>
>>>> Following your lead it may be preferable to say
>>>> single (individual) to indicate the uniqueness of
>>>> variable social actions. This doubling (by
>>>> including both terms) may crystallize the intended
>>>> meaning as you mention.
>>>>
>>>> Andy is this vein can we also include the term
>>>> (examples)?
>>>>
>>>> Then the moving TRANS forming from single
>>>> (individual) social acts towards (practices) would
>>>> indicate the movement from examples to exemplary
>>>> actions and further movement (historicity) toward
>>>> (framework) practices.
>>>>
>>>> (framework) practices being another doubling.
>>>>
>>>> So moving (transforming) from single social examples
>>>> through exemplary social examples crystallizing in
>>>> social framework practices.
>>>>
>>>> Is this reasonable?
>>>>
>>>> Or not
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>>>
>>>> *From: *Andy Blunden <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
>>>> *Sent: *July 24, 2017 6:57 AM
>>>> *To: *eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> *Cc: *Alexander Surmava <mailto:monada@netvox.ru>
>>>> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Ilyenkov, Marx, & Spinoza
>>>>
>>>> Larry, when you say "Action IS individual," did you
>>>> mention
>>>>
>>>> to say that *actions* - the individual units of
>>>> *action* are
>>>>
>>>> individual? In which can it is of course a tautology.
>>>>
>>>> But *action* is irreducibly *social*, and so is every
>>>>
>>>> "individual" action. Or better, so is every
>>>> "singular" action.
>>>>
>>>> A lot of relevant differences are coded in the English
>>>>
>>>> language by the use of the count-noun or mass noun
>>>> form, but
>>>>
>>>> on the whole the set of words (action, actions,
>>>> activity,
>>>>
>>>> activities) and the set of words (practice,
>>>> practices) have
>>>>
>>>> no systematic difference running across all
>>>> disciplines and
>>>>
>>>> schools of thought. For us CHATters, "activities" are
>>>> practices.
>>>>
>>>> If you read Hegel and Marx, there is an added issue: the
>>>>
>>>> German words for action (Handlung) and activity
>>>> (Tatigkeit)
>>>>
>>>> are more or less inverted for Hegel, and he doesn't use
>>>>
>>>> Aktivitat at all.
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>
>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-
>>>> collective-decision-making
>>>> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-
>>>> decision-making>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 24/07/2017 11:42 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Alexander, Mike,
>>>>
>>>> > Thanks for the article.
>>>>
>>>> > Moving to page 51 I noticed that when referencing
>>>> Bernstein he contrasted (action) with (practice) and
>>>> did not REPEAT (identity) the thesis about the role
>>>> of practice in knowing).
>>>>
>>>> > Two formulas:
>>>>
>>>> > • Knowing THROUGH ‘action’
>>>>
>>>> > • Verification of knowing THROUGH ‘practice’
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > These two formulas closely RESEMBLE each other but
>>>> do not co-incide
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Action IS individual
>>>>
>>>> > Practice IS a social category.
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Sociohistorical (practice) in the final analysis is
>>>> nothing other than the SUM total of the actions of
>>>> individual who are separate.
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Individual action is LIKE a single experiment.
>>>> They are alike in that both individual action & a
>>>> single experiment are poorly suited to the role of :
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > A philosophical criterion of (truth).
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > I do not have the background to intelligently
>>>> comment, but did register this theme as provocative
>>>> FOR further thought and wording.
>>>>
>>>> > And for generating intelligent commentary
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > From: Ivan Uemlianin
>>>>
>>>> > Sent: July 20, 2017 11:17 AM
>>>>
>>>> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>
>>>> > Cc: Alexander Surmava
>>>>
>>>> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Ilyenkov, Marx, & Spinoza
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Yes very interesting thank you! (Ilyenkov fan)
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > Ivan
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> > --
>>>>
>>>> > festina lente
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >> On 20 Jul 2017, at 18:00, mike cole
>>>> <mcole@ucsd.edu> <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >>
>>>>
>>>> >> This article might prove of interest to those who
>>>> have been discussing
>>>>
>>>> >> LSV's sources in
>>>>
>>>> >> marx and spinoza.
>>>>
>>>> >> mike
>>>>
>>>> >> <Ilyenkov_and_the_Revolution_in_Psycholog.pdf>
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> >
>>
>
>
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