From Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu Fri Sep 1 09:48:32 2017 From: Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu (White, Phillip) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2017 16:48:32 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?WW91VHViZSdkYSAi0J/RgNC10LrRgNCw0YHQvdC+0LUg0LQ=?= =?utf-8?b?0LDQu9C10LrQviIgdmlkZW9zdW51IGl6bGV5aW4=?= In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Ulvi, i think that it is fair to say that for some citizens of the soviet union, its dissolution and collapse was a time of celebration. i'm thinking particularly of the three baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - who were all three invaded by the red army after Stalin & Hitler's collaboration pact. Poland suffered as well, partitioned by the Russians and Germans. so i can safely say that when friends and family of mine who lived and now live in Latvia, these maudlin russian songs evoked satirical laughter, if not disgust. after all, the russian language was one vehicle for russification of the Baltic states within the russian occupation. so while Bella says the soviet collapse is what it is, the meaning of "is" is embedded in a cultural historical context. for some this is a period of grief, for others this is a period of celebration, depending upon one's historical experience. phillip ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Ulvi ??il Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 3:20:08 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] YouTube'da "?????????? ??????" videosunu izleyin https://youtu.be/m7A4uy6Nw0k please tell me bella. did it reserve this dissolution and collapse which was mainly its own fault? if you will say that it deserved, i will admit it without any reserve, objection. thanks From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Fri Sep 1 14:38:26 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 00:38:26 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?WW91VHViZSdkYSAi0J/RgNC10LrRgNCw0YHQvdC+0LUg0LQ=?= =?utf-8?b?0LDQu9C10LrQviIgdmlkZW9zdW51IGl6bGV5aW4=?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Philip I know that, that geography has been extremely painful for all the peoples who lived on it. Nazis and ours (= and yours ) confronted on this geography. It is exremely tragic. I think that Soviets, neither Lenin nor Stalin were curious about invading any country before and after the war. I think Stalin especially never thought to invade east europe after the war. Rather he thought these states a security for soviet union. Ussr did not force a real socialist revolution in eastern europe. land property in poland for instance. they did not force. then i remember finland of 1917. lenin's decision for finland's independence. another sign that they were never after annexions. but they were later blamed so much of finland's invasion. i think that neither lenin nor stalin were after exporting revolution. sincerely, if i were stalin from 1945 to 1953, i would absolutely try socialist revolutions in italy and france and greece. i sometimes execute my extremely poor imagination skills towards humanity's history in 20th century and dream that stalin and cpsu have organized an armed proletarian insurrection in... germany in the 30s. a successful one, a victorious socialist revolution. i imagine that what an incredible historical act this would be to prevent nazism from political power. do you kindly think to the immense human cost which could be saved if this could be succeeded? not only 25 millions of soviet. but also germans. and french. poland. dear jewish people. and polish people dear philip. jews to be saved. i imagine this towards past towards 30s and let me blame kindly stalin and cpsu soviet and german communists not to succeed in this. stalin has never been eager to invade. never to export revolution. and even i find him not on the left in this respect but rather on the right. he left europe for for socialist revolutions. a great mistake. i think that today ukrainian people celebrate some things and among these are some people who are really ukrainian fascists who resisted against soviets. and this is the result of german and eu liberalism this rising nazism in ukraine. isn't it? is it wrong that now in estonia communism is equilized to nazism? just nowadays. am i wrong dear philip? that celebrating of this bad communism is equivalent to the rising if nazism in all this geography? or because communism is the only force to prevent this other current inherent in capitalism and liberalism and that there is no midway is a rule of social development under capitalism? it is clear: if we are not for nazism we should be for communism. but which one? i believe a much better one than the one humanity achieved and could achieve in ussr in 20th century. but the crucial thing is that we should move onwards beyond this achievement. there is no such thing as putting aside ussr experience and move towards a brighter wondruous future i believe. it had and it will always have great human cost, i do not reject it and we are, most of us from midddle classes, are not obliged to destroy capitalism but to poorest masses we can not tell: hey, wait a minute, first democracy, then bread. how many years they will wait? endlessly!!! let's lie to them that one day they will reach comfort in capitalism. no, we left this age behind. i think that we are latest generations.of our species if we do not make revolutions in us and china. an anti leninist idea because of weak ring theory of lenin about imlerialist chain. but i am still a leninist and i think that we should tell to masses what he said geniously in 1914: your weapons against your own capitalist class. here my imagination towards past works again and i dream either french or german working class to be receptive to this. mere preventing obstructing of war with just one sentence. one single sentence! i think that celebrating dissolution of ussr anywhere means unfortunately that humanity with its great goods and bads lost the last chance to save human species on earth. to nobody capable of thinking is unknown the effects of ussr dissolution. in science in education. october and ussr stopped imperialist aggression againt humanity and now with dissolution human society goes t.o where in france in england in finland in western europe. it was ussr who stopped capitalist agression towards humanity. should really humanity celebrate ussr's dissolution! i would like to really to listen to any mechanism inherent to capitalism which could prevent extermination of our species. we like it or not. applied good or very bad in many respects by our own species, communism is the unique exit, unique salvation of human species thanks to its social mechanisms which sincerely and at least theoretically work towards salvation of our species. i think this science, social science in its purest way. so we now left behind the point where we discuss if capitalism or socialism recognizes more human freedom, freedom of thought. and we arrived which one will save our species. if you say, philip, that yes, capitalism possesses those social economic political mechanisms to save humanity, i, at this moment, give up my communism immediately for ever. friendly ulvi 1 Eyl 2017 19:51 tarihinde "White, Phillip" yazd?: > Ulvi, i think that it is fair to say that for some citizens of the soviet > union, its dissolution and collapse was a time of celebration. i'm > thinking particularly of the three baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and > Lithuania - who were all three invaded by the red army after Stalin & > Hitler's collaboration pact. Poland suffered as well, partitioned by the > Russians and Germans. > > > so i can safely say that when friends and family of mine who lived and now > live in Latvia, these maudlin russian songs evoked satirical laughter, if > not disgust. after all, the russian language was one vehicle for > russification of the Baltic states within the russian occupation. > > > so while Bella says the soviet collapse is what it is, the meaning of "is" > is embedded in a cultural historical context. for some this is a period of > grief, for others this is a period of celebration, depending upon one's > historical experience. > > > phillip > > > > > ________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Ulvi ??il > Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 3:20:08 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] YouTube'da "?????????? ??????" videosunu izleyin > > https://youtu.be/m7A4uy6Nw0k > > please tell me bella. > > did it reserve this dissolution and collapse which was mainly its own > fault? > > if you will say that it deserved, i will admit it without any reserve, > objection. > > thanks > From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Fri Sep 1 15:35:24 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 01:35:24 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] CP of Greece, The equation of Communism with Nazism is unacceptable and provocative [En, Ru, Es, Ar, Fr] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://www.solidnet.org/greece-communist-party-of-greece/cp-of-greece-the-equation-of-communism-with-nazism-is-unacceptable-and-provocative-en-ru-es-ar-fr Here is Free Estonia. Thanks to Radio Free Europe etc etc Imperialism succeeded, humanity victorious. From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Sat Sep 2 06:48:25 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 16:48:25 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CP of Greece, The equation of Communism with Nazism is unacceptable and provocative [En, Ru, Es, Ar, Fr] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Due to size limit, images in Estonian will come in a 2nd email. On 2 September 2017 at 16:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: > > There was heavy censorship under Stalin and even after. > > I wonder if persea books owners in USA are Stalinist as well as publisher > of N?zim Hikmet in Turkish in Turkey. > > I have the Turkish original manuscript of this novel with the poem at the > end as "I'm a communist" whereas it is still published as "I'm a worker" > instead of the correct original one, even though there is no legal obstacle > since 1991. > > As well as for French (1964), Russian in USSR in 1964 and Turkish in > socialist Bulgaria (1964 and 1967), please see the images at the end of > this article: > > http://haber.sol.org.tr/blog/kent-kultur-sanat/ulvi-icil/ > nazimin-yasamak-guzel-sey-be-kardesimi-201955 > > And this is Estonian from 1965. > > I'm sure if there is o will be any new translation in Estonian, it will be > like in Turkish, English because it is so in new translation in Bulgaria. > > Stalin, Jivkov, socialism, communism went, and together with them > censorship too. > Really ? > > Censorship applied to a work of a communist writer. > > But we are lucky, those leaving in Turkey, in USA, in Bulgaria. > in UK, > In these, it is at least in the form of "I'm a worker". In 1980 print, in > Iran, it is neither communist nor worker! To be a worker in Iran in 1980 is > as dangerous as to be a communist. (Iranian authorities have probably read > German Ideology and discovered that working-class is by its very nature > inclined to communism, that communist consciousness emanates from > proletariat. > > For this reason, USA should attack Iran immediately and make return Iran > back to freedom of thought. > > Or is there any fundamental difference between USA and Iran and UK in this > regard? > > Long live bourgeois democracy. > > Long live freedom of thought. > > Down with Stalin and communism and USSR. > > > > > > On 2 September 2017 at 01:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: > >> http://www.solidnet.org/greece-communist-party-of-greece/cp- >> of-greece-the-equation-of-communism-with-nazism-is- >> unacceptable-and-provocative-en-ru-es-ar-fr >> >> Here is Free Estonia. >> >> Thanks to Radio Free Europe etc etc >> >> Imperialism succeeded, humanity victorious. >> >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: English USA 2013_1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1011454 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/9bf378e3/attachment-0002.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: English USA 2013_2.png Type: image/png Size: 89144 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/9bf378e3/attachment-0001.png -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: English USA 2013_3.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1460656 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/9bf378e3/attachment-0003.jpg From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Sat Sep 2 06:49:54 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 16:49:54 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CP of Greece, The equation of Communism with Nazism is unacceptable and provocative [En, Ru, Es, Ar, Fr] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2 September 2017 at 16:48, Ulvi ??il wrote: > Due to size limit, images in Estonian will come in a 2nd email. > > On 2 September 2017 at 16:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: > >> >> There was heavy censorship under Stalin and even after. >> >> I wonder if persea books owners in USA are Stalinist as well as publisher >> of N?zim Hikmet in Turkish in Turkey. >> >> I have the Turkish original manuscript of this novel with the poem at the >> end as "I'm a communist" whereas it is still published as "I'm a worker" >> instead of the correct original one, even though there is no legal obstacle >> since 1991. >> >> As well as for French (1964), Russian in USSR in 1964 and Turkish in >> socialist Bulgaria (1964 and 1967), please see the images at the end of >> this article: >> >> http://haber.sol.org.tr/blog/kent-kultur-sanat/ulvi-icil/naz >> imin-yasamak-guzel-sey-be-kardesimi-201955 >> >> And this is Estonian from 1965. >> >> I'm sure if there is o will be any new translation in Estonian, it will >> be like in Turkish, English because it is so in new translation in Bulgaria. >> >> Stalin, Jivkov, socialism, communism went, and together with them >> censorship too. >> Really ? >> >> Censorship applied to a work of a communist writer. >> >> But we are lucky, those leaving in Turkey, in USA, in Bulgaria. >> in UK, >> In these, it is at least in the form of "I'm a worker". In 1980 print, in >> Iran, it is neither communist nor worker! To be a worker in Iran in 1980 is >> as dangerous as to be a communist. (Iranian authorities have probably read >> German Ideology and discovered that working-class is by its very nature >> inclined to communism, that communist consciousness emanates from >> proletariat. >> >> For this reason, USA should attack Iran immediately and make return Iran >> back to freedom of thought. >> >> Or is there any fundamental difference between USA and Iran and UK in >> this regard? >> >> Long live bourgeois democracy. >> >> Long live freedom of thought. >> >> Down with Stalin and communism and USSR. >> >> >> >> >> >> On 2 September 2017 at 01:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: >> >>> http://www.solidnet.org/greece-communist-party-of-greece/cp- >>> of-greece-the-equation-of-communism-with-nazism-is-unaccepta >>> ble-and-provocative-en-ru-es-ar-fr >>> >>> Here is Free Estonia. >>> >>> Thanks to Radio Free Europe etc etc >>> >>> Imperialism succeeded, humanity victorious. >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Naz?m EST1 (1).jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2053775 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/6427e401/attachment-0003.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Naz?m EST2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1586047 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/6427e401/attachment-0004.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Naz?m EST3 (2) (1).jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1546193 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170902/6427e401/attachment-0005.jpg From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sat Sep 2 10:40:03 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (greg.a.thompson@gmail.com) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 11:40:03 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] New resource available Message-ID: Just wanted to let everyone know of this incredible resource that has just appeared on the web: http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm It has close to all of Andy Blunden's work, including videos and some unpublished works. The "my writings" tab has all of his writings in reverse chronological order with links directly to the papers themselves. There are also lots of videos, including a course comprised of 10 lectures that introduce and explain core CHAT concepts. This website will be a tremendous resource for teaching chat concepts and for learning more about the background to these concepts as well as how to put them into practice in everyday life. Please take a moment to check out this awesome resource. Cheers, Greg Sent from my iPhone From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sat Sep 2 12:01:08 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 19:01:08 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New resource available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1504378869071.54983@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing, Greg! Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sent: 02 September 2017 19:40 To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] New resource available Just wanted to let everyone know of this incredible resource that has just appeared on the web: http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm It has close to all of Andy Blunden's work, including videos and some unpublished works. The "my writings" tab has all of his writings in reverse chronological order with links directly to the papers themselves. There are also lots of videos, including a course comprised of 10 lectures that introduce and explain core CHAT concepts. This website will be a tremendous resource for teaching chat concepts and for learning more about the background to these concepts as well as how to put them into practice in everyday life. Please take a moment to check out this awesome resource. Cheers, Greg Sent from my iPhone From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sat Sep 2 16:36:19 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2017 23:36:19 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Message-ID: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo From Dana.Walker@unco.edu Sat Sep 2 18:12:16 2017 From: Dana.Walker@unco.edu (Walker, Dana) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 01:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Message-ID: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> Alfredo, I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? Dana On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sun Sep 3 01:52:10 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 08:52:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> References: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> Message-ID: <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no> Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Walker, Dana Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Alfredo, I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? Dana On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** From ivan@llaisdy.com Sun Sep 3 02:37:17 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 10:37:17 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New resource available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is Andy Blunden's home page (the old url redirects here). http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ looks like a nice site. Ivan On 02/09/17 18:40, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote: > Just wanted to let everyone know of this incredible resource that has just appeared on the web: > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > It has close to all of Andy Blunden's work, including videos and some unpublished works. > The "my writings" tab has all of his writings in reverse chronological order with links directly to the papers themselves. > There are also lots of videos, including a course comprised of 10 lectures that introduce and explain core CHAT concepts. > This website will be a tremendous resource for teaching chat concepts and for learning more about the background to these concepts as well as how to put them into practice in everyday life. > Please take a moment to check out this awesome resource. > Cheers, > Greg > > Sent from my iPhone -- ============================================================ Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD Llaisdy Speech Technology Research and Development ivan@llaisdy.com @llaisdy llaisdy.wordpress.com github.com/llaisdy www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin festina lente ============================================================ From lpscholar2@gmail.com Sun Sep 3 02:52:38 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Larry Purss) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 02:52:38 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no> References: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <59abd0e8.4140630a.51c9a.0fad@mx.google.com> Alfredo, thanks for posting this [thread: RE ISCAR experences, reflections, etc.....] I am imagining this word as having a *shape* refered to as a *single helix turning like the movement of a corkscrew that circles and turns in a thread direction. I am now turning in this helix turning direction that Andy is participating when he personally *contributed* a *profound* article written by *Malcolm Reed* who is the President of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity of Research [ISCAR} Alfredo, I personally belief Reed?s *resonant voice* should be heard and felt as now being addressed to *us* at this moment when people are *gathering* by walking to Quebec to share ISCAR embodiment. Therefore I am now adding Malcome Reed?s *helix shaped threading * linking Reed?s article to hopefully read today while ISCAR?s embodied gathering is now becoming *embodied* today. Here is the opening introduction on page 5 to introduce Reed?s significant *calling* I hear by listening to Reed?s *tone of voice*: This paper is the consequence of a kind invitation by Professor Vitaly Rubtsov to make an address at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education to an International Symposium celebrating the 120th anniversary of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky on behalf of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR). The matter of the address was given to me?for which I am grateful, since a point of focus often enables a better sense of clarity?and I have developed the ideas in the paper from those in the address. I have added the verbal image of ?gathering stones?, since this phrase had an important function in Vygotsky?s argument, as Zinchenko has remarked [44, p. 27; 47, p. 41] in what I read for our time as advice regarding how we might reflect on the purpose and maintain the process of collective inquiry. Now as this image of the thread movement of the corkscrew turning *turns* within *this thread*. Therefore I am going to add [contribute] another paragraph from Malcome Reed?s same article on page 7 - threading Malcome?s [walk] to reflect on the history of ISCAR as his intent. Voice tone: ?When, in 1981, we were asked to read Vygotsky?s Thought and Language for discussion one Friday in our English PGCE group, I fell in love with an idea. Vygotsky (1962) quotes the poet Osip Mandelstam: ?I have forgotten the word I intended to say, and my thought, unembodied, returns to the realm of shadows? (p. 119). I thought then, and know now, that there must be reasons beyond forgetting for thoughts to return to that realm, that people may assist thinking and learning, but may also distract and silence that process. Vygotsky writes a little later in the chapter: ?Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form? (p. 126). I want to understand more of these mundane migrations and metamorphoses of meaning and feeling. At the heart of socio-cultural inquiry lies this metaphor of spaces to be crossed, whether in the mind or between minds. Call it the zone; call it mediation; call it enculturation; call it what you will, but mind that gap and help others to build bridges from both sides [17, pp. 206?207]. There are some problems of accuracy that occur to me now that I have had access to better editions of Vygotsky?s writings, but I am happy with the gist of this portrayal of how the tradition I belong to motivates me to work. I think it gives a good enough image and feeling. The ISCAR tradition covers and links a number of disciplines ? education, linguistics, and anthropology would probably feature prominently on *most* people?s lists, although there are clearly *more* .? [Malcolm Reed] I will also mention a key word that Reed is illuminating: the word *wasting* as central to what Reed refers to *as* our [problematization of *wasting*. Also Reed is profoundly moved by the contrast between what Reed refers to *as* [living activity] as *texts* only *come alive* through their *helix threading* or *transmission* of the voice of the circle?s voice that is *alive*. THOSE ideas will *only* live on *as and when* they are valued and *needed* as constitutive AND explanatory *of* [living activity]. Reed emphasizes [and models and exemplifies] that ?Transmission is *not* merely a *mechanical act*. NOTICE the helix thread turning between [living activity] in contrast to [mechanical deadening acts]. I have said enough to hopefully I am *rising up* and continue Malcome Reed?s threading helix movement. Time will tell if others find this article meaning and addressing our Bahkin dialogical walking towards *embodying* notions. Pause here [mind the *gap] so as this gap does *open* our *living conversation through dialogue. Alfredo, thank you for keeping this thread *alive* Larry Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: September 3, 2017 1:54 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Walker, Dana Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Alfredo, I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? Dana On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: REED SEPTEMBER 2 2017 Gathering_Stones_The_Problems_of_Modern Cultural Research.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 313234 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170903/43c46c08/attachment.pdf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: REED SEPTEMBER 2 2017 Gathering_Stones_The_Problems_of_Modern Cultural Research.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 313234 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170903/43c46c08/attachment-0001.pdf From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sun Sep 3 06:32:11 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 13:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <59abd0e8.4140630a.51c9a.0fad@mx.google.com> References: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no>, <59abd0e8.4140630a.51c9a.0fad@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <1504445531913.27279@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing this Larry, and particularly for bringing in quotations that save us the time to go and read the whole before the post becomes meaningful. I am looking forward to more turns of the helix thread as more ISCAR participants bring in their voice. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss Sent: 03 September 2017 11:52 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Alfredo, thanks for posting this [thread: RE ISCAR experences, reflections, etc.....] I am imagining this word as having a *shape* refered to as a *single helix turning like the movement of a corkscrew that circles and turns in a thread direction. I am now turning in this helix turning direction that Andy is participating when he personally *contributed* a *profound* article written by *Malcolm Reed* who is the President of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity of Research [ISCAR} Alfredo, I personally belief Reed?s *resonant voice* should be heard and felt as now being addressed to *us* at this moment when people are *gathering* by walking to Quebec to share ISCAR embodiment. Therefore I am now adding Malcome Reed?s *helix shaped threading * linking Reed?s article to hopefully read today while ISCAR?s embodied gathering is now becoming *embodied* today. Here is the opening introduction on page 5 to introduce Reed?s significant *calling* I hear by listening to Reed?s *tone of voice*: This paper is the consequence of a kind invitation by Professor Vitaly Rubtsov to make an address at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education to an International Symposium celebrating the 120th anniversary of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky on behalf of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR). The matter of the address was given to me?for which I am grateful, since a point of focus often enables a better sense of clarity?and I have developed the ideas in the paper from those in the address. I have added the verbal image of ?gathering stones?, since this phrase had an important function in Vygotsky?s argument, as Zinchenko has remarked [44, p. 27; 47, p. 41] in what I read for our time as advice regarding how we might reflect on the purpose and maintain the process of collective inquiry. Now as this image of the thread movement of the corkscrew turning *turns* within *this thread*. Therefore I am going to add [contribute] another paragraph from Malcome Reed?s same article on page 7 - threading Malcome?s [walk] to reflect on the history of ISCAR as his intent. Voice tone: ?When, in 1981, we were asked to read Vygotsky?s Thought and Language for discussion one Friday in our English PGCE group, I fell in love with an idea. Vygotsky (1962) quotes the poet Osip Mandelstam: ?I have forgotten the word I intended to say, and my thought, unembodied, returns to the realm of shadows? (p. 119). I thought then, and know now, that there must be reasons beyond forgetting for thoughts to return to that realm, that people may assist thinking and learning, but may also distract and silence that process. Vygotsky writes a little later in the chapter: ?Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form? (p. 126). I want to understand more of these mundane migrations and metamorphoses of meaning and feeling. At the heart of socio-cultural inquiry lies this metaphor of spaces to be crossed, whether in the mind or between minds. Call it the zone; call it mediation; call it enculturation; call it what you will, but mind that gap and help others to build bridges from both sides [17, pp. 206?207]. There are some problems of accuracy that occur to me now that I have had access to better editions of Vygotsky?s writings, but I am happy with the gist of this portrayal of how the tradition I belong to motivates me to work. I think it gives a good enough image and feeling. The ISCAR tradition covers and links a number of disciplines ? education, linguistics, and anthropology would probably feature prominently on *most* people?s lists, although there are clearly *more* .? [Malcolm Reed] I will also mention a key word that Reed is illuminating: the word *wasting* as central to what Reed refers to *as* our [problematization of *wasting*. Also Reed is profoundly moved by the contrast between what Reed refers to *as* [living activity] as *texts* only *come alive* through their *helix threading* or *transmission* of the voice of the circle?s voice that is *alive*. THOSE ideas will *only* live on *as and when* they are valued and *needed* as constitutive AND explanatory *of* [living activity]. Reed emphasizes [and models and exemplifies] that ?Transmission is *not* merely a *mechanical act*. NOTICE the helix thread turning between [living activity] in contrast to [mechanical deadening acts]. I have said enough to hopefully I am *rising up* and continue Malcome Reed?s threading helix movement. Time will tell if others find this article meaning and addressing our Bahkin dialogical walking towards *embodying* notions. Pause here [mind the *gap] so as this gap does *open* our *living conversation through dialogue. Alfredo, thank you for keeping this thread *alive* Larry Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: September 3, 2017 1:54 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Walker, Dana Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Alfredo, I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? Dana On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sun Sep 3 08:23:13 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 09:23:13 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New resource available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ivan, Yes, the one I sent is the newer version: http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm It is a bit more accessible and has some added bonuses such as his personal biography and pictures as well as links to his video talks (the old site just had links to papers). 1.0 was nice, but 2.0 is massively improved. Enjoy! -greg On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 3:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > This is Andy Blunden's home page (the old url redirects here). > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ looks like a nice site. > > Ivan > > > > On 02/09/17 18:40, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote: > >> Just wanted to let everyone know of this incredible resource that has >> just appeared on the web: >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> It has close to all of Andy Blunden's work, including videos and some >> unpublished works. >> The "my writings" tab has all of his writings in reverse chronological >> order with links directly to the papers themselves. >> There are also lots of videos, including a course comprised of 10 >> lectures that introduce and explain core CHAT concepts. >> This website will be a tremendous resource for teaching chat concepts and >> for learning more about the background to these concepts as well as how to >> put them into practice in everyday life. >> Please take a moment to check out this awesome resource. >> Cheers, >> Greg >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> > > -- > ============================================================ > Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD > Llaisdy > Speech Technology Research and Development > > ivan@llaisdy.com > @llaisdy > llaisdy.wordpress.com > github.com/llaisdy > www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin > > festina lente > ============================================================ > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From jaakko.hilppo@helsinki.fi Sun Sep 3 08:37:34 2017 From: jaakko.hilppo@helsinki.fi (=?utf-8?Q?Jaakko_Hilpp=C3=B6?=) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 10:37:34 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <1504445531913.27279@iped.uio.no> References: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no> <59abd0e8.4140630a.51c9a.0fad@mx.google.com> <1504445531913.27279@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi, Thanks Alfredo and Dana for your reflections on this years ISCAR conference. I also attended the full conference and took also part in the pre-conference workshops on Monday. All in all I enjoyed the conference immensely for the intellectual stimulation of not just during the keynotes, symposiums and presentations, but also for the discussion I had the good fortune to be part of during refreshment breaks, lunch and just serendipitously in the hall way. The conference was well organised and well managed, of which big thanks to any organiser who might be on the list here. Then as for one particular highlight, I really enjoyed Alex Levant?s, Bonnie Nardi?s and Anna Stetsenko?s symposium regarding Activity Theory and the Anthropocene. While the arguments around Activity Theory were familiar to me, I really appreciated their effort both to dialogue with existing theories, such as agential realism and post-humanism, in a way which pointed out similarities and important differences. What was especially striking was the parts of Nardi?s where she pointed out how the academics who have the politicians ear, often espouse highly reductionist and even naive ideas about how human act. At the end of the symposium Alex mentioned that they were in the process of aligning up a special issue on the topic. The reason why this symposium was one of the highlight of the conference for me was the way in which it directly engaged in dialogue with more recent theories and trends in academic field, something I have not seen that much of late. I feel engaging in these discussion is highly important for raising awareness of CHAT outside our circles and to also develop CHAT in the age of the anthropocene. And finally, yes the next conference will be held in Brazil, in Natale if I?m not mistaken! Many thanks already in advance for our brazilian colleagues for this! Jake :) *************** Jaakko Hilpp? jaakko.hilppo@northwestern.edu Post-doctoral Fellow FUSE https://www.fusestudio.net LIME Research Lab Walter Annenberg Hall 2120 Campus Drive Evanston, Illinois 60208 224.432.4400 www.sesp.northwestern.edu > Alfredo Jornet Gil kirjoitti 3.9.2017 kello 8.32: > > Thanks for sharing this Larry, and particularly for bringing in quotations that save us the time to go and read the whole before the post becomes meaningful. I am looking forward to more turns of the helix thread as more ISCAR participants bring in their voice. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss > Sent: 03 September 2017 11:52 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Alfredo, thanks for posting this [thread: RE ISCAR experences, reflections, etc.....] > I am imagining this word as having a *shape* refered to as a *single helix turning like the movement of a corkscrew that circles and turns in a thread direction. > > I am now turning in this helix turning direction that Andy is participating when he personally *contributed* a *profound* article written by *Malcolm Reed* who is the President of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity of Research [ISCAR} > > Alfredo, I personally belief Reed?s *resonant voice* should be heard and felt as now being addressed to *us* at this moment when people are *gathering* by walking to Quebec to share ISCAR embodiment. > > Therefore I am now adding Malcome Reed?s *helix shaped threading * linking Reed?s article to hopefully read today while ISCAR?s embodied gathering is now becoming *embodied* today. > Here is the opening introduction on page 5 to introduce Reed?s significant *calling* I hear by listening to Reed?s *tone of voice*: > > > This paper is the consequence of a kind invitation by Professor Vitaly Rubtsov to make an address at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education to an International Symposium celebrating the 120th anniversary of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky on behalf of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR). The matter of the address was given to me?for which I am grateful, since a point of focus often enables a better sense of clarity?and I have developed the ideas in the paper from those in the address. I have added the verbal image of ?gathering stones?, since this phrase had an important function in Vygotsky?s argument, as Zinchenko has remarked [44, p. 27; 47, p. 41] in what I read for our time as advice regarding how we might reflect on the purpose and maintain the process of collective inquiry. > > Now as this image of the thread movement of the corkscrew turning *turns* within *this thread*. > Therefore I am going to add [contribute] another paragraph from Malcome Reed?s same article on page 7 - threading Malcome?s [walk] to reflect on the history of ISCAR as his intent. Voice tone: > > ?When, in 1981, we were asked to read Vygotsky?s Thought and Language for discussion one Friday in our English PGCE group, I fell in love with an idea. Vygotsky (1962) quotes the poet Osip Mandelstam: ?I have forgotten the word I intended to say, and my thought, unembodied, returns to the realm of shadows? (p. 119). I thought then, and know now, that there must be reasons beyond forgetting for thoughts to return to that realm, that people may assist thinking and learning, but may also distract and silence that process. Vygotsky writes a little later in the chapter: ?Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form? (p. 126). I want to understand more of these mundane migrations and metamorphoses of meaning and feeling. At the heart of socio-cultural inquiry lies this metaphor of spaces to be crossed, whether in the mind or between minds. Call it the zone; call it mediation; call it enculturati! > on; call it what you will, but mind that gap and help others to build bridges from both sides [17, pp. 206?207]. There are some problems of accuracy that occur to me now that I have had access to better editions of Vygotsky?s writings, but I am happy with the gist of this portrayal of how the tradition I belong to motivates me to work. I think it gives a good enough image and feeling. The ISCAR tradition covers and links a number of disciplines ? education, linguistics, and anthropology would probably feature prominently on *most* people?s lists, although there are clearly *more* .? [Malcolm Reed] > > I will also mention a key word that Reed is illuminating: the word *wasting* as central to what Reed refers to *as* our [problematization of *wasting*. > Also Reed is profoundly moved by the contrast between what Reed refers to *as* [living activity] as *texts* only *come alive* through their *helix threading* or *transmission* of the voice of the circle?s voice that is *alive*. > > THOSE ideas will *only* live on *as and when* they are valued and *needed* as constitutive AND explanatory *of* [living activity]. > Reed emphasizes [and models and exemplifies] that ?Transmission is *not* merely a *mechanical act*. > > NOTICE the helix thread turning between [living activity] in contrast to [mechanical deadening acts]. > > I have said enough to hopefully I am *rising up* and continue Malcome Reed?s threading helix movement. > Time will tell if others find this article meaning and addressing our Bahkin dialogical walking towards *embodying* notions. > > Pause here [mind the *gap] so as this gap does *open* our *living conversation through dialogue. > > Alfredo, thank you for keeping this thread *alive* > > Larry > > > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: September 3, 2017 1:54 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Walker, Dana > Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Alfredo, > > I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? > > Dana > > > > On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: > > Dear all, > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > Alfredo > **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** > > > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Sun Sep 3 11:37:34 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 18:37:34 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6IENQIG9mIEdyZWVjZSwgVGhlIGVxdWF0aW9u?= =?utf-8?q?_of_Communism_with_Nazism_is_unacceptable_and_provocative_=5BEn?= =?utf-8?b?LCBSdSwgRXMsIEFyLCBGcl0=?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1670733902.3265066.1504463854350@mail.yahoo.com> I completely agree, that "the equation of Communism with Nazism is unacceptable and provocative". But I want to add: The equation of the Soviet Stalinist as well as Chinese Maoist regimes with Socialism or Communism is even more unacceptable and provocative... Because they are closer to regime of German national socialists.? ???????, 2 ???????? 2017 16:55 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): On 2 September 2017 at 16:48, Ulvi ??il wrote: > Due to size limit, images in Estonian will come in a 2nd email. > > On 2 September 2017 at 16:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: > >> >> There was heavy censorship under Stalin and even after. >> >> I wonder if persea books owners in USA are Stalinist as well as publisher >> of N?zim Hikmet in Turkish in Turkey. >> >> I have the Turkish original manuscript of this novel with the poem at the >> end as "I'm a communist" whereas it is still published as "I'm a worker" >> instead of the correct original one, even though there is no legal obstacle >> since 1991. >> >> As well as for French (1964), Russian in USSR in 1964 and Turkish in >> socialist Bulgaria (1964 and 1967), please see the images at the end of >> this article: >> >> http://haber.sol.org.tr/blog/kent-kultur-sanat/ulvi-icil/naz >> imin-yasamak-guzel-sey-be-kardesimi-201955 >> >> And this is Estonian from 1965. >> >> I'm sure if there is o will be any new translation in Estonian, it will >> be like in Turkish, English because it is so in new translation in Bulgaria. >> >> Stalin, Jivkov, socialism, communism went, and together with them >> censorship too. >> Really ? >> >> Censorship applied to a work of a communist writer. >> >> But we are lucky, those leaving in Turkey, in USA, in Bulgaria. >> in UK, >> In these, it is at least in the form of "I'm a worker". In 1980 print, in >> Iran, it is neither communist nor worker! To be a worker in Iran in 1980 is >> as dangerous as to be a communist. (Iranian authorities have probably read >> German Ideology and discovered that working-class is by its very nature >> inclined to communism, that communist consciousness emanates from >> proletariat. >> >> For this reason, USA should attack Iran immediately and make return Iran >> back to freedom of thought. >> >> Or is there any fundamental difference between USA and Iran and UK in >> this regard? >> >> Long live bourgeois democracy. >> >> Long live freedom of thought. >> >> Down with Stalin and communism and USSR. >> >> >> >> >> >> On 2 September 2017 at 01:35, Ulvi ??il wrote: >> >>> http://www.solidnet.org/greece-communist-party-of-greece/cp- >>> of-greece-the-equation-of-communism-with-nazism-is-unaccepta >>> ble-and-provocative-en-ru-es-ar-fr >>> >>> Here is Free Estonia. >>> >>> Thanks to Radio Free Europe etc etc >>> >>> Imperialism succeeded, humanity victorious. >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > From modesofpractice@gmail.com Sun Sep 3 13:26:56 2017 From: modesofpractice@gmail.com (David Dirlam) Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 16:26:56 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The non-effects of affirmative action?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: These are sad affirmative action numbers, Mike. It seems cultural change can be frustratingly slow. The legacies of low expectations, unequal educational opportunities, and relationship-destroying requirements are not ceding much to current efforts. *Science* recently had a letter about a South African program that appears to work very well for under-prepared STEM students: The Engineering Augmented Degree Program (ENGAGE) at the School of Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa (*2* ) is one example of an inclusive program that welcomes all but strives to help those who are less prepared. The ENGAGE curriculum gradually increases the volume of work over five years to help students adjust to life at the university. The students are provided with mentoring and other forms of academic and social support, including peer-to-peer interactions. This program has documented stunning success for students from underrepresented groups (*3* ), such as black students from poor townships, and the concept may merit serious consideration by other colleges and universities. Decades ago, when we were first creating developmental rubrics for writing in New York State, the teachers in the campus school at Plattsburgh produced strikingly accelerated progress by using the rubrics "real-time" while interacting with the students. One class that was a year-behind tested grade level in second grade was found three years later by a member of the Bureau of English of the State Education Department to be able to pass the Regent's High School Exam in Writing. We had ten dimensions of writing. The teachers responded to student writing individually by posing questions that offered opportunities at the next developmental level from the one shown. For example, egocentric writing would be responded to with a question like "What does Jeanie think about it?" turning the egocentric audience into friend-directed correspondence. The teachers would also design activities based on a similar principle. For example, when all the students were comfortable writing to each other, a project would be created that involved each student writing to the whole class based on their unique experience. I used the techniques that the campus school teachers taught me to teach entire classes of Appalachian college students how to do psychological research. Their success was acclaimed by numerous independent observers. In recent years, though I've been paid to work one-on-one with academic faculty, it has been a group of after-school music teachers who have made the most serious attempt to implement "real-time developmental education." They are part of the international El Systema movement, started in Venezuela. In all those cases, the process has been a sort of multi-dimensional scaffolding, where the teachers all knew each of the ten or so dimensions (ladders) in the scaffold and used them spontaneously in their relationshps with students. Standardized tests, in contrast, act as roadblocks (or sinkholes) in the path of implementing education based on such teacher knowledge. They fragment knowledge into such small compartments that a computer (Watson) can outperform the best human experts in fragmented knowledge. But nobody is touting or even trying to create computers that compete with scientists in the creation of science, compete with designers in the creation and marketing of new designs, or with courtrooms in the creation of new interpretations. That kind of integrated knowledge and practice escapes the thinking of too many who have the power to affect change. I'm sure xmca readers have similar stories. The methods for getting results are known, but too often, the sources of funding impose competing methods that stand in the way of effective relationships and resist those that create opportunities for them. In thinking about how to initiate a transformation toward developmental and relationship thinking, I have read and re-read the last paragraph of your *Cultural Psychology* many times. Adopt some form of cultural-historical psychology as your theoretical framework. Create a methodology, a systematic way of relating theory to data that draws upon both the natural sciences and the cultural sciences, as befits its hybrid object, human beings. Find an activity setting where you can be both participant and analyst. Enter into the process of helping things grow in the activity system you have entered by bringing to bear all the knowledge gained from both the cultural and natural sciences sides of psychology and allied disciplines. Take your ability to create and sustain effective systems as evidence of your theory?s adequacy. The failures are sure to outnumber the successes by a goodly margin, making it certain that you will never run out of interesting things to do. We've passed the tenth anniversary of that quote. I wonder what we have learned since about how to sustain the successes. David Dirlam On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 11:48 AM, mike cole wrote: > The trends documented in this recent NY Times article ought to be of > interest/concern to this discourse community. > > mike > > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/24/us/ > affirmative-action.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click& > pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well > > And look where the explanation is to be found --- > > Affirmative action increases the numbers > affirmative-action-bans.html> > of > black and Hispanic students at many colleges and universities, but experts > say that persistent underrepresentation often stems from equity issues that > begin earlier. > > Elementary and secondary schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic > students > school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html> > are > less likely to have experienced teachers, advanced courses, high-quality > instructional materials and adequate facilities, according to the United > States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights > colleague-resourcecomp-201410.pdf> > . > > Surprise! The explanation stops there. :-( > > > mike > From lpscholar2@gmail.com Mon Sep 4 03:14:59 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Lplarry) Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2017 03:14:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <988544B7-8330-4E6C-8F77-A3850D64BAEB@unco.edu> <1504428730160.32790@iped.uio.no> <59abd0e8.4140630a.51c9a.0fad@mx.google.com> <1504445531913.27279@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <59ad27c8.478c630a.65565.b1d9@mx.google.com> I am hoping to draw attention to Malcom Reed?s two key words expressed on page 8 (the last sentence). The two key words are POIGANCY and utter Free Will.: Here is Malcom Reed?s words presented on Vygotsky?s utter voice. ? During his last day in 1934 Vygotsky dictates to a secretary and quotes from two poems, ?Swallow? by Osip Mandel?sham? and ?Word? by Nikolai Gamilev?, knowing that these two FRIENDS are passing beyond the shadows. What *terrible poignancy* and what *utter determination* of free will. I sense this focus on (terrible poignancy) seems a key to our helix thread as a turning (minding the gap) between *living voice* and *mechanical technological machine as dead voice* THIS is the deep anguish and poignancy Malcome Reed is (gesturing) of our (world) as becoming enveloping terrible poignancy calling (us) to address THIS and find our (living voice) as *embodying* phenomena Larry Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Jaakko Hilpp? Sent: September 3, 2017 8:40 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Hi, Thanks Alfredo and Dana for your reflections on this years ISCAR conference. I also attended the full conference and took also part in the pre-conference workshops on Monday. All in all I enjoyed the conference immensely for the intellectual stimulation of not just during the keynotes, symposiums and presentations, but also for the discussion I had the good fortune to be part of during refreshment breaks, lunch and just serendipitously in the hall way. The conference was well organised and well managed, of which big thanks to any organiser who might be on the list here. Then as for one particular highlight, I really enjoyed Alex Levant?s, Bonnie Nardi?s and Anna Stetsenko?s symposium regarding Activity Theory and the Anthropocene. While the arguments around Activity Theory were familiar to me, I really appreciated their effort both to dialogue with existing theories, such as agential realism and post-humanism, in a way which pointed out similarities and important differences. What was especially striking was the parts of Nardi?s where she pointed out how the academics who have the politicians ear, often espouse highly reductionist and even naive ideas about how human act. At the end of the symposium Alex mentioned that they were in the process of aligning up a special issue on the topic. The reason why this symposium was one of the highlight of the conference for me was the way in which it directly engaged in dialogue with more recent theories and trends in academic field, something I have not seen that much of late. I feel engaging in these discussion is highly important for raising awareness of CHAT outside our circles and to also develop CHAT in the age of the anthropocene. And finally, yes the next conference will be held in Brazil, in Natale if I?m not mistaken! Many thanks already in advance for our brazilian colleagues for this! Jake :) *************** Jaakko Hilpp? jaakko.hilppo@northwestern.edu Post-doctoral Fellow FUSE https://www.fusestudio.net LIME Research Lab Walter Annenberg Hall 2120 Campus Drive Evanston, Illinois 60208 224.432.4400 www.sesp.northwestern.edu > Alfredo Jornet Gil kirjoitti 3.9.2017 kello 8.32: > > Thanks for sharing this Larry, and particularly for bringing in quotations that save us the time to go and read the whole before the post becomes meaningful. I am looking forward to more turns of the helix thread as more ISCAR participants bring in their voice. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss > Sent: 03 September 2017 11:52 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Alfredo, thanks for posting this [thread: RE ISCAR experences, reflections, etc.....] > I am imagining this word as having a *shape* refered to as a *single helix turning like the movement of a corkscrew that circles and turns in a thread direction. > > I am now turning in this helix turning direction that Andy is participating when he personally *contributed* a *profound* article written by *Malcolm Reed* who is the President of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity of Research [ISCAR} > > Alfredo, I personally belief Reed?s *resonant voice* should be heard and felt as now being addressed to *us* at this moment when people are *gathering* by walking to Quebec to share ISCAR embodiment. > > Therefore I am now adding Malcome Reed?s *helix shaped threading * linking Reed?s article to hopefully read today while ISCAR?s embodied gathering is now becoming *embodied* today. > Here is the opening introduction on page 5 to introduce Reed?s significant *calling* I hear by listening to Reed?s *tone of voice*: > > > This paper is the consequence of a kind invitation by Professor Vitaly Rubtsov to make an address at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education to an International Symposium celebrating the 120th anniversary of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky on behalf of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR). The matter of the address was given to me?for which I am grateful, since a point of focus often enables a better sense of clarity?and I have developed the ideas in the paper from those in the address. I have added the verbal image of ?gathering stones?, since this phrase had an important function in Vygotsky?s argument, as Zinchenko has remarked [44, p. 27; 47, p. 41] in what I read for our time as advice regarding how we might reflect on the purpose and maintain the process of collective inquiry. > > Now as this image of the thread movement of the corkscrew turning *turns* within *this thread*. > Therefore I am going to add [contribute] another paragraph from Malcome Reed?s same article on page 7 - threading Malcome?s [walk] to reflect on the history of ISCAR as his intent. Voice tone: > > ?When, in 1981, we were asked to read Vygotsky?s Thought and Language for discussion one Friday in our English PGCE group, I fell in love with an idea. Vygotsky (1962) quotes the poet Osip Mandelstam: ?I have forgotten the word I intended to say, and my thought, unembodied, returns to the realm of shadows? (p. 119). I thought then, and know now, that there must be reasons beyond forgetting for thoughts to return to that realm, that people may assist thinking and learning, but may also distract and silence that process. Vygotsky writes a little later in the chapter: ?Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form? (p. 126). I want to understand more of these mundane migrations and metamorphoses of meaning and feeling. At the heart of socio-cultural inquiry lies this metaphor of spaces to be crossed, whether in the mind or between minds. Call it the zone; call it mediation; call it enculturati! > on; call it what you will, but mind that gap and help others to build bridges from both sides [17, pp. 206?207]. There are some problems of accuracy that occur to me now that I have had access to better editions of Vygotsky?s writings, but I am happy with the gist of this portrayal of how the tradition I belong to motivates me to work. I think it gives a good enough image and feeling. The ISCAR tradition covers and links a number of disciplines ? education, linguistics, and anthropology would probably feature prominently on *most* people?s lists, although there are clearly *more* .? [Malcolm Reed] > > I will also mention a key word that Reed is illuminating: the word *wasting* as central to what Reed refers to *as* our [problematization of *wasting*. > Also Reed is profoundly moved by the contrast between what Reed refers to *as* [living activity] as *texts* only *come alive* through their *helix threading* or *transmission* of the voice of the circle?s voice that is *alive*. > > THOSE ideas will *only* live on *as and when* they are valued and *needed* as constitutive AND explanatory *of* [living activity]. > Reed emphasizes [and models and exemplifies] that ?Transmission is *not* merely a *mechanical act*. > > NOTICE the helix thread turning between [living activity] in contrast to [mechanical deadening acts]. > > I have said enough to hopefully I am *rising up* and continue Malcome Reed?s threading helix movement. > Time will tell if others find this article meaning and addressing our Bahkin dialogical walking towards *embodying* notions. > > Pause here [mind the *gap] so as this gap does *open* our *living conversation through dialogue. > > Alfredo, thank you for keeping this thread *alive* > > Larry > > > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: September 3, 2017 1:54 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Walker, Dana > Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Alfredo, > > I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez?s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ?miner?s canary,? that ?tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.? It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga V?squez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (?engagement?) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalh?es. Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil? > > Dana > > > > On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" wrote: > > Dear all, > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > Alfredo > **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** > > > > > > From R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk Tue Sep 5 02:17:10 2017 From: R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk (Rod Parker-Rees) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 09:17:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From rodrigues.am83@gmail.com Tue Sep 5 08:05:42 2017 From: rodrigues.am83@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Andr=C3=A9_Machado_Rodrigues?=) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 12:05:42 -0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi Alfredo, It is a pity we did not meet during the conference. I think this overlapping with ERALI has probably prevented some of our colleagues in Europe to attend ISCAR -- lesson learned. ;) Jaakko, yes you are right, the next conference will be held in Natal / Brazil. I am looking forward to seeing you all here. Of course, you are most welcome. All your impressions are valuable to organizers of the next conference. I am one of those 'people that actually lurks into this list'; hence I will keep track on all relevant feedbacks. Building the conference upon the previous experiences is very important. In this regard, I was wondering how people see this experience of *'working group round table*' (wgrt). I'd be glad to get some feedback on that. Although, I acknowledge that *perezhivanie* is a sort of "new" trend in ISCAR. I did not have any opportunity to attend sections that explicitly address the topic, I know Fernando G. Rey e Nikolay Veresov had a symposium and a couple of papers on that, but it simultaneous with my own symposium. Best, Andr? Rodrigues 2017-09-05 6:17 GMT-03:00 Rod Parker-Rees : > Dear Alfredo, > > I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. > > The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a > wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical > research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on > perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set > out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there > was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings > of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many > paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were > smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was > particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and > flexible) concept. > > Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who > seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis > of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of > what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways > and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward > beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning > (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing > interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular > refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding > is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with > other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also > what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez > Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will > be informed by what I have learned from seeing ho! > w they present their own understandings but also, in different but > equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and > with other people's ideas. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Dear all, > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one > day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both > conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was > fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my > work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things > around the globe. > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people > that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever > write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long > posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all > knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of > people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear > more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join > at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely > if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you > found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should > have not been. > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando > G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking > about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child > is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing > Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in > Quebec. > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on > how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I > think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to > have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on > the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > Alfredo > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > From mpacker@uniandes.edu.co Tue Sep 5 09:38:21 2017 From: mpacker@uniandes.edu.co (Martin John Packer) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 16:38:21 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <71D854B2-4304-4B2E-BBA1-C26FFC64FE66@uniandes.edu.co> Sounds as if it would be good to have a programmed XMCA event at the next ISCAR! A roundtable, or a cocktail hour? or both! Martin On Sep 5, 2017, at 10:05 AM, Andr? Machado Rodrigues > wrote: Hi Alfredo, It is a pity we did not meet during the conference. I think this overlapping with ERALI has probably prevented some of our colleagues in Europe to attend ISCAR -- lesson learned. ;) Jaakko, yes you are right, the next conference will be held in Natal / Brazil. I am looking forward to seeing you all here. Of course, you are most welcome. All your impressions are valuable to organizers of the next conference. I am one of those 'people that actually lurks into this list'; hence I will keep track on all relevant feedbacks. Building the conference upon the previous experiences is very important. In this regard, I was wondering how people see this experience of *'working group round table*' (wgrt). I'd be glad to get some feedback on that. Although, I acknowledge that *perezhivanie* is a sort of "new" trend in ISCAR. I did not have any opportunity to attend sections that explicitly address the topic, I know Fernando G. Rey e Nikolay Veresov had a symposium and a couple of papers on that, but it simultaneous with my own symposium. Best, Andr? Rodrigues 2017-09-05 6:17 GMT-03:00 Rod Parker-Rees >: Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing ho! w they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From ajrajala@gmail.com Tue Sep 5 09:46:48 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 19:46:48 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Many thanks Alfredo for attempts to make the list more inclusive of new participants and new perspectives. I am also mostly a lurker and occasional contributor. Unfortunately I could not take part in ISCAR due to simultaneous EARLI conference in Finland. I greatly appreciated people's descriptions of their experience. I would also like to use this occasion to direct your attention to a relatively recent initiative in the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), which is the main conference of learning in Europe. There is now a special interest group (number 25) that is focusing on Educational Theory. I co-coordinate with Rupert Wegerif (Cambridge) and Giuseppe Ritella (Helsinki). XMCA members are very welcome to join us in our effort to create spaces for theoretical deliberation in research on learning and education. Next year in August we will organize a small conference in Cambridge (UK) focusing on theories and methods. Please also check our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/266528786889904/?fref=ts Best, Antti On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM, Andr? Machado Rodrigues < rodrigues.am83@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Alfredo, > It is a pity we did not meet during the conference. I think this > overlapping with ERALI has probably prevented some of our colleagues in > Europe to attend ISCAR -- lesson learned. ;) > > Jaakko, yes you are right, the next conference will be held in Natal / > Brazil. I am looking forward to seeing you all here. Of course, you are > most welcome. > > All your impressions are valuable to organizers of the next conference. I > am one of those 'people that actually lurks into this list'; hence I will > keep track on all relevant feedbacks. Building the conference upon the > previous experiences is very important. In this regard, I was wondering how > people see this experience of *'working group round table*' (wgrt). I'd be > glad to get some feedback on that. > > Although, I acknowledge that *perezhivanie* is a sort of "new" trend in > ISCAR. I did not have any opportunity to attend sections that explicitly > address the topic, I know Fernando G. Rey e Nikolay Veresov had a symposium > and a couple of papers on that, but it simultaneous with my own symposium. > > Best, > > Andr? Rodrigues > > 2017-09-05 6:17 GMT-03:00 Rod Parker-Rees : > > > Dear Alfredo, > > > > I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. > > > > The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a > > wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of > cultural-historical > > research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing > on > > perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people > set > > out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here > there > > was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the > beginnings > > of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many > > paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were > > smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was > > particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful > (and > > flexible) concept. > > > > Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who > > seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical > analysis > > of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries > of > > what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways > > and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward > > beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning > > (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing > > interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular > > refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' > understanding > > is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with > > other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also > > what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando > Gonzalez > > Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will > > be informed by what I have learned from seeing ho! > > w they present their own understandings but also, in different but > > equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and > > with other people's ideas. > > > > All the best, > > > > Rod > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > > Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > > > Dear all, > > > > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just > one > > day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both > > conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was > > fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my > > work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great > things > > around the globe. > > > > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people > > that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if > ever > > write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long > > posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all > > knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of > > people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > > > > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and > hear > > more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join > > at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be > lovely > > if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you > > found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should > > have not been. > > > > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to > Fernando > > G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking > > about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the > child > > is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing > > Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > > rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in > > Quebec. > > > > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on > > how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be > there. I > > think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to > > have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on > > the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________ > > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] > //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > it. > > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > emails > > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > > by an official order form. > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 5 09:57:07 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 16:57:07 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <71D854B2-4304-4B2E-BBA1-C26FFC64FE66@uniandes.edu.co> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> , <71D854B2-4304-4B2E-BBA1-C26FFC64FE66@uniandes.edu.co> Message-ID: <1504630627406.71710@iped.uio.no> Yes Martin, I think the same. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Martin John Packer Sent: 05 September 2017 18:38 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Sounds as if it would be good to have a programmed XMCA event at the next ISCAR! A roundtable, or a cocktail hour? or both! Martin On Sep 5, 2017, at 10:05 AM, Andr? Machado Rodrigues > wrote: Hi Alfredo, It is a pity we did not meet during the conference. I think this overlapping with ERALI has probably prevented some of our colleagues in Europe to attend ISCAR -- lesson learned. ;) Jaakko, yes you are right, the next conference will be held in Natal / Brazil. I am looking forward to seeing you all here. Of course, you are most welcome. All your impressions are valuable to organizers of the next conference. I am one of those 'people that actually lurks into this list'; hence I will keep track on all relevant feedbacks. Building the conference upon the previous experiences is very important. In this regard, I was wondering how people see this experience of *'working group round table*' (wgrt). I'd be glad to get some feedback on that. Although, I acknowledge that *perezhivanie* is a sort of "new" trend in ISCAR. I did not have any opportunity to attend sections that explicitly address the topic, I know Fernando G. Rey e Nikolay Veresov had a symposium and a couple of papers on that, but it simultaneous with my own symposium. Best, Andr? Rodrigues 2017-09-05 6:17 GMT-03:00 Rod Parker-Rees >: Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing ho! w they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 5 11:57:12 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 11:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Bride and Groom Message-ID: Peg just sent me a note that I cannot keep myself from forwarding..... from her place in the demonstration outside the White House expressing my opinion about Trump's immigration assaults. Did a Putin speech writer do this, or is it a sly translator's poison dart?? If the latter, translator beware! Vladimir Putin says Donald Trump is 'not my bride, and I'm not his groom' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/vladimir- putin-says-donald-trump-is-not-my-bride-and-im-not-his-groom I should hope not! Russian family values would go to hell in a handbasket! :-) mike From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 5 12:00:41 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 12:00:41 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Faculty positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz In-Reply-To: <72C06AE0-1FD6-4BD7-AD71-5C7D0ABB5F4F@ucsc.edu> References: <72C06AE0-1FD6-4BD7-AD71-5C7D0ABB5F4F@ucsc.edu> Message-ID: These jobs should be of special interest to xmca members. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Heather Bullock Date: Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 4:06 PM Subject: Faculty positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz To: QUAL@listserv.temple.edu Dear Colleagues, The Psychology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz is seeking to fill positions for two assistant professors in social psychology. I have included the advertisement below and it is also available at: https://apo.ucsc.edu/academic_employment/jobs/JPF00464-18.pdf Please share widely! best wishes, Heather Bullock -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: UCSC.Social Search 2017.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 52529 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170905/c71e38b1/attachment.pdf From ajrajala@gmail.com Tue Sep 5 12:11:06 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 22:11:06 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* and I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to this notion of *settings* ? In-Reply-To: <1503348334354.52@iped.uio.no> References: <599a5b40.0435620a.b7645.1fdf@mx.google.com> <5f2b4360-8020-cd0c-7be1-a2ba5c22d9c5@mira.net> <1503342648639.25217@iped.uio.no> <936467D4-7612-4F1A-823C-4CE50D7B6CA7@umn.edu> <1503348334354.52@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Reviving this conversation after some time (after being two weeks in conferences). Richard raised the notion of dialogicality of settings, or between situations and traditions. Continuing the dialogicality theme, I am reminded of the concept of chronotope that has been discussed in this forum earlier. I think Bakhtin addressed a similar idea of the dialogicality between time and space (Richard was talking about situation and tradition) in a novel (or in educational interpretation, in a community of practice). For example, he described some novel genres in which the setting was almost as a museum where nothing is changing and other genres in which the novel characters and the surroundings are in a mutually developmental relationship, both undergoing and being part of a developmental process. So this points to a variety of ways in which time and space - or situation and tradition - can be dialogically related. In our paper, which I linked, we show that the different actors during a field trip seem to have very different relation to the setting. For the teacher, the setting is almost a static background that can be used for illustration. This is not a very developmental relationship between the setting and the actors. For the environmental educators, the forest seems a bit like a museum to be preserved as it is, they think that the kids should learn to be in the forest without changing it (e.g., "destroying bug homes"). Antti On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 11:45 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for adding Bertau (who I discover now) and Linell. This begins to > sound like polyphony! > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Richard Beach > Sent: 21 August 2017 22:07 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* and > I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to this > notion of *settings* ? > > Related to Andy?s discussion of ?settings? as a unit of analysis, based on > her work on use of language as a Medium for constituting ?in-between? > meanings, Bertau (2014) posits use of ?situations? and ?traditions?: > Thus, the two basic aspects of communication are ?situations? and > ?traditions.? The link between situations (1) and traditions (2) is given > by the fact that participants in (1) contribute over time to the > sustaining/changing of the long-term practices of (2). A simple chaining in > time? Not for Linell, whose dialogical stance allows him to go right beyond > a pure sequential-temporal chaining of (1)-(2)-(1)- (2) that would amount > to a simple accumulation in time. Rather, for Linell, there is dialogue > between (1) and (2). This is grasped by the very term of double > dialogicality: the fact that participants ?engage in both situated > interaction and sociocultural praxis? (2009, p. 52). So, by their actual > language activity, subjects both engage and perform a situated, unique > verbal interaction and enact the sociocultural praxis the verbal forms they > perform belong to (e.g., they perform the conversation belonging to a first > date in a restaurant, to a family dinner, to an academic reception). > > > But what is really interesting is that this dialogical link makes (2), the > tradition, perceivable : ?Double dialogicality makes us see an ? utterance > both in its singularity and in its wider sociocultural and historical > belongingness? (Linell, 2009, p. 53). There are interdependencies between > (1) and (2), interactions (= 1) have situation-transcending aspects (= 2). > The examples Linell gives are the case of a speaker who refers to his own > words in other occasions, the case of a speaker who breaks out of the > current genre (giving a lecture) and shifts into another one (narrating a > personal anecdote): dialogues with own, past utterances, and dialogues with > framings of genres. That kind of referencing and indexing leads to Linell?s > term of ?recontextualization,? addressing the traveling of utterances > through texts and contexts. > > Linell (2009, pp. 248?249) distinguishes three types of > recontextualizations, operating on different time scales, where the first > two types correspond to the token level, the third type to the type level: > (a) within the same conversation (participants make use of the same > expressions several times), (b) to other texts or discourses (re-using or > alluding to elements of other specific discourses/texts), and (c) > borrowing/importing of other genres or discourse orders or routines. So, we > can see these types of recontextualizations as possibilities of indexing > (2), the tradition, in (1), the interaction. > > The following brief analysis is now possible. According to our temporal > being-ness, we experience the situation, the actual interaction (= 1) now . > And we also experience the tradition of practices (= 2) now : exactly > through these strategies of referencing and indexing, of borrowing and > importing, quoting ourselves, others, genres, discourses, by performing > reprises and variations, re-invoicements and re-listenings according to > formats we reiterate countless times in a great (although not unending) > diversity of speech and-listening practices. All these language activities > call in, and thereby construct, our tradition. We ?have? our tradition only > in this mode of calling-in, so we experience our tradition again and again > by way of performance of language practices, in our forms, or better: our > formations according to conventionalized, public patterns?we hear the > tradition for instance in certain intonatory and syntactic patterns, in > ways of asking a question. > > > Cases like migration coupled with the forced use of an alien language, or > the isolation from one?s speaker community (in prison), but also common > bilingualism shows how painful it can be to not ?have a language?: on the > contrary, it is obvious that language can disappear, that it can get > thinner and lose contact to reality, which is nothing but others? reality > we could share. So, the socio-historically transmitted tradition is a > present practice. > > Bertau, M-C. (2014). Exploring language as the ?in-between.? Theory & > Psychology, 24(4), 524 ?541. > > Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically. > Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers. > > Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education, University of > Minnesota > rbeach@umn.edu > Websites: Digital writing , Media > literacy , Teaching literature > , Identity-focused ELA Teaching < > http://identities.pbworks.com/>, Common Core State Standards < > http://englishccss.pbworks.com/>, Apps for literacy learning < > http://usingipads.pbworks.com/>, Teaching about climate change < > http://climatechangeela.pbworks.com/> > > > > > > > > On Aug 21, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > > Hi Antti, > > > > thanks so much for sharing your work! The case you present is definitely > interesting with regard to Andy's example of the problematic of field trips > as 'settings'. And congratulations for the recent publication! > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Antti Rajala > > Sent: 21 August 2017 19:02 > > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* > and I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to > this notion of *settings* ? > > > > Dear Larry and Andy and all, > > > > I agree with Andy that there is a risk of blurring the distinctions. > > Moreover, I would like to consider the context of activity as dynamic in > > the sense that Mike meant it in his book in 1996. > > > > Andy's example of a fieldtrip resonates so much with a paper that I > > recently wrote with Sanne Akkerman that I could not resist sharing it > here. > > It will soon be published in a special issue on dialogical approaches to > > learning, in the journal Learning Culture and Social Interaction. In the > > paper, we analyze how the forest during a fieldtrip is produced in varied > > ways as the context of the activity through the different participants' > > interpretations (teacher, children, nature school educators). We also > > illuminate how these different interpretations are negotiated and > > hybridized in the dialogic interactions during the fieldtrip. > > > > Hopefully our uses of the terms contribute in small part to the increased > > clarity of these discussions. > > > > https://www.academia.edu/34293982/Rajala_Akkerman_ > Researching_reinterpretations_of_educational_activity_in_ > dialogic_interactions_during_a_fieldtrip > > > > Antti > > > > On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > >> Larry, all notions are linked, I am sure. > >> > >> The idea of "settings" is a powerful one, used not only by Wertsch but > >> others such as Hedegaard. The trouble I have with it is that it can > >> function to blur some important distinctions. Is the setting an artefact > >> (e.g. a type of building and related furniture and signage, etc., for > >> example marking it as a school) or is it an activity (such as doing > >> schoolwork). Extending this (example) what is the setting on a school > field > >> trip? - the ambiguity is of course a real one, not just an artefact of > >> theory - on a field trip, in the absence of all the physical markers of > the > >> classroom, kids can mistakenly behave in a way inappropriate to school > >> work. On the other hand, extending the same (example) in the other > >> direction, if a child is acting as a stand-over man in the classroom in > >> order to extort pocket money from other children is this deemed to be > >> taking place in a "school setting"? That is, it tends to blur the > mediating > >> artefact with the activity, albeit in ways which mirror real ambiguity. > >> Expressions like "cultural [settings], institutional [settings], and > >> historical [settings]" seem in turn to merge activity and tool/sign with > >> context in the broadest sense. Such settings do indeed "provide and > shape > >> the cultural tools" insofar as they are deemed to imply collaborating > with > >> other people. The next sentence talks about "mediational means"; these > are > >> indeed "carriers" of patterns of activity, etc. But artefacts (tools and > >> signs) are not the only mediational means. Does the author mean > artefacts, > >> or are theories and practices (such as for example would characterise a > >> specific institution) also intended to be included? If so, what does > this > >> mean for the idea of a "setting." How does setting differ from frame, or > >> context, or discourse, or activity or genre or field, or ...? > >> > >> So there are some powerful ideas in this mixture, but the blurring going > >> on disturbs me. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://home.mira.net/~andy > >> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making > >> On 21/08/2017 2:02 PM, Larry Purss wrote: > >> > >>> On page 204 of the Wertsch article : ?The Primacy of Mediated Action in > >>> Sociocultural Studies? is the notion of broadening the concept of > >>> *Settings* On page 204 is this paragraph: > >>> > >>> ?Vygotsky?s analysis of mediation is central to understanding his > >>> contribution to psychology. Indeed, it is the key in his approach to > >>> understanding how human mental functioning is tied to cultural > [settings], > >>> institutional [settings], and historical [settings] since these > settings > >>> shape and provide the cultural tools that are mastered by individuals > to > >>> form this functioning. In this approach the mediational means are what > >>> might be termed the *carriers* of sociocultural patterns and > knowledge.? > >>> > >>> I notice that other traditions posit the notion of {worlds] that come > >>> into existence with human approaches to [worlds]. > >>> > >>> Is it ok to consider that Wertsch who is exploring linking human mental > >>> functioning to human settings is indicating the same realm as others > who > >>> are exploring human mental functioning linking to human *worlds*. > >>> > >>> In particular the author John William Miller posits the actuality of > >>> *midworlds* that resemble or have a family semblance to the notion of > >>> *settings*. > >>> Also Continental Philosophy explores *worlds* that exist as human > >>> dwelling places? > >>> > >>> The notions of [settings] and [worlds] seem to be linked? > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > > > From rbeach@umn.edu Tue Sep 5 13:50:32 2017 From: rbeach@umn.edu (Richard Beach) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 15:50:32 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] "frictions" in space/time In-Reply-To: References: <599a5b40.0435620a.b7645.1fdf@mx.google.com> <5f2b4360-8020-cd0c-7be1-a2ba5c22d9c5@mira.net> <1503342648639.25217@iped.uio.no> <936467D4-7612-4F1A-823C-4CE50D7B6CA7@umn.edu> <1503348334354.52@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Antti, your example of educators versus students alternative perspectives of on the forest/museum as space brings to mind Brice Nordquist?s discussion of ?friction? related to mobilities across space and time in his new book, Literacy and Mobility: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Agency at the Nexus of High School and College (Routledge). This leads to the question as to whether these competing framings of space/time lead to dialogic exploration/learning, or simply an ossification of predetermined perspectives. As Nordquist notes: Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2005) uses the term ?friction? to describe the ?awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across differences? that enable and disable movement (p. 4). ?Friction is not just about slowing things down. Friction is required to keep global power in motion? (p. 6). Mobility scholars have taken up the concepts of friction, motility, and mobile capital?along with concepts of mooring, turbulence, dwelling, and placemaking (Cresswell 2010, 2014; Ahmed 2003; Tolia-Kelly 2010)?to complicate notions of a deterritorialized or liquid global condition (Deleuze and Guattari 1987; Castells 1996; Bauman 2000; Hardt and Negri 2000). As Sheller (2014) asserts, ?For mobilities researchers today it is not a question of privileging flows, speed, or a cosmopolitan or nomadic subjectivity, but rather of tracking the power of discourses, practices, and infrastructures of mobility in creating the effects (and affects) of both movement and stasis? (p. 794). In other words, mobilities research is concerned, by and large, with the politics of mobility, with the ways in which mobilities produce and are produced by social relations (Cresswell 2010, p. 21). While this concern does frequently extend to political projects and power relations shaping economic, cultural, and environmental aspects of globalization, ?the new mobilities paradigm also differs from theories of globalization in its analytical relation to the multi-scalar, non-human, non-representational, material, and affective dimensions of mobile life? (Sheller 2014, p. 794). As Tsing (2005) reminds us, friction accompanies mobilities of people, objects, texts, and capital across scales; indeed, there is no mobility without friction. She explains, A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power. (p. 5) If literacies and languages depend on spatial and temporal mobilities, as I claim above, then friction is an essential component of the emergence and transformation of literacies and languages through practice, which makes it an essential component of agency. As Tsing (2005) asserts, ?Speaking of friction is a reminder of the importance of interaction in defining movement, cultural form, and agency? (p. 6). These relations between friction, mobility, and agency bring us back to the notion of teaching and learning as placemaking presented above. Pennycook (2010) asserts that the tendency to enclose or objectify places results from a failure to understand structure as the effect of sedimented repetition and argues that repetition of practice is a ?form of renewal that creates the illusion of systematicity? (p. 47). In this way, the apparently preexistent and self-evident nature of a place and its practices is illusory because ?repeating the same thing in any movement through time relocalizes that repetition as something different? (p. 41). He suggests that a ?focus on movement takes us away from space being only about location, and instead draws attention to a relationship between time and space, to emergence, to a subject in process?performed rather preformed?to becoming? (p. 140). Ron and Suzie Scollon (2004) describe the historical body as an individual?s ?life experiences, their goals or purposes, and their unconscious ways of behaving and thinking? (p. 46). Concordant in many ways with Pierre Bourdieu?s (1991) notion of habitus, the concept of the historical body situates memories, experiences, skills, and capacities more precisely in the individual body and thusaccords with the theory of embodied knowledge presented in the previous chapter. As Blommaert and April Huang (2009) assert: ?Participants in social action bring their real bodies into play, but their bodies are semiotically enskilled: their movements and positions are central to the production of meaning, and are organized around normative patterns of conduct? (p. 275). For example, the students participating in this study have long been accustomed to systems of education, the layouts of school buildings and classrooms, interactions with classmates and teachers, and the discourses that justify and organize their work. This familiarity enables them to adequately navigate educational spaces; they know where and when to go, what kinds of activities to engage in when they get there, and how to perform these activities. Their historical bodies have been formed in ways that make them recognizable as students and in ways that habituate and routinize most of their practices (Blommaert and Huang 2009, p. 274). Moreover, students bring their historical bodies into play, as we have seen, in dynamic and emergent places. The patterns of mobility that constitute these places contribute to an accumulated history of normative expectations, and accommodating and/or resisting such histories is part of the process that builds a historical body. In this way, historical bodies and places are mutually constitutive: We become enskilled through our participation in social and material places, and the histories of participation we bring to these places contribute to the practices that constitute them. The Scollons?s notion of the historical body offers a powerful frame for observing and analyzing cultural knowledges embedded in micro-bodily movements. The concept draws our attention to associations made in the movement of a head to a desk or a hand into the air. It helps us consider the cultural knowledges presencing in a student?s route through a school or city and in their stoppages through an assignment. Reflecting on our own historical bodies can help us better understand why we tune into or out of certain conversations or gravitate toward some student-participants rather than others. To attend to convergences of literacies and mobilities, it is not enough to consider traces of mobility in texts or in discursive representations of movement; rather, mobile literacy ethnography requires attention to the ways in which historical bodies influence more-than-representational doings of mobility. Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education, University of Minnesota rbeach@umn.edu Websites: Digital writing , Media?literacy , Teaching literature , Identity-focused ELA Teaching , Common Core?State Standards , Apps for literacy?learning , Teaching about climate change > On Sep 5, 2017, at 2:11 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > Reviving this conversation after some time (after being two weeks in > conferences). > > Richard raised the notion of dialogicality of settings, or between > situations and traditions. Continuing the dialogicality theme, I am > reminded of the concept of chronotope that has been discussed in this forum > earlier. I think Bakhtin addressed a similar idea of the dialogicality > between time and space (Richard was talking about situation and tradition) > in a novel (or in educational interpretation, in a community of practice). > > For example, he described some novel genres in which the setting was almost > as a museum where nothing is changing and other genres in which the novel > characters and the surroundings are in a mutually developmental > relationship, both undergoing and being part of a developmental process. > > So this points to a variety of ways in which time and space - or situation > and tradition - can be dialogically related. > > In our paper, which I linked, we show that the different actors during a > field trip seem to have very different relation to the setting. For the > teacher, the setting is almost a static background that can be used for > illustration. This is not a very developmental relationship between the > setting and the actors. For the environmental educators, the forest seems a > bit like a museum to be preserved as it is, they think that the kids should > learn to be in the forest without changing it (e.g., "destroying bug > homes"). > > Antti > > On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 11:45 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > >> Thanks for adding Bertau (who I discover now) and Linell. This begins to >> sound like polyphony! >> Alfredo >> ________________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Richard Beach >> Sent: 21 August 2017 22:07 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* and >> I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to this >> notion of *settings* ? >> >> Related to Andy?s discussion of ?settings? as a unit of analysis, based on >> her work on use of language as a Medium for constituting ?in-between? >> meanings, Bertau (2014) posits use of ?situations? and ?traditions?: >> Thus, the two basic aspects of communication are ?situations? and >> ?traditions.? The link between situations (1) and traditions (2) is given >> by the fact that participants in (1) contribute over time to the >> sustaining/changing of the long-term practices of (2). A simple chaining in >> time? Not for Linell, whose dialogical stance allows him to go right beyond >> a pure sequential-temporal chaining of (1)-(2)-(1)- (2) that would amount >> to a simple accumulation in time. Rather, for Linell, there is dialogue >> between (1) and (2). This is grasped by the very term of double >> dialogicality: the fact that participants ?engage in both situated >> interaction and sociocultural praxis? (2009, p. 52). So, by their actual >> language activity, subjects both engage and perform a situated, unique >> verbal interaction and enact the sociocultural praxis the verbal forms they >> perform belong to (e.g., they perform the conversation belonging to a first >> date in a restaurant, to a family dinner, to an academic reception). >> >> >> But what is really interesting is that this dialogical link makes (2), the >> tradition, perceivable : ?Double dialogicality makes us see an ? utterance >> both in its singularity and in its wider sociocultural and historical >> belongingness? (Linell, 2009, p. 53). There are interdependencies between >> (1) and (2), interactions (= 1) have situation-transcending aspects (= 2). >> The examples Linell gives are the case of a speaker who refers to his own >> words in other occasions, the case of a speaker who breaks out of the >> current genre (giving a lecture) and shifts into another one (narrating a >> personal anecdote): dialogues with own, past utterances, and dialogues with >> framings of genres. That kind of referencing and indexing leads to Linell?s >> term of ?recontextualization,? addressing the traveling of utterances >> through texts and contexts. >> >> Linell (2009, pp. 248?249) distinguishes three types of >> recontextualizations, operating on different time scales, where the first >> two types correspond to the token level, the third type to the type level: >> (a) within the same conversation (participants make use of the same >> expressions several times), (b) to other texts or discourses (re-using or >> alluding to elements of other specific discourses/texts), and (c) >> borrowing/importing of other genres or discourse orders or routines. So, we >> can see these types of recontextualizations as possibilities of indexing >> (2), the tradition, in (1), the interaction. >> >> The following brief analysis is now possible. According to our temporal >> being-ness, we experience the situation, the actual interaction (= 1) now . >> And we also experience the tradition of practices (= 2) now : exactly >> through these strategies of referencing and indexing, of borrowing and >> importing, quoting ourselves, others, genres, discourses, by performing >> reprises and variations, re-invoicements and re-listenings according to >> formats we reiterate countless times in a great (although not unending) >> diversity of speech and-listening practices. All these language activities >> call in, and thereby construct, our tradition. We ?have? our tradition only >> in this mode of calling-in, so we experience our tradition again and again >> by way of performance of language practices, in our forms, or better: our >> formations according to conventionalized, public patterns?we hear the >> tradition for instance in certain intonatory and syntactic patterns, in >> ways of asking a question. >> >> >> Cases like migration coupled with the forced use of an alien language, or >> the isolation from one?s speaker community (in prison), but also common >> bilingualism shows how painful it can be to not ?have a language?: on the >> contrary, it is obvious that language can disappear, that it can get >> thinner and lose contact to reality, which is nothing but others? reality >> we could share. So, the socio-historically transmitted tradition is a >> present practice. >> >> Bertau, M-C. (2014). Exploring language as the ?in-between.? Theory & >> Psychology, 24(4), 524 ?541. >> >> Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically. >> Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers. >> >> Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education, University of >> Minnesota >> rbeach@umn.edu >> Websites: Digital writing , Media >> literacy , Teaching literature >> , Identity-focused ELA Teaching < >> http://identities.pbworks.com/>, Common Core State Standards < >> http://englishccss.pbworks.com/>, Apps for literacy learning < >> http://usingipads.pbworks.com/>, Teaching about climate change < >> http://climatechangeela.pbworks.com/> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Aug 21, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil >> wrote: >>> >>> Hi Antti, >>> >>> thanks so much for sharing your work! The case you present is definitely >> interesting with regard to Andy's example of the problematic of field trips >> as 'settings'. And congratulations for the recent publication! >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Antti Rajala >>> Sent: 21 August 2017 19:02 >>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* >> and I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to >> this notion of *settings* ? >>> >>> Dear Larry and Andy and all, >>> >>> I agree with Andy that there is a risk of blurring the distinctions. >>> Moreover, I would like to consider the context of activity as dynamic in >>> the sense that Mike meant it in his book in 1996. >>> >>> Andy's example of a fieldtrip resonates so much with a paper that I >>> recently wrote with Sanne Akkerman that I could not resist sharing it >> here. >>> It will soon be published in a special issue on dialogical approaches to >>> learning, in the journal Learning Culture and Social Interaction. In the >>> paper, we analyze how the forest during a fieldtrip is produced in varied >>> ways as the context of the activity through the different participants' >>> interpretations (teacher, children, nature school educators). We also >>> illuminate how these different interpretations are negotiated and >>> hybridized in the dialogic interactions during the fieldtrip. >>> >>> Hopefully our uses of the terms contribute in small part to the increased >>> clarity of these discussions. >>> >>> https://www.academia.edu/34293982/Rajala_Akkerman_ >> Researching_reinterpretations_of_educational_activity_in_ >> dialogic_interactions_during_a_fieldtrip >>> >>> Antti >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>>> Larry, all notions are linked, I am sure. >>>> >>>> The idea of "settings" is a powerful one, used not only by Wertsch but >>>> others such as Hedegaard. The trouble I have with it is that it can >>>> function to blur some important distinctions. Is the setting an artefact >>>> (e.g. a type of building and related furniture and signage, etc., for >>>> example marking it as a school) or is it an activity (such as doing >>>> schoolwork). Extending this (example) what is the setting on a school >> field >>>> trip? - the ambiguity is of course a real one, not just an artefact of >>>> theory - on a field trip, in the absence of all the physical markers of >> the >>>> classroom, kids can mistakenly behave in a way inappropriate to school >>>> work. On the other hand, extending the same (example) in the other >>>> direction, if a child is acting as a stand-over man in the classroom in >>>> order to extort pocket money from other children is this deemed to be >>>> taking place in a "school setting"? That is, it tends to blur the >> mediating >>>> artefact with the activity, albeit in ways which mirror real ambiguity. >>>> Expressions like "cultural [settings], institutional [settings], and >>>> historical [settings]" seem in turn to merge activity and tool/sign with >>>> context in the broadest sense. Such settings do indeed "provide and >> shape >>>> the cultural tools" insofar as they are deemed to imply collaborating >> with >>>> other people. The next sentence talks about "mediational means"; these >> are >>>> indeed "carriers" of patterns of activity, etc. But artefacts (tools and >>>> signs) are not the only mediational means. Does the author mean >> artefacts, >>>> or are theories and practices (such as for example would characterise a >>>> specific institution) also intended to be included? If so, what does >> this >>>> mean for the idea of a "setting." How does setting differ from frame, or >>>> context, or discourse, or activity or genre or field, or ...? >>>> >>>> So there are some powerful ideas in this mixture, but the blurring going >>>> on disturbs me. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy >>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making >>>> On 21/08/2017 2:02 PM, Larry Purss wrote: >>>> >>>>> On page 204 of the Wertsch article : ?The Primacy of Mediated Action in >>>>> Sociocultural Studies? is the notion of broadening the concept of >>>>> *Settings* On page 204 is this paragraph: >>>>> >>>>> ?Vygotsky?s analysis of mediation is central to understanding his >>>>> contribution to psychology. Indeed, it is the key in his approach to >>>>> understanding how human mental functioning is tied to cultural >> [settings], >>>>> institutional [settings], and historical [settings] since these >> settings >>>>> shape and provide the cultural tools that are mastered by individuals >> to >>>>> form this functioning. In this approach the mediational means are what >>>>> might be termed the *carriers* of sociocultural patterns and >> knowledge.? >>>>> >>>>> I notice that other traditions posit the notion of {worlds] that come >>>>> into existence with human approaches to [worlds]. >>>>> >>>>> Is it ok to consider that Wertsch who is exploring linking human mental >>>>> functioning to human settings is indicating the same realm as others >> who >>>>> are exploring human mental functioning linking to human *worlds*. >>>>> >>>>> In particular the author John William Miller posits the actuality of >>>>> *midworlds* that resemble or have a family semblance to the notion of >>>>> *settings*. >>>>> Also Continental Philosophy explores *worlds* that exist as human >>>>> dwelling places? >>>>> >>>>> The notions of [settings] and [worlds] seem to be linked? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> >> >> From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 5 13:58:37 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 20:58:37 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no>, , <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. ________________________________________ From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real pleasure. Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', and those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) that in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems to be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar work in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the former effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk Tue Sep 5 15:44:06 2017 From: R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk (Rod Parker-Rees) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 22:44:06 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no>, , <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi Alfredo, Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully share) different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a conference (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer sense of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available to us - so we become more than just our own selves. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. ________________________________________ From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real pleasure. Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', and those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) that in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems to be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar work in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the former effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From ajrajala@gmail.com Tue Sep 5 22:29:14 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 08:29:14 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi, In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar issue was raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated as a living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on the Crisis of Psychology when he mocked people who were just picking citations from Marx book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > Hi Alfredo, > > Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to > pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully share) > different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a conference > (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer sense > of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit > about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available to > us - so we become more than just our own selves. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. > ________________________________________ > From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after > sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am > happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real pleasure. > > Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, > concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this > distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', and > those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to > be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with > discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) that > in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems to > be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar work > in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary > problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the former > effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Dear Alfredo, > > I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. > > The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a > wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical > research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on > perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set > out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there > was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings > of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many > paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were > smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was > particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and > flexible) concept. > > Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who > seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis > of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of > what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways > and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward > beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning > (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing > interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular > refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding > is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with > other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also > what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez > Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will > be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own > understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from > seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Dear all, > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one > day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both > conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was > fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my > work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things > around the globe. > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people > that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever > write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long > posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all > knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of > people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear > more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join > at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely > if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you > found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should > have not been. > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando > G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking > about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child > is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing > Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in > Quebec. > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on > how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I > think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to > have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on > the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > Alfredo > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > From lpscholar2@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 03:40:30 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Larry Purss) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 03:40:30 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <59afd09e.9413620a.84ec1.62c4@mx.google.com> Rod + Martin [who is addressing Rod] as following through with a recommendation: Rod, these [words] you wrote have sounded a bell weather [image of climate and fog covering AND uncovering: ?Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about!? Rod, I am keying *in* to your words such *as* - [taking] conversations [forward] - [seeing] or [perceiving] *agreed* [znachenie OF perezhivanie] - *as* a [singular or [one] *fluid* flowing, dynamic *product* of ->-> [continuing] *type* inter / actions. [notice contrasting BOTH [inter] with [intra] - *a* [doubling] movement *in* moments of [hexical type *common* transferring ] moving criss crossing through multiple corkscrew [minding the *gap*]. This turning close in meaning with *translations* that Malcome Reed is passionate engaging with as a*key* word of *opening* vitality of *living* open languaging *within* OUR *turning* and *gathering* [walking and sharing with each *other* in our opening *humanity* that is *nurturing as feeding *around* our enigmatic *table* enriched and *immeasurably [repeat immeasurably enriched nurtrition flowing around the table turning. - opportunities to BOTH [encounter] + [engage] *with who??* With *other peoples / \ crossing Type [perspectives] which also imply and honour [aspects of perspectives]. Rod <-> *In / cludes* NOT [repeating NOT *just* WHAT the others [think] + [know] as the mis/take of *schooling* movement. Rod, your qualification [but] *in*/cludes WHAT [they / others] actually *care* about [!!!!!] So?. Rod?s common comments and Martin?s [re/joinder/ are *carrying* this ISCAR gathering through our walking, talking, and de/signing through *ex*pressing our careful care [a key sense] In summary, I will once again suggest and I hope am making a [case] asking others to be turning to Malcom Reech?s essay. I did read *carefully* and *mmersed* in Malcome Reech?s flow dynamics that I wasexperiencing and recognizing as Malcom Reech?s opening [tradition] *as* turning to a singular thread [living hex shaped] meandering + threading that the living image of hexical threads [products] +threading [movement] were criss crossing as the corkscrew heximal shape is *turning* in our climate *world* [midst] and we are being called to gather together + respond and answer without turning away. THIS is [ethical] and [value] philosophical [passages] or ways of PRO / ceding . Rod [and Martin] it seems what was happening this ISCAR as our writers are sharing their experiences that we could next year *gather together] twhat Vygotsky referred to as *gathering stones*. I now will [pause] this [interval] honouring the [silence] as also generating when [minding the *gap*]. I emphasize in my summary hear that Malcom Reed is highlighting the depth [soul depth?] that many wounded are carrying and experiencing [our] shared wounded *poignancy*. The thread as image and enigma is turning as Rod and Martin are [addressing] My turn is up Larry Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Rod Parker-Rees Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 2:19 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear Alfredo, I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and flexible) concept. Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Dear all, I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe. One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been. In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec. These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue. Alfredo ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From ablunden@mira.net Wed Sep 6 04:40:31 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 21:40:31 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> Antti, I think the development of a tradition of practice (such as Marxism) means continually returning to the original sources and *digging deeper* into them, while responding to the problems thrown up by the present world. What Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the re-assertion of the original sources, but their mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism has fallen into crisis, it has sparked a "return to Marx" - not to go back to an original truth, but to look again at what was being taken for granted, and find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in his reading of /Capital/ in particular. Andy (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > Hi, > In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago > there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar issue was > raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated as a > living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky > himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on the Crisis of > Psychology when he mocked people who were just picking citations from Marx > book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > >> Hi Alfredo, >> >> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to >> pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully share) >> different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a conference >> (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer sense >> of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit >> about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available to >> us - so we become more than just our own selves. >> >> All the best, >> >> Rod >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >> >> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. >> ________________________________________ >> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >> >> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after >> sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am >> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real pleasure. >> >> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, >> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this >> distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', and >> those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to >> be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with >> discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) that >> in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems to >> be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar work >> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary >> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the former >> effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo >> ________________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees >> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >> >> Dear Alfredo, >> >> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. >> >> The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a >> wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of cultural-historical >> research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing on >> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people set >> out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here there >> was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the beginnings >> of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many >> paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were >> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was >> particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful (and >> flexible) concept. >> >> Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who >> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical analysis >> of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries of >> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways >> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward >> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning >> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing >> interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular >> refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding >> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with >> other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also >> what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando Gonzalez >> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will >> be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own >> understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from >> seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. >> >> All the best, >> >> Rod >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >> >> Dear all, >> >> >> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one >> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both >> conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was >> fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my >> work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things >> around the globe. >> >> >> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people >> that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever >> write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long >> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all >> knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of >> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). >> >> >> So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear >> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join >> at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely >> if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you >> found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should >> have not been. >> >> >> In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando >> G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking >> about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child >> is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing >> Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, >> rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in >> Quebec. >> >> >> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on >> how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I >> think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to >> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on >> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. >> >> >> Alfredo >> ________________________________ >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >> >> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. >> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails >> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >> by an official order form. >> >> >> ________________________________ >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >> >> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. >> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails >> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >> by an official order form. >> >> > From ajrajala@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 08:44:28 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 18:44:28 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> Message-ID: Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that the Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be created. In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl Ratner and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, whereas Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a question). I am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the edited volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. Antti On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Antti, > > I think the development of a tradition of practice (such as Marxism) means > continually returning to the original sources and *digging deeper* into > them, while responding to the problems thrown up by the present world. What > Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the re-assertion of the original sources, > but their mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism has fallen > into crisis, it has sparked a "return to Marx" - not to go back to an > original truth, but to look again at what was being taken for granted, and > find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in his reading of > /Capital/ in particular. > > Andy > > (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > >> Hi, >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar issue was >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated as a >> living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky >> himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on the Crisis of >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just picking citations from Marx >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> Hi Alfredo, >>> >>> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to >>> pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully share) >>> different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a conference >>> (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer >>> sense >>> of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit >>> about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available >>> to >>> us - so we become more than just our own selves. >>> >>> All the best, >>> >>> Rod >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after >>> sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am >>> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real >>> pleasure. >>> >>> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, >>> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this >>> distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', >>> and >>> those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to >>> be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with >>> discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) >>> that >>> in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems >>> to >>> be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar >>> work >>> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary >>> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the >>> former >>> effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Dear Alfredo, >>> >>> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. >>> >>> The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a >>> wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of >>> cultural-historical >>> research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing >>> on >>> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people >>> set >>> out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here >>> there >>> was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the >>> beginnings >>> of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many >>> paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were >>> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was >>> particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful >>> (and >>> flexible) concept. >>> >>> Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who >>> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical >>> analysis >>> of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries >>> of >>> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways >>> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward >>> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning >>> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing >>> interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular >>> refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' >>> understanding >>> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with >>> other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also >>> what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando >>> Gonzalez >>> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will >>> be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own >>> understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from >>> seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. >>> >>> All the best, >>> >>> Rod >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Dear all, >>> >>> >>> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just >>> one >>> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both >>> conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was >>> fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my >>> work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great >>> things >>> around the globe. >>> >>> >>> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people >>> that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if >>> ever >>> write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long >>> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all >>> knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of >>> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). >>> >>> >>> So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and >>> hear >>> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join >>> at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be >>> lovely >>> if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you >>> found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should >>> have not been. >>> >>> >>> In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to >>> Fernando >>> G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking >>> about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the >>> child >>> is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing >>> Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, >>> rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in >>> Quebec. >>> >>> >>> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on >>> how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be >>> there. I >>> think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to >>> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on >>> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. >>> >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________ >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >>> >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on >>> it. >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan >>> emails >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >>> by an official order form. >>> >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >>> >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on >>> it. >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan >>> emails >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >>> by an official order form. >>> >>> >>> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Wed Sep 6 09:00:00 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 02:00:00 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> Message-ID: <5b0aa0b6-b54e-1855-13c4-011ce9d9f8f0@mira.net> With Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, epistemology and ontology all became obsolete really. Marx's ideas on these topics have to be gleaned from occasional remarks and unpublished notes. But, taking the Theses on Feuerbach, and the key passages in the German Ideology and the Grundrisse as defining "Marx's epistemology and ontology" then I would say we are still waiting for a time when this standpoint will come into its own. Do we have a reviewer for that book yet? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 7/09/2017 1:44 AM, Antti Rajala wrote: > Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. > I agree with your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think > Vygotsky also said that the Marxist psychology could not > be found in Marx's text but had to be created. In this he > used Marx method, as you pointed out. > > I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the > symposium interesting. The discussion was sparked by the > presentations of Carl Ratner and Thomas Teo respectively. > If I remember it right, Teo complemented Marx's original > insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, whereas > Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading > of Marx. > > Andy, to what extent do you think that the > ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx is still > valid today? (perhaps too broad a question). I am looking > forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the > edited volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on > Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. > > Antti > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > Antti, > > I think the development of a tradition of practice > (such as Marxism) means continually returning to the > original sources and *digging deeper* into them, while > responding to the problems thrown up by the present > world. What Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the > re-assertion of the original sources, but their > mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism > has fallen into crisis, it has sparked a "return to > Marx" - not to go back to an original truth, but to > look again at what was being taken for granted, and > find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in > his reading of /Capital/ in particular. > > Andy > > (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > Hi, > In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo > a couple of weeks ago > there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in > which a similar issue was > raised: whether the Marxist research should be > continually updated as a > living tradition or be more original to the > sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky > himself who emphasized the former position in his > essay on the Crisis of > Psychology when he mocked people who were just > picking citations from Marx > book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk > > wrote: > > Hi Alfredo, > > Yes, my feeling is that it is better if > different people are able to > pursue different paths so they are able to > develop (and hopefully share) > different perspectives. One of the things we > take away from a conference > (as, in different ways, from other forms of > interaction) is a richer sense > of the ways in which other people see things > differently. Knowing a bit > about how others see things helps to enrich > the possibilities available to > us - so we become more than just our own selves. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > reflections, etc > > I think I got this e-mail back from the > server, here I try again. > ________________________________________ > From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between > sessions, and the after > sessions too, are part of the best these type > of congress offers. I am > happy I could enjoy some of that with you in > Quebec! It was a real pleasure. > > Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting > you too. In any case, > concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I > am glad thta you bring this > distinction between those who seek to defend > some 'core, true meaning', and > those who attempt to bring those notions into > new uses etc. This seems to > be at the heart of the field today, and > definitely resonates with > discussions having gone on here. I don't > think, (nor probably do you) that > in most cases the dichotomy is that > straightforward; rather, there seems to > be a tension between one's efforts to build on > a given body of scholar work > in a coherent manner, and one's goals of > addressing real, contemporary > problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to > be very strong on the former > effort, but could be better in the latter. > Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > > > Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > reflections, etc > > Dear Alfredo, > > I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to > meet you at ISCAR. > > The highlight of the conference for me was the > opportunity to explore a > wide range of different perspectives on key > aspects of cultural-historical > research. The first meeting of the round-table > discussion group focusing on > perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat > chaotic, as a lot of people set > out their own understanding of the > significance of this concept. Here there > was only time for an initial presentation of > positions - and the beginnings > of exploration of disagreements but the topic > was also addressed in many > paper presentations and the second and third > round-table meetings were > smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, > which I thought was > particularly valuable in clarifying why > perezhivanie is such a useful (and > flexible) concept. > > Discussions at the conference illustrated the > tensions between those who > seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through > careful historical analysis > of documents and arguments) and those who want > to loosen the boundaries of > what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the > concept can be used in new ways > and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to > take conversations forward > beyond initial disagreement helped me to see > the 'agreed' meaning > (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, > dynamic product of continuing > interactions - both influencing and influenced > by the particular > refractions of individual interpretations > (smysl). Our 'own' understanding > is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to > encounter and engage with > other people's perspectives - not just what > they think and know but also > what they care about! My understanding of the > writing of Fernando Gonzalez > Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai > Veresov and many others will > be informed by what I have learned from seeing > how they present their own > understandings but also, in different but > equally important ways, from > seeing how they engage with other people and > with other people's ideas. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, > reflections, etc > > Dear all, > > > I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI > conference finished today, just one > day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I > committed to attending both > conferences and could only be the first days > in Quebec. Still, I was > fortunate enough to catch up with many > colleagues, to share some of my > work, and get to hear about that of many > others that are doing great things > around the globe. > > > One (not so) surprising discovery I made was > the huge amount of people > that actually lurks into this list, but who > nonetheless very seldom if ever > write (whether for lack of time to delve into > the sometimes quite long > posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to > read than write). We all > knew and had talked about this, but it was > quite remarkable the amount of > people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here > in Europe (EARLI). > > > So, now that I have met some of you, and that > you have got to see and hear > more of ISCAR than those of us who had to > leave earlier or could not join > at all. What was your highlight of the > congress and why? It would be lovely > if some of you would take a step forward and > tell us a bit of what you > found most interesting, what you found was > missing, what you found should > have not been. > > > In can be the first: One of my favourite > moments was listening to Fernando > G. Rey present without slides or any other > device, passionately talking > about child development and claiming, "... for > the first need of the child > is that of contact with other people"... I > also very much enjoyed seeing > Mike in a several meters wide screen > commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > rising the longest ovation I got to hear > during my brief three days in > Quebec. > > > These are just anecdotes, but I would love if > you could tell us more on > how it went for you, what you found there, for > us who could not be there. I > think it would be very much appreciated by > many, while we get the time to > have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and > prepare the discussion on > the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > > > Alfredo > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > ] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > > > > This email and any files with it are > confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is > addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution > or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited > and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error > please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). > Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, > Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your > responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University > does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. > Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or > services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > ] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > > > > This email and any files with it are > confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is > addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution > or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited > and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error > please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). > Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, > Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your > responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University > does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. > Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or > services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > > > > From rakahu@utu.fi Wed Sep 6 09:11:11 2017 From: rakahu@utu.fi (Rauno Huttunen) Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2017 16:11:11 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> Message-ID: <622bf32292d64ba6807b6d96b2938d9e@EX13-07.utu.fi> Hello Antti and Andy, I just make comment on "the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx". In different Marx's text we can found a little bit different epistemological and ontological views or implications. Example Feurbach thesis presents different world view than Das Kapital. There are great differences even between Grundrisse and Das Kapital (It is hard to find basis and ?berbau in Das Kapital). And in Marx's political writings have no straight relation to his "scientific writings" - In Das Kapital there is no place for political struggle. Of course these questions are under debate. But yes, that the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx are still interesting in today. One can found realistic epistemology or constructionist epistemology depending on which Marx's text one reads, but they all are interesting and relevant in nowadays context. Rauno Huttunen -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Antti Rajala Sent: 6. syyskuuta 2017 18:44 To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that the Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be created. In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl Ratner and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, whereas Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a question). I am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the edited volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. Antti On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Antti, > > I think the development of a tradition of practice (such as Marxism) means > continually returning to the original sources and *digging deeper* into > them, while responding to the problems thrown up by the present world. What > Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the re-assertion of the original sources, > but their mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism has fallen > into crisis, it has sparked a "return to Marx" - not to go back to an > original truth, but to look again at what was being taken for granted, and > find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in his reading of > /Capital/ in particular. > > Andy > > (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > >> Hi, >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar issue was >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated as a >> living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky >> himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on the Crisis of >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just picking citations from Marx >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> Hi Alfredo, >>> >>> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to >>> pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully share) >>> different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a conference >>> (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer >>> sense >>> of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit >>> about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available >>> to >>> us - so we become more than just our own selves. >>> >>> All the best, >>> >>> Rod >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after >>> sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am >>> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real >>> pleasure. >>> >>> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, >>> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring this >>> distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', >>> and >>> those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems to >>> be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with >>> discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) >>> that >>> in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there seems >>> to >>> be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar >>> work >>> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary >>> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the >>> former >>> effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Dear Alfredo, >>> >>> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. >>> >>> The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a >>> wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of >>> cultural-historical >>> research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group focusing >>> on >>> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people >>> set >>> out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here >>> there >>> was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the >>> beginnings >>> of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in many >>> paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were >>> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was >>> particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful >>> (and >>> flexible) concept. >>> >>> Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those who >>> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical >>> analysis >>> of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries >>> of >>> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new ways >>> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations forward >>> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning >>> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing >>> interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular >>> refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' >>> understanding >>> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with >>> other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also >>> what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando >>> Gonzalez >>> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others will >>> be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their own >>> understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from >>> seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. >>> >>> All the best, >>> >>> Rod >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >>> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >>> >>> Dear all, >>> >>> >>> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just >>> one >>> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both >>> conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was >>> fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my >>> work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great >>> things >>> around the globe. >>> >>> >>> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people >>> that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if >>> ever >>> write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long >>> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all >>> knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of >>> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). >>> >>> >>> So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and >>> hear >>> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join >>> at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be >>> lovely >>> if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you >>> found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should >>> have not been. >>> >>> >>> In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to >>> Fernando >>> G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking >>> about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the >>> child >>> is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing >>> Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, >>> rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in >>> Quebec. >>> >>> >>> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on >>> how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be >>> there. I >>> think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to >>> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on >>> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. >>> >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________ >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >>> >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on >>> it. >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan >>> emails >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >>> by an official order form. >>> >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >>> >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on >>> it. >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan >>> emails >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >>> by an official order form. >>> >>> >>> >> > From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 6 12:26:07 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 12:26:07 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <622bf32292d64ba6807b6d96b2938d9e@EX13-07.utu.fi> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> <622bf32292d64ba6807b6d96b2938d9e@EX13-07.utu.fi> Message-ID: Rod et al -- First of all THANKS for passing along events/ideas that caught your special attention at ISCAR. I had only the disembodied experience of commenting on Yrjo's talk even though I could not see him from the camera located at the back of the room and having no time for interchange at all. The passage quoted by Larry from Rod's original note gave rise to a different line of thinking in me. ?Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about!? I thought this was as neat a summary of the distinction between meaning and sense as I have ever seen. It was particularly provoking to me because I spent so much time discussing this concept with both Russian and English speaking colleagues in recent years. Anyway, some of the questions it got me to mull over. The term, perezhivanie, is polysemic in Russian. How could it not be polysemic in English? In fact, it is polysemic in Vygotsky's own writings (in ways that are totally obfuscated in (for example) the translation of *The Psychology of Art. *Andy's essay in the MCA issue on perezhivanie lays out that territory pretty well. What would people say if we asked for THE definition of the english word, "experience" or even if we asked for a clear understanding of Dewey's meaning(s) of experience over the course of his long lifetime? I also thought immediately of my current discomfort with the way that the term, learning, is used in the literature I read on education and development. And finally, i was reminded of the idea I attribute to Roy D'Andrade to the effect that every definition is a covert theory. Terms like perezhivanie in our discourse here seem most certainly saturated with theoretical assumptions linked to other concepts in the theory. end of time for such thoughts. thanks for provoking them. mike A coupl On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 9:11 AM, Rauno Huttunen wrote: > Hello Antti and Andy, > > I just make comment on "the ontological/epistemological foundation of > Marx". In different Marx's text we can found a little bit different > epistemological and ontological views or implications. Example Feurbach > thesis presents different world view than Das Kapital. There are great > differences even between Grundrisse and Das Kapital (It is hard to find > basis and ?berbau in Das Kapital). And in Marx's political writings have no > straight relation to his "scientific writings" - In Das Kapital there is no > place for political struggle. Of course these questions are under debate. > > But yes, that the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx are > still interesting in today. One can found realistic epistemology or > constructionist epistemology depending on which Marx's text one reads, but > they all are interesting and relevant in nowadays context. > > Rauno Huttunen > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Antti Rajala > Sent: 6. syyskuuta 2017 18:44 > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with your > reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that the > Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be created. > In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. > > I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium > interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl Ratner > and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented > Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, whereas > Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. > > Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological > foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a question). I > am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the edited > volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. > > Antti > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > Antti, > > > > I think the development of a tradition of practice (such as Marxism) > means > > continually returning to the original sources and *digging deeper* into > > them, while responding to the problems thrown up by the present world. > What > > Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the re-assertion of the original sources, > > but their mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism has > fallen > > into crisis, it has sparked a "return to Marx" - not to go back to an > > original truth, but to look again at what was being taken for granted, > and > > find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in his reading of > > /Capital/ in particular. > > > > Andy > > > > (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > > On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > > >> Hi, > >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago > >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar issue > was > >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated as a > >> living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky > >> himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on the Crisis of > >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just picking citations from > Marx > >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > >> > >> Hi Alfredo, > >>> > >>> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able to > >>> pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and hopefully > share) > >>> different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a > conference > >>> (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a richer > >>> sense > >>> of the ways in which other people see things differently. Knowing a bit > >>> about how others see things helps to enrich the possibilities available > >>> to > >>> us - so we become more than just our own selves. > >>> > >>> All the best, > >>> > >>> Rod > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. > >>> ________________________________________ > >>> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the after > >>> sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress offers. I am > >>> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! It was a real > >>> pleasure. > >>> > >>> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any case, > >>> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta you bring > this > >>> distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true meaning', > >>> and > >>> those who attempt to bring those notions into new uses etc. This seems > to > >>> be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with > >>> discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do you) > >>> that > >>> in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; rather, there > seems > >>> to > >>> be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of scholar > >>> work > >>> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing real, contemporary > >>> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to be very strong on the > >>> former > >>> effort, but could be better in the latter. Just my sense. Cheers, > Alfredo > >>> ________________________________________ > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > >>> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Dear Alfredo, > >>> > >>> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. > >>> > >>> The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to explore a > >>> wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of > >>> cultural-historical > >>> research. The first meeting of the round-table discussion group > focusing > >>> on > >>> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of people > >>> set > >>> out their own understanding of the significance of this concept. Here > >>> there > >>> was only time for an initial presentation of positions - and the > >>> beginnings > >>> of exploration of disagreements but the topic was also addressed in > many > >>> paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings were > >>> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought was > >>> particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a useful > >>> (and > >>> flexible) concept. > >>> > >>> Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between those > who > >>> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical > >>> analysis > >>> of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen the boundaries > >>> of > >>> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the concept can be used in new > ways > >>> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations > forward > >>> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning > >>> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing > >>> interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular > >>> refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' > >>> understanding > >>> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with > >>> other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but > also > >>> what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando > >>> Gonzalez > >>> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and many others > will > >>> be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present their > own > >>> understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, from > >>> seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. > >>> > >>> All the best, > >>> > >>> Rod > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Dear all, > >>> > >>> > >>> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just > >>> one > >>> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both > >>> conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was > >>> fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my > >>> work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great > >>> things > >>> around the globe. > >>> > >>> > >>> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people > >>> that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if > >>> ever > >>> write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long > >>> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all > >>> knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount > of > >>> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > >>> > >>> > >>> So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and > >>> hear > >>> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not > join > >>> at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be > >>> lovely > >>> if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you > >>> found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found > should > >>> have not been. > >>> > >>> > >>> In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to > >>> Fernando > >>> G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking > >>> about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the > >>> child > >>> is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed > seeing > >>> Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > >>> rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in > >>> Quebec. > >>> > >>> > >>> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on > >>> how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be > >>> there. I > >>> think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time > to > >>> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion > on > >>> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > >>> > >>> > >>> Alfredo > >>> ________________________________ > >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] >>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > >>> > >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely > for > >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > >>> it. > >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University > accepts > >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > >>> emails > >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept > responsibility > >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > >>> by an official order form. > >>> > >>> > >>> ________________________________ > >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] >>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > >>> > >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely > for > >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > >>> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > >>> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > >>> it. > >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > >>> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > >>> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University > accepts > >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > >>> emails > >>> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept > responsibility > >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > >>> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > >>> by an official order form. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > > > > From R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk Wed Sep 6 13:32:13 2017 From: R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk (Rod Parker-Rees) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 20:32:13 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> <622bf32292d64ba6807b6d96b2938d9e@EX13-07.utu.fi> Message-ID: Mike, I am overwhelmed by your characteristically generous response. I was actually thinking the very same thing about what any English speaker would be able to say about the 'true' meaning of 'experience' (or 'mind' or 'thinking', come to that). We have a long history of wanting to hold things still so we can get a good look at them but there is a limit to what we can learn about butterflies that are pinned to a board or words that are pressed in a dictionary! All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: 06 September 2017 20:26 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Rod et al -- First of all THANKS for passing along events/ideas that caught your special attention at ISCAR. I had only the disembodied experience of commenting on Yrjo's talk even though I could not see him from the camera located at the back of the room and having no time for interchange at all. The passage quoted by Larry from Rod's original note gave rise to a different line of thinking in me. ?Having the opportunity to take conversations forward beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' understanding is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and know but also what they care about!? I thought this was as neat a summary of the distinction between meaning and sense as I have ever seen. It was particularly provoking to me because I spent so much time discussing this concept with both Russian and English speaking colleagues in recent years. Anyway, some of the questions it got me to mull over. The term, perezhivanie, is polysemic in Russian. How could it not be polysemic in English? In fact, it is polysemic in Vygotsky's own writings (in ways that are totally obfuscated in (for example) the translation of *The Psychology of Art. *Andy's essay in the MCA issue on perezhivanie lays out that territory pretty well. What would people say if we asked for THE definition of the english word, "experience" or even if we asked for a clear understanding of Dewey's meaning(s) of experience over the course of his long lifetime? I also thought immediately of my current discomfort with the way that the term, learning, is used in the literature I read on education and development. And finally, i was reminded of the idea I attribute to Roy D'Andrade to the effect that every definition is a covert theory. Terms like perezhivanie in our discourse here seem most certainly saturated with theoretical assumptions linked to other concepts in the theory. end of time for such thoughts. thanks for provoking them. mike A coupl On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 9:11 AM, Rauno Huttunen wrote: > Hello Antti and Andy, > > I just make comment on "the ontological/epistemological foundation of > Marx". In different Marx's text we can found a little bit different > epistemological and ontological views or implications. Example > Feurbach thesis presents different world view than Das Kapital. There > are great differences even between Grundrisse and Das Kapital (It is > hard to find basis and ?berbau in Das Kapital). And in Marx's > political writings have no straight relation to his "scientific > writings" - In Das Kapital there is no place for political struggle. Of course these questions are under debate. > > But yes, that the ontological/epistemological foundation of Marx are > still interesting in today. One can found realistic epistemology or > constructionist epistemology depending on which Marx's text one reads, > but they all are interesting and relevant in nowadays context. > > Rauno Huttunen > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Antti Rajala > Sent: 6. syyskuuta 2017 18:44 > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > > Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with > your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that > the Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be created. > In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. > > I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium > interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl > Ratner and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo > complemented Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist > theorizing, whereas Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. > > Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological > foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a > question). I am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming > review of the edited volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. > > Antti > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > Antti, > > > > I think the development of a tradition of practice (such as Marxism) > means > > continually returning to the original sources and *digging deeper* > > into them, while responding to the problems thrown up by the present world. > What > > Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the re-assertion of the original > > sources, but their mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever > > Marxism has > fallen > > into crisis, it has sparked a "return to Marx" - not to go back to > > an original truth, but to look again at what was being taken for > > granted, > and > > find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in his reading of > > /Capital/ in particular. > > > > Andy > > > > (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > > On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > > >> Hi, > >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo a couple of weeks > >> ago there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in which a similar > >> issue > was > >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be continually updated > >> as a living tradition or be more original to the sources. Wasn't it > >> Vygotsky himself who emphasized the former position in his essay on > >> the Crisis of Psychology when he mocked people who were just > >> picking citations from > Marx > >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > >> > >> Hi Alfredo, > >>> > >>> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if different people are able > >>> to pursue different paths so they are able to develop (and > >>> hopefully > share) > >>> different perspectives. One of the things we take away from a > conference > >>> (as, in different ways, from other forms of interaction) is a > >>> richer sense of the ways in which other people see things > >>> differently. Knowing a bit about how others see things helps to > >>> enrich the possibilities available to us - so we become more than > >>> just our own selves. > >>> > >>> All the best, > >>> > >>> Rod > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> I think I got this e-mail back from the server, here I try again. > >>> ________________________________________ > >>> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between sessions, and the > >>> after sessions too, are part of the best these type of congress > >>> offers. I am happy I could enjoy some of that with you in Quebec! > >>> It was a real pleasure. > >>> > >>> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting you too. In any > >>> case, concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I am glad thta > >>> you bring > this > >>> distinction between those who seek to defend some 'core, true > >>> meaning', and those who attempt to bring those notions into new > >>> uses etc. This seems > to > >>> be at the heart of the field today, and definitely resonates with > >>> discussions having gone on here. I don't think, (nor probably do > >>> you) that in most cases the dichotomy is that straightforward; > >>> rather, there > seems > >>> to > >>> be a tension between one's efforts to build on a given body of > >>> scholar work in a coherent manner, and one's goals of addressing > >>> real, contemporary problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to > >>> be very strong on the former effort, but could be better in the > >>> latter. Just my sense. Cheers, > Alfredo > >>> ________________________________________ > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>> > > >>> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > >>> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Dear Alfredo, > >>> > >>> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to meet you at ISCAR. > >>> > >>> The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to > >>> explore a wide range of different perspectives on key aspects of > >>> cultural-historical research. The first meeting of the round-table > >>> discussion group > focusing > >>> on > >>> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat chaotic, as a lot of > >>> people set out their own understanding of the significance of this > >>> concept. Here there was only time for an initial presentation of > >>> positions - and the beginnings of exploration of disagreements but > >>> the topic was also addressed in > many > >>> paper presentations and the second and third round-table meetings > >>> were smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, which I thought > >>> was particularly valuable in clarifying why perezhivanie is such a > >>> useful (and > >>> flexible) concept. > >>> > >>> Discussions at the conference illustrated the tensions between > >>> those > who > >>> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through careful historical > >>> analysis of documents and arguments) and those who want to loosen > >>> the boundaries of what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the > >>> concept can be used in new > ways > >>> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to take conversations > forward > >>> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see the 'agreed' meaning > >>> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, dynamic product of > >>> continuing interactions - both influencing and influenced by the > >>> particular refractions of individual interpretations (smysl). Our 'own' > >>> understanding > >>> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to encounter and engage > >>> with other people's perspectives - not just what they think and > >>> know but > also > >>> what they care about! My understanding of the writing of Fernando > >>> Gonzalez Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai Veresov and > >>> many others > will > >>> be informed by what I have learned from seeing how they present > >>> their > own > >>> understandings but also, in different but equally important ways, > >>> from seeing how they engage with other people and with other people's ideas. > >>> > >>> All the best, > >>> > >>> Rod > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >>> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >>> > >>> Dear all, > >>> > >>> > >>> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, > >>> just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to > >>> attending both conferences and could only be the first days in > >>> Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many > >>> colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that > >>> of many others that are doing great things around the globe. > >>> > >>> > >>> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of > >>> people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless > >>> very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into > >>> the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they > >>> prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, > >>> but it was quite remarkable the amount > of > >>> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI). > >>> > >>> > >>> So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see > >>> and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier > >>> or could not > join > >>> at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would > >>> be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a > >>> bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was > >>> missing, what you found > should > >>> have not been. > >>> > >>> > >>> In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to > >>> Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, > >>> passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... > >>> for the first need of the child is that of contact with other > >>> people"... I also very much enjoyed > seeing > >>> Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engestr?m's > >>> Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief > >>> three days in Quebec. > >>> > >>> > >>> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us > >>> more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who > >>> could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by > >>> many, while we get the time > to > >>> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the > >>> discussion > on > >>> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > >>> > >>> > >>> Alfredo > >>> ________________________________ > >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] >>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > >>> > >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended > >>> solely > for > >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not > >>> the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of > >>> the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should > >>> not rely on it. > >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender > >>> know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet > >>> emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >>> Plymouth University > accepts > >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to > >>> scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not > >>> accept > responsibility > >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or > >>> its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > >>> by an official order form. > >>> > >>> > >>> ________________________________ > >>> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] >>> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > >>> > >>> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended > >>> solely > for > >>> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not > >>> the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of > >>> the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should > >>> not rely on it. > >>> If you have received this email in error please let the sender > >>> know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet > >>> emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >>> Plymouth University > accepts > >>> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to > >>> scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not > >>> accept > responsibility > >>> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or > >>> its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > >>> by an official order form. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > > > > ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 14:42:19 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 15:42:19 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: <5b0aa0b6-b54e-1855-13c4-011ce9d9f8f0@mira.net> References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> <5b0aa0b6-b54e-1855-13c4-011ce9d9f8f0@mira.net> Message-ID: I'd like to second Andy's point about the importance of revisiting Marx (and yes, Hegel too) to discover anew his ideas. When I was a grad student teaching in the undergraduate core sequence at the University of Chicago, an instructor in a meeting about the course commented that the neo-liberal ideology of free market capitalism was dominating students' thinking in these core courses. In response, sociologist John Levy-Martin noted that Marx is the "nuclear submarine of social theory" and that the neo-liberal economic theory was nothing more than a bunch of pea shooters. Although I'm not a fan of the weaponizing metaphor, I think there is something to the larger point that Marx's work still holds a great deal of promise even today. (and I might add that here in America scholars assume that Vygotsky is entirely detachable from Marx - that may be a survival mechanism for many Vygotsky-ians (given the anti-Marx/anti-Communist sentiment in the U.S.), but it is also very unfortunate, so I'm very glad to see the Vygotsky and Marx book). I am lucky enough to regularly have the opportunity to teach Marx to undergraduate anthropologists. One thing that is very clear to me is that Marx's way of thinking is astonishingly novel - so much so that it is a near impossible chore to try and get these American undergraduates to understand what he is saying (precisely because his way of thinking is too foreign to the average American raised in the midst of unbridled capitalism with all its ideology, obfuscations, and enticements). And the few that "get" Marx are equipped with an incredibly powerful tool for thinking (anthropologically) about and making the world anew. -greg On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > With Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, epistemology and ontology all became > obsolete really. Marx's ideas on these topics have to be gleaned from > occasional remarks and unpublished notes. But, taking the Theses on > Feuerbach, and the key passages in the German Ideology and the Grundrisse > as defining "Marx's epistemology and ontology" then I would say we are > still waiting for a time when this standpoint will come into its own. > > Do we have a reviewer for that book yet? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 7/09/2017 1:44 AM, Antti Rajala wrote: > >> Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with >> your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that the >> Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be created. >> In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. >> >> I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium >> interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl Ratner >> and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented >> Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, whereas >> Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. >> >> Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological >> foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a question). I >> am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the edited >> volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. >> >> Antti >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden > ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >> >> Antti, >> >> I think the development of a tradition of practice >> (such as Marxism) means continually returning to the >> original sources and *digging deeper* into them, while >> responding to the problems thrown up by the present >> world. What Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the >> re-assertion of the original sources, but their >> mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism >> has fallen into crisis, it has sparked a "return to >> Marx" - not to go back to an original truth, but to >> look again at what was being taken for granted, and >> find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in >> his reading of /Capital/ in particular. >> >> Andy >> >> (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> >> On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: >> >> Hi, >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo >> a couple of weeks ago >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in >> which a similar issue was >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be >> continually updated as a >> living tradition or be more original to the >> sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky >> himself who emphasized the former position in his >> essay on the Crisis of >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just >> picking citations from Marx >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk >> > wrote: >> >> Hi Alfredo, >> >> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if >> different people are able to >> pursue different paths so they are able to >> develop (and hopefully share) >> different perspectives. One of the things we >> take away from a conference >> (as, in different ways, from other forms of >> interaction) is a richer sense >> of the ways in which other people see things >> differently. Knowing a bit >> about how others see things helps to enrich >> the possibilities available to >> us - so we become more than just our own selves. >> >> All the best, >> >> Rod >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, >> reflections, etc >> >> I think I got this e-mail back from the >> server, here I try again. >> ________________________________________ >> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc >> >> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between >> sessions, and the after >> sessions too, are part of the best these type >> of congress offers. I am >> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in >> Quebec! It was a real pleasure. >> >> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting >> you too. In any case, >> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I >> am glad thta you bring this >> distinction between those who seek to defend >> some 'core, true meaning', and >> those who attempt to bring those notions into >> new uses etc. This seems to >> be at the heart of the field today, and >> definitely resonates with >> discussions having gone on here. I don't >> think, (nor probably do you) that >> in most cases the dichotomy is that >> straightforward; rather, there seems to >> be a tension between one's efforts to build on >> a given body of scholar work >> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of >> addressing real, contemporary >> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to >> be very strong on the former >> effort, but could be better in the latter. >> Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo >> ________________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> >> > > >> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees >> > > >> >> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, >> reflections, etc >> >> Dear Alfredo, >> >> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to >> meet you at ISCAR. >> >> The highlight of the conference for me was the >> opportunity to explore a >> wide range of different perspectives on key >> aspects of cultural-historical >> research. The first meeting of the round-table >> discussion group focusing on >> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat >> chaotic, as a lot of people set >> out their own understanding of the >> significance of this concept. Here there >> was only time for an initial presentation of >> positions - and the beginnings >> of exploration of disagreements but the topic >> was also addressed in many >> paper presentations and the second and third >> round-table meetings were >> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, >> which I thought was >> particularly valuable in clarifying why >> perezhivanie is such a useful (and >> flexible) concept. >> >> Discussions at the conference illustrated the >> tensions between those who >> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through >> careful historical analysis >> of documents and arguments) and those who want >> to loosen the boundaries of >> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the >> concept can be used in new ways >> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to >> take conversations forward >> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see >> the 'agreed' meaning >> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, >> dynamic product of continuing >> interactions - both influencing and influenced >> by the particular >> refractions of individual interpretations >> (smysl). Our 'own' understanding >> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to >> encounter and engage with >> other people's perspectives - not just what >> they think and know but also >> what they care about! My understanding of the >> writing of Fernando Gonzalez >> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai >> Veresov and many others will >> be informed by what I have learned from seeing >> how they present their own >> understandings but also, in different but >> equally important ways, from >> seeing how they engage with other people and >> with other people's ideas. >> >> All the best, >> >> Rod >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil >> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, >> reflections, etc >> >> Dear all, >> >> >> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI >> conference finished today, just one >> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I >> committed to attending both >> conferences and could only be the first days >> in Quebec. Still, I was >> fortunate enough to catch up with many >> colleagues, to share some of my >> work, and get to hear about that of many >> others that are doing great things >> around the globe. >> >> >> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was >> the huge amount of people >> that actually lurks into this list, but who >> nonetheless very seldom if ever >> write (whether for lack of time to delve into >> the sometimes quite long >> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to >> read than write). We all >> knew and had talked about this, but it was >> quite remarkable the amount of >> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here >> in Europe (EARLI). >> >> >> So, now that I have met some of you, and that >> you have got to see and hear >> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to >> leave earlier or could not join >> at all. What was your highlight of the >> congress and why? It would be lovely >> if some of you would take a step forward and >> tell us a bit of what you >> found most interesting, what you found was >> missing, what you found should >> have not been. >> >> >> In can be the first: One of my favourite >> moments was listening to Fernando >> G. Rey present without slides or any other >> device, passionately talking >> about child development and claiming, "... for >> the first need of the child >> is that of contact with other people"... I >> also very much enjoyed seeing >> Mike in a several meters wide screen >> commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, >> rising the longest ovation I got to hear >> during my brief three days in >> Quebec. >> >> >> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if >> you could tell us more on >> how it went for you, what you found there, for >> us who could not be there. I >> think it would be very much appreciated by >> many, while we get the time to >> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and >> prepare the discussion on >> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. >> >> >> Alfredo >> ________________________________ >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif >> ]> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass >> >> > >> >> This email and any files with it are >> confidential and intended solely for >> the use of the recipient to whom it is >> addressed. If you are not the >> intended recipient then copying, distribution >> or other use of the >> information contained is strictly prohibited >> and you should not rely on it. >> If you have received this email in error >> please let the sender know >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). >> Internet emails are not >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, >> Plymouth University accepts >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your >> responsibility to scan emails >> and their attachments. Plymouth University >> does not accept responsibility >> for any changes made after it was sent. >> Nothing in this email or its >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or >> services unless accompanied >> by an official order form. >> >> >> ________________________________ >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif >> ]> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass >> > >> >> This email and any files with it are >> confidential and intended solely for >> the use of the recipient to whom it is >> addressed. If you are not the >> intended recipient then copying, distribution >> or other use of the >> information contained is strictly prohibited >> and you should not rely on it. >> If you have received this email in error >> please let the sender know >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). >> Internet emails are not >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, >> Plymouth University accepts >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your >> responsibility to scan emails >> and their attachments. Plymouth University >> does not accept responsibility >> for any changes made after it was sent. >> Nothing in this email or its >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or >> services unless accompanied >> by an official order form. >> >> >> >> >> >> > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 15:15:52 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 16:15:52 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Unit of Analysis Message-ID: Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the essential features of the whole". Here is their longer explanation: "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural language use also involves social action in a context that includes other actors and socially significant regularities." (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education ) ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about unit of analysis.? ?-greg? -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From mpacker@uniandes.edu.co Wed Sep 6 15:48:10 2017 From: mpacker@uniandes.edu.co (Martin John Packer) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 22:48:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? just wondering Martin > On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that > preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the > essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and > psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural > language use also involves social action in a context that includes other > actors and socially significant regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From dkellogg60@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 15:52:41 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 07:52:41 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Greg-- The example of H20 is not original to Vygotsky: it goes back to John Stuart Mill on ethics and probably much further. But here's something that Vygotsky DOES say about it that I think IS original and much more useful, not least because it shows (to me) the point that Andy was making about not using an example as a definition. Vygotsky says that analysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen is the opposite of analysis. That is, it is not analysis but GENERALIZATION--because the truths which are revealed are absolutely general to water at any scale and wherever it is found: in a raindrop and in the Pacific Ocean. Instead, says Vygotsky, we require analysis that is specific to particular properties that we wish to investigate. So for example if we are interested in the ability of water to put out fire, we need to study molecular bonds, and if we are interested in the laws of buoyancy we need to study molecular motion (note that a MOTION can be a unit of analysis). Andy, in his gruff way, was upbraiding me for taking a bunch of examples of units which Vygotsky indubitably considers units of analysis (in French, "unite/s de base", as distinct from "unite/s" which just means "wholenesses") and then extracting three "laws" from them: minimal complexity, maximal simplicity, and non-molarity (that is, a distinction between the smaller scale unit and the larger phenonmenon that makes possible a distinction between explanans and explanandum, or as Bakhurst and Kozulin have both said, a distinction between the unit of analysis and the principle of explanation). Andy was particularly objecting to the last of these three, because he believes that action is a molar unit in exactly the same way as commodity in political economy, cell in biology, and word meaning (or "wording" for short!) in thinking and speech: activity is made up of nothing but actions, capital is made up of nothing but commodities, the body is made of nothing but cells and verbal interaction is nothing but wording. In other words, looking at human behavior as activity and looking at it as action does not constitute looking at two different things but rather looking at one thing from two different standpoints. Looking at capitalism as capital and looking at it as the production of circulation of commodities does not mean looking at two different things, but only at one thing at two different levels of granularity. Looking at the human body as organs, tissues, and cells is simply using a different power of microscope, and if you take away wording from verbal interaction you are at a loss for words. I accept all of this, and in general I accept and profit from Andy's criticisms even at their grouchiest and gruffest. Halliday makes a similar point about weather and climate, about text and language, and (more to the point) about Malinowski's context of situation and his context of culture. They are not two things: only one thing viewed from two different distances, two different perspectives, two different standpoints. The problem is that a particular factor that appears to be a mountain at one distance is only a molehill at another. So for example the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which influences the retention of solar radiation, may be a perfectly negligible factor in today's weather but still play a key role at the level of climate (you can see this clearly by comparing geographical climate, which depends on the angle of solar radiation, to weather: geological climate is more like the former than the latter). In political economy, price variations have a big influence at one scale but are just static at another. Although cells do have metabolism, digestion, reproduction--these functions are carried out by entirely different means when we look at the body as a whole. And when Vygotsky uses the term "phoneme", he does not mean "phoneme" as it is used by Chomsky and Halle (or even by Sweet and Palmer) but rather the way "phoneme" was used by Jakobson and Trubetskoy (respectively his classmate and his teacher at Moscow University). That is, he means the morpho-phoneme, not the phoneme. But--as Andy would point out--I am simply taking examples and generalizing again.... David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:15 AM, Greg Thompson wrote: > Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that > preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the > essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and > psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural > language use also involves social action in a context that includes other > actors and socially significant regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_ > Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From kindred.jessica@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 16:14:45 2017 From: kindred.jessica@gmail.com (Jessica Kindred) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 19:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0B1A7671-08D6-41AB-BD19-BAB50EED7781@gmail.com> The water metaphor is Vygotsky's from Thinking and Speech. (I hope it is properly attributed to him in the text you cited, though this is not clear from the quote of that text). And yes, it is a very useful idea to think of a unit of analysis through this lens. Thanks for the reminder. Sent from my iPhone > On Sep 6, 2017, at 6:15 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that > preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the > essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and > psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural > language use also involves social action in a context that includes other > actors and socially significant regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From ablunden@mira.net Wed Sep 6 19:08:16 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 12:08:16 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> Message-ID: Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > > just wondering > > Martin > > >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> >> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> essential features of the whole". >> >> Here is their longer explanation: >> >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that >> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the >> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and >> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural >> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >> actors and socially significant regularities." >> >> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >> ) >> >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about >> unit of analysis.? >> >> ?-greg? >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Wed Sep 6 21:12:39 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 22:12:39 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <0B1A7671-08D6-41AB-BD19-BAB50EED7781@gmail.com> References: <0B1A7671-08D6-41AB-BD19-BAB50EED7781@gmail.com> Message-ID: ?Thank you folks for answering my very simple-minded post with very thoughtful answers. ?This is very helpful. -greg On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 5:14 PM, Jessica Kindred wrote: > The water metaphor is Vygotsky's from Thinking and Speech. (I hope it is > properly attributed to him in the text you cited, though this is not clear > from the quote of that text). And yes, it is a very useful idea to think of > a unit of analysis through this lens. Thanks for the reminder. > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Sep 6, 2017, at 6:15 PM, Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > > Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > > analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction > to > > the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it > is > > that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > > essential features of the whole". > > > > Here is their longer explanation: > > > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > > analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > > approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one > that > > preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a > > scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate > the > > essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > requires > > a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > > grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic > and > > psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > natural > > language use also involves social action in a context that includes other > > actors and socially significant regularities." > > > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_ > Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > > ) > > > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > about > > unit of analysis.? > > > > ?-greg? > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From modesofpractice@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 10:41:24 2017 From: modesofpractice@gmail.com (David Dirlam) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 13:41:24 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> Message-ID: The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I missed his meaning). We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. David On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to > is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly > abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, > Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >> >> just wondering >> >> Martin >> >> >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>> wrote: >>> >>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>> to >>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>> is >>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>> essential features of the whole". >>> >>> Here is their longer explanation: >>> >>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>> that >>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>> the >>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>> requires >>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>> and >>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>> natural >>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>> >>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>> ) >>> >>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>> about >>> unit of analysis.? >>> >>> ?-greg? >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >> >> >> > From ajrajala@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 11:12:34 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 21:12:34 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> <5b0aa0b6-b54e-1855-13c4-011ce9d9f8f0@mira.net> Message-ID: Thanks a lot for these elaborations. Very inspiring discussion. I am also reminded of Andy's effort to revise Leontjev's ideas through the lens of more contemporary theorizing of society. This I see as a sign of a living tradition. Someone asked for the abstracts of the Ratner and Teo session in a private message. You can find the whole: http book of abstracts at www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/istp2017/downloadfiles/ISTP2017proceedings0808web.pdf Below is Teo's abstract Best, Antti Presentation 2: With Marx, Beyond Marx: Elements of a critical theory of subjectivity Thomas Teo, York University, tteo@yorku.ca Marx applied historical thinking to his own theory and suggested that one should not use his theory as a dogma. Yet, he also set out basic principles for a theory of subjectivity with his emphasis on what I would call socio-subjectivity and the notion that intra-subjectivity (the focus of traditional psychology) as well as inter-subjectivity (emphasized by hermeneutic, dialogical, and some phenomenological approaches) are part of socio-subjectivity. The theoretical task is to connect and understand the relationship between these three forms of subjectivity. But socio-subjectivity itself is not a static entity but changes according to transformations in society, economy, and culture. As Marx understood, a theory of subjectivity needs to understand the reality of capitalism, and one should add now, neo-liberalism. Changes in capitalist society such as capital as power and modes of exchange, in addition to modes of production, new forms of dispossession in conjuncture with new embodiments of identity, need to be accounted for. Neo-liberalism produces new forms of ideology, and a strong case is made, to keep to a Marxist concept of ideology, despite the criticisms of false consciousness since poststructuralism. It is argued that living in a post-truth world it is crucial to keep to the concept of ideology. However, I suggest that ideology needs to be augmented by a concept of bodiology, with the body as carrier of distorted images. It is suggested that Marx needs to be read, understood, and applied historically, which would be Marx?s own intention. Ideas for traditional and new forms of resistance are discussed. On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 12:42 AM, Greg Thompson wrote: > I'd like to second Andy's point about the importance of revisiting Marx > (and yes, Hegel too) to discover anew his ideas. > > When I was a grad student teaching in the undergraduate core sequence at > the University of Chicago, an instructor in a meeting about the course > commented that the neo-liberal ideology of free market capitalism was > dominating students' thinking in these core courses. In response, > sociologist John Levy-Martin noted that Marx is the "nuclear submarine of > social theory" and that the neo-liberal economic theory was nothing more > than a bunch of pea shooters. > > Although I'm not a fan of the weaponizing metaphor, I think there is > something to the larger point that Marx's work still holds a great deal of > promise even today. (and I might add that here in America scholars assume > that Vygotsky is entirely detachable from Marx - that may be a survival > mechanism for many Vygotsky-ians (given the anti-Marx/anti-Communist > sentiment in the U.S.), but it is also very unfortunate, so I'm very glad > to see the Vygotsky and Marx book). > > I am lucky enough to regularly have the opportunity to teach Marx to > undergraduate anthropologists. One thing that is very clear to me is that > Marx's way of thinking is astonishingly novel - so much so that it is a > near impossible chore to try and get these American undergraduates to > understand what he is saying (precisely because his way of thinking is too > foreign to the average American raised in the midst of unbridled capitalism > with all its ideology, obfuscations, and enticements). And the few that > "get" Marx are equipped with an incredibly powerful tool for thinking > (anthropologically) about and making the world anew. > > -greg > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > With Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, epistemology and ontology all > became > > obsolete really. Marx's ideas on these topics have to be gleaned from > > occasional remarks and unpublished notes. But, taking the Theses on > > Feuerbach, and the key passages in the German Ideology and the Grundrisse > > as defining "Marx's epistemology and ontology" then I would say we are > > still waiting for a time when this standpoint will come into its own. > > > > Do we have a reviewer for that book yet? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 7/09/2017 1:44 AM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > > >> Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with > >> your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that > the > >> Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be > created. > >> In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. > >> > >> I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium > >> interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl > Ratner > >> and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented > >> Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, > whereas > >> Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. > >> > >> Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological > >> foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a > question). I > >> am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the > edited > >> volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. > >> > >> Antti > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: > >> > >> Antti, > >> > >> I think the development of a tradition of practice > >> (such as Marxism) means continually returning to the > >> original sources and *digging deeper* into them, while > >> responding to the problems thrown up by the present > >> world. What Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the > >> re-assertion of the original sources, but their > >> mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism > >> has fallen into crisis, it has sparked a "return to > >> Marx" - not to go back to an original truth, but to > >> look again at what was being taken for granted, and > >> find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in > >> his reading of /Capital/ in particular. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> > >> > >> On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo > >> a couple of weeks ago > >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in > >> which a similar issue was > >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be > >> continually updated as a > >> living tradition or be more original to the > >> sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky > >> himself who emphasized the former position in his > >> essay on the Crisis of > >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just > >> picking citations from Marx > >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk > >> > wrote: > >> > >> Hi Alfredo, > >> > >> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if > >> different people are able to > >> pursue different paths so they are able to > >> develop (and hopefully share) > >> different perspectives. One of the things we > >> take away from a conference > >> (as, in different ways, from other forms of > >> interaction) is a richer sense > >> of the ways in which other people see things > >> differently. Knowing a bit > >> about how others see things helps to enrich > >> the possibilities available to > >> us - so we become more than just our own selves. > >> > >> All the best, > >> > >> Rod > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> I think I got this e-mail back from the > >> server, here I try again. > >> ________________________________________ > >> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >> > >> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between > >> sessions, and the after > >> sessions too, are part of the best these type > >> of congress offers. I am > >> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in > >> Quebec! It was a real pleasure. > >> > >> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting > >> you too. In any case, > >> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I > >> am glad thta you bring this > >> distinction between those who seek to defend > >> some 'core, true meaning', and > >> those who attempt to bring those notions into > >> new uses etc. This seems to > >> be at the heart of the field today, and > >> definitely resonates with > >> discussions having gone on here. I don't > >> think, (nor probably do you) that > >> in most cases the dichotomy is that > >> straightforward; rather, there seems to > >> be a tension between one's efforts to build on > >> a given body of scholar work > >> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of > >> addressing real, contemporary > >> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to > >> be very strong on the former > >> effort, but could be better in the latter. > >> Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo > >> ________________________________________ > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> >> > > >> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > >> >> > > >> > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> Dear Alfredo, > >> > >> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to > >> meet you at ISCAR. > >> > >> The highlight of the conference for me was the > >> opportunity to explore a > >> wide range of different perspectives on key > >> aspects of cultural-historical > >> research. The first meeting of the round-table > >> discussion group focusing on > >> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat > >> chaotic, as a lot of people set > >> out their own understanding of the > >> significance of this concept. Here there > >> was only time for an initial presentation of > >> positions - and the beginnings > >> of exploration of disagreements but the topic > >> was also addressed in many > >> paper presentations and the second and third > >> round-table meetings were > >> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, > >> which I thought was > >> particularly valuable in clarifying why > >> perezhivanie is such a useful (and > >> flexible) concept. > >> > >> Discussions at the conference illustrated the > >> tensions between those who > >> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through > >> careful historical analysis > >> of documents and arguments) and those who want > >> to loosen the boundaries of > >> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the > >> concept can be used in new ways > >> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to > >> take conversations forward > >> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see > >> the 'agreed' meaning > >> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, > >> dynamic product of continuing > >> interactions - both influencing and influenced > >> by the particular > >> refractions of individual interpretations > >> (smysl). Our 'own' understanding > >> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to > >> encounter and engage with > >> other people's perspectives - not just what > >> they think and know but also > >> what they care about! My understanding of the > >> writing of Fernando Gonzalez > >> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai > >> Veresov and many others will > >> be informed by what I have learned from seeing > >> how they present their own > >> understandings but also, in different but > >> equally important ways, from > >> seeing how they engage with other people and > >> with other people's ideas. > >> > >> All the best, > >> > >> Rod > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> Dear all, > >> > >> > >> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI > >> conference finished today, just one > >> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I > >> committed to attending both > >> conferences and could only be the first days > >> in Quebec. Still, I was > >> fortunate enough to catch up with many > >> colleagues, to share some of my > >> work, and get to hear about that of many > >> others that are doing great things > >> around the globe. > >> > >> > >> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was > >> the huge amount of people > >> that actually lurks into this list, but who > >> nonetheless very seldom if ever > >> write (whether for lack of time to delve into > >> the sometimes quite long > >> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to > >> read than write). We all > >> knew and had talked about this, but it was > >> quite remarkable the amount of > >> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here > >> in Europe (EARLI). > >> > >> > >> So, now that I have met some of you, and that > >> you have got to see and hear > >> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to > >> leave earlier or could not join > >> at all. What was your highlight of the > >> congress and why? It would be lovely > >> if some of you would take a step forward and > >> tell us a bit of what you > >> found most interesting, what you found was > >> missing, what you found should > >> have not been. > >> > >> > >> In can be the first: One of my favourite > >> moments was listening to Fernando > >> G. Rey present without slides or any other > >> device, passionately talking > >> about child development and claiming, "... for > >> the first need of the child > >> is that of contact with other people"... I > >> also very much enjoyed seeing > >> Mike in a several meters wide screen > >> commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > >> rising the longest ovation I got to hear > >> during my brief three days in > >> Quebec. > >> > >> > >> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if > >> you could tell us more on > >> how it went for you, what you found there, for > >> us who could not be there. I > >> think it would be very much appreciated by > >> many, while we get the time to > >> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and > >> prepare the discussion on > >> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> ________________________________ > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > >> ] >> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > >> > >> > > >> > >> This email and any files with it are > >> confidential and intended solely for > >> the use of the recipient to whom it is > >> addressed. If you are not the > >> intended recipient then copying, distribution > >> or other use of the > >> information contained is strictly prohibited > >> and you should not rely on it. > >> If you have received this email in error > >> please let the sender know > >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). > >> Internet emails are not > >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >> Plymouth University accepts > >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your > >> responsibility to scan emails > >> and their attachments. Plymouth University > >> does not accept responsibility > >> for any changes made after it was sent. > >> Nothing in this email or its > >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or > >> services unless accompanied > >> by an official order form. > >> > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > >> ] >> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > >> > > >> > >> This email and any files with it are > >> confidential and intended solely for > >> the use of the recipient to whom it is > >> addressed. If you are not the > >> intended recipient then copying, distribution > >> or other use of the > >> information contained is strictly prohibited > >> and you should not rely on it. > >> If you have received this email in error > >> please let the sender know > >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). > >> Internet emails are not > >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >> Plymouth University accepts > >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your > >> responsibility to scan emails > >> and their attachments. Plymouth University > >> does not accept responsibility > >> for any changes made after it was sent. > >> Nothing in this email or its > >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or > >> services unless accompanied > >> by an official order form. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From ajrajala@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 13:17:49 2017 From: ajrajala@gmail.com (Antti Rajala) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 23:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "frictions" in space/time In-Reply-To: References: <599a5b40.0435620a.b7645.1fdf@mx.google.com> <5f2b4360-8020-cd0c-7be1-a2ba5c22d9c5@mira.net> <1503342648639.25217@iped.uio.no> <936467D4-7612-4F1A-823C-4CE50D7B6CA7@umn.edu> <1503348334354.52@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Many thanks for introducing Nordquist?s work and the notion of friction. It seems a very fruitful concept to understand the processes of negotiation of different interpretations that are in play when actors interpret the physical space through their actions and discourse. In our study, we focused especially on such frictions, using the concepts of divergence from script and hybridity. Sometimes the different interpretation collided in productive ways to create new temporary cultural forms, in other times friction was in place without merging, in yet others we could observe happy co-existence of different interpretations without much friction. The concepts you propose could bring more depth into our analysis. Gert Biesta argued similarly in a paper that education happens in and through resistance between child and world. Antti On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Richard Beach wrote: > Antti, your example of educators versus students alternative perspectives > of on the forest/museum as space brings to mind Brice > Nordquist?s discussion of ?friction? related to mobilities across space > and time in his new book, *Literacy and Mobility: Complexity, > Uncertainty, and Agency at the Nexus of High School and College* > (Routledge). > > This leads to the question as to whether these competing framings of > space/time lead to dialogic exploration/learning, or simply an ossification > of predetermined perspectives. As Nordquist notes: > > Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2005) uses the term ?friction? to describe > the ?awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection > across differences? that enable and disable movement (p. 4). ?Friction is > not just about slowing things down. Friction is required to keep global > power in motion? (p. 6). Mobility scholars have taken up the concepts of > friction, motility, and mobile capital?along with concepts of mooring, > turbulence, dwelling, and placemaking (Cresswell 2010, 2014; Ahmed 2003; > Tolia-Kelly 2010)?to complicate notions of a deterritorialized or liquid > global condition (Deleuze and Guattari 1987; Castells 1996; Bauman 2000; > Hardt and Negri 2000). > > As Sheller (2014) asserts, ?For mobilities researchers today it is not a > question of privileging flows, speed, or a cosmopolitan or nomadic > subjectivity, but rather of tracking the power of discourses, practices, > and infrastructures of mobility in creating the effects (and affects) of > both movement and stasis? (p. 794). In other words, mobilities research is > concerned, by and large, with the politics of mobility, with the ways in > which mobilities produce and are produced by social relations (Cresswell > 2010, p. 21). > > While this concern does frequently extend to political projects and power relations > shaping economic, cultural, and environmental aspects of globalization, > ?the new mobilities paradigm also differs from theories of globalization in > its analytical relation to the multi-scalar, non-human, > non-representational, material, and affective dimensions of mobile life? > (Sheller 2014, p. 794). As Tsing (2005) reminds us, friction accompanies > mobilities of people, objects, texts, and capital across scales; indeed, > there is no mobility without friction. She explains, A wheel turns because > of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes > nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick > alone is just a stick. As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that > heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of > culture and power. (p. 5) > > If literacies and languages depend on spatial and temporal mobilities, as > I claim above, then friction is an essential component of the emergence > and transformation of literacies and languages through practice, which > makes it an essential component of agency. As Tsing (2005) asserts, > ?Speaking of friction is a reminder of the importance of interaction in > defining movement, cultural form, and agency? (p. 6). These relations > between friction, mobility, and agency bring us back to the notion of > teaching and learning as placemaking presented above. > > Pennycook (2010) asserts that the tendency to enclose or objectify places > results from a failure to understand structure as the effect of > sedimented repetition and argues that repetition of practice is a ?form of > renewal that creates the illusion of systematicity? (p. 47). In this way, > the apparently preexistent and self-evident nature of a place and its > practices is illusory because ?repeating the same thing in any movement > through time relocalizes that repetition as something different? (p. 41). > He suggests that a ?focus on movement takes us away from space being only > about location, and instead draws attention to a relationship between time > and space, to emergence, to a subject in process?performed rather > preformed?to becoming? (p. 140). > > Ron and Suzie Scollon (2004) describe the historical body as an > individual?s ?life experiences, their goals or purposes, and their > unconscious ways of behaving and thinking? (p. 46). Concordant in many ways > with Pierre Bourdieu?s (1991) notion of habitus, the concept of the > historical body situates memories, experiences, skills, and capacities more > precisely in the individual body and thusaccords with the theory of > embodied knowledge presented in the previous chapter. > > As Blommaert and April Huang (2009) assert: ?Participants in social action > bring their real bodies into play, but their bodies are semiotically > enskilled: their movements and positions are central to the production of > meaning, and are organized around normative patterns of conduct? (p. 275). > For example, the students participating in this study have long been > accustomed to systems of education, the layouts of school buildings and > classrooms, interactions with classmates and teachers, and the discourses > that justify and organize their work. > > This familiarity enables them to adequately navigate educational spaces; > they know where and when to go, what kinds of activities to engage in > when they get there, and how to perform these activities. Their historical > bodies have been formed in ways that make them recognizable as students and > in ways that habituate and routinize most of their practices (Blommaert and > Huang 2009, p. 274). Moreover, students bring their historical bodies into > play, as we have seen, in dynamic and emergent places. > > The patterns of mobility that constitute these places contribute to an > accumulated history of normative expectations, and accommodating and/or > resisting such histories is part of the process that builds a historical > body. In this way, historical bodies and places are mutually constitutive: > We become enskilled through our participation in social and material > places, and the histories of participation we bring to these places > contribute to the practices that constitute them. > > The Scollons?s notion of the historical body offers a powerful frame for observing > and analyzing cultural knowledges embedded in micro-bodily movements. The > concept draws our attention to associations made in the movement of a head > to a desk or a hand into the air. It helps us consider the cultural > knowledges presencing in a student?s route through a school or city and in > their stoppages through an assignment. Reflecting on our own historical > bodies can help us better understand why we tune into or out of certain > conversations or gravitate toward some student-participants rather than > others. To attend to convergences of literacies and mobilities, it is not > enough to consider traces of mobility in texts or in discursive > representations of movement; rather, mobile literacy ethnography requires > attention to the ways in which historical bodies influence > more-than-representational doings of mobility. > > Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education, University of > Minnesota > rbeach@umn.edu > Websites: Digital writing , > Media literacy , Teaching > literature , Identity-focused ELA > Teaching , Common Core State Standards > , Apps for literacy learning > , Teaching about climate change > > > > > > > > > On Sep 5, 2017, at 2:11 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > Reviving this conversation after some time (after being two weeks in > conferences). > > Richard raised the notion of dialogicality of settings, or between > situations and traditions. Continuing the dialogicality theme, I am > reminded of the concept of chronotope that has been discussed in this forum > earlier. I think Bakhtin addressed a similar idea of the dialogicality > between time and space (Richard was talking about situation and tradition) > in a novel (or in educational interpretation, in a community of practice). > > For example, he described some novel genres in which the setting was almost > as a museum where nothing is changing and other genres in which the novel > characters and the surroundings are in a mutually developmental > relationship, both undergoing and being part of a developmental process. > > So this points to a variety of ways in which time and space - or situation > and tradition - can be dialogically related. > > In our paper, which I linked, we show that the different actors during a > field trip seem to have very different relation to the setting. For the > teacher, the setting is almost a static background that can be used for > illustration. This is not a very developmental relationship between the > setting and the actors. For the environmental educators, the forest seems a > bit like a museum to be preserved as it is, they think that the kids should > learn to be in the forest without changing it (e.g., "destroying bug > homes"). > > Antti > > On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 11:45 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > Thanks for adding Bertau (who I discover now) and Linell. This begins to > sound like polyphony! > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Richard Beach > Sent: 21 August 2017 22:07 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* and > I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to this > notion of *settings* ? > > Related to Andy?s discussion of ?settings? as a unit of analysis, based on > her work on use of language as a Medium for constituting ?in-between? > meanings, Bertau (2014) posits use of ?situations? and ?traditions?: > Thus, the two basic aspects of communication are ?situations? and > ?traditions.? The link between situations (1) and traditions (2) is given > by the fact that participants in (1) contribute over time to the > sustaining/changing of the long-term practices of (2). A simple chaining in > time? Not for Linell, whose dialogical stance allows him to go right beyond > a pure sequential-temporal chaining of (1)-(2)-(1)- (2) that would amount > to a simple accumulation in time. Rather, for Linell, there is dialogue > between (1) and (2). This is grasped by the very term of double > dialogicality: the fact that participants ?engage in both situated > interaction and sociocultural praxis? (2009, p. 52). So, by their actual > language activity, subjects both engage and perform a situated, unique > verbal interaction and enact the sociocultural praxis the verbal forms they > perform belong to (e.g., they perform the conversation belonging to a first > date in a restaurant, to a family dinner, to an academic reception). > > > But what is really interesting is that this dialogical link makes (2), the > tradition, perceivable : ?Double dialogicality makes us see an ? utterance > both in its singularity and in its wider sociocultural and historical > belongingness? (Linell, 2009, p. 53). There are interdependencies between > (1) and (2), interactions (= 1) have situation-transcending aspects (= 2). > The examples Linell gives are the case of a speaker who refers to his own > words in other occasions, the case of a speaker who breaks out of the > current genre (giving a lecture) and shifts into another one (narrating a > personal anecdote): dialogues with own, past utterances, and dialogues with > framings of genres. That kind of referencing and indexing leads to Linell?s > term of ?recontextualization,? addressing the traveling of utterances > through texts and contexts. > > Linell (2009, pp. 248?249) distinguishes three types of > recontextualizations, operating on different time scales, where the first > two types correspond to the token level, the third type to the type level: > (a) within the same conversation (participants make use of the same > expressions several times), (b) to other texts or discourses (re-using or > alluding to elements of other specific discourses/texts), and (c) > borrowing/importing of other genres or discourse orders or routines. So, we > can see these types of recontextualizations as possibilities of indexing > (2), the tradition, in (1), the interaction. > > The following brief analysis is now possible. According to our temporal > being-ness, we experience the situation, the actual interaction (= 1) now . > And we also experience the tradition of practices (= 2) now : exactly > through these strategies of referencing and indexing, of borrowing and > importing, quoting ourselves, others, genres, discourses, by performing > reprises and variations, re-invoicements and re-listenings according to > formats we reiterate countless times in a great (although not unending) > diversity of speech and-listening practices. All these language activities > call in, and thereby construct, our tradition. We ?have? our tradition only > in this mode of calling-in, so we experience our tradition again and again > by way of performance of language practices, in our forms, or better: our > formations according to conventionalized, public patterns?we hear the > tradition for instance in certain intonatory and syntactic patterns, in > ways of asking a question. > > > Cases like migration coupled with the forced use of an alien language, or > the isolation from one?s speaker community (in prison), but also common > bilingualism shows how painful it can be to not ?have a language?: on the > contrary, it is obvious that language can disappear, that it can get > thinner and lose contact to reality, which is nothing but others? reality > we could share. So, the socio-historically transmitted tradition is a > present practice. > > Bertau, M-C. (2014). Exploring language as the ?in-between.? Theory & > Psychology, 24(4), 524 ?541. > > Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically. > Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers. > > Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education, University of > Minnesota > rbeach@umn.edu > Websites: Digital writing , Media > literacy , Teaching literature > , Identity-focused ELA Teaching < > http://identities.pbworks.com/>, Common Core State Standards < > http://englishccss.pbworks.com/>, Apps for literacy learning < > http://usingipads.pbworks.com/>, Teaching about climate change < > http://climatechangeela.pbworks.com/> > > > > > > > On Aug 21, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > wrote: > > > Hi Antti, > > thanks so much for sharing your work! The case you present is definitely > > interesting with regard to Andy's example of the problematic of field trips > as 'settings'. And congratulations for the recent publication! > > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of Antti Rajala > > Sent: 21 August 2017 19:02 > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wertsch is focusing on the concept of *settings* > > and I wonder if the notion of *human worlds* is considered equivalent to > this notion of *settings* ? > > > Dear Larry and Andy and all, > > I agree with Andy that there is a risk of blurring the distinctions. > Moreover, I would like to consider the context of activity as dynamic in > the sense that Mike meant it in his book in 1996. > > Andy's example of a fieldtrip resonates so much with a paper that I > recently wrote with Sanne Akkerman that I could not resist sharing it > > here. > > It will soon be published in a special issue on dialogical approaches to > learning, in the journal Learning Culture and Social Interaction. In the > paper, we analyze how the forest during a fieldtrip is produced in varied > ways as the context of the activity through the different participants' > interpretations (teacher, children, nature school educators). We also > illuminate how these different interpretations are negotiated and > hybridized in the dialogic interactions during the fieldtrip. > > Hopefully our uses of the terms contribute in small part to the increased > clarity of these discussions. > > https://www.academia.edu/34293982/Rajala_Akkerman_ > > Researching_reinterpretations_of_educational_activity_in_ > dialogic_interactions_during_a_fieldtrip > > > Antti > > On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Larry, all notions are linked, I am sure. > > The idea of "settings" is a powerful one, used not only by Wertsch but > others such as Hedegaard. The trouble I have with it is that it can > function to blur some important distinctions. Is the setting an artefact > (e.g. a type of building and related furniture and signage, etc., for > example marking it as a school) or is it an activity (such as doing > schoolwork). Extending this (example) what is the setting on a school > > field > > trip? - the ambiguity is of course a real one, not just an artefact of > theory - on a field trip, in the absence of all the physical markers of > > the > > classroom, kids can mistakenly behave in a way inappropriate to school > work. On the other hand, extending the same (example) in the other > direction, if a child is acting as a stand-over man in the classroom in > order to extort pocket money from other children is this deemed to be > taking place in a "school setting"? That is, it tends to blur the > > mediating > > artefact with the activity, albeit in ways which mirror real ambiguity. > Expressions like "cultural [settings], institutional [settings], and > historical [settings]" seem in turn to merge activity and tool/sign with > context in the broadest sense. Such settings do indeed "provide and > > shape > > the cultural tools" insofar as they are deemed to imply collaborating > > with > > other people. The next sentence talks about "mediational means"; these > > are > > indeed "carriers" of patterns of activity, etc. But artefacts (tools and > signs) are not the only mediational means. Does the author mean > > artefacts, > > or are theories and practices (such as for example would characterise a > specific institution) also intended to be included? If so, what does > > this > > mean for the idea of a "setting." How does setting differ from frame, or > context, or discourse, or activity or genre or field, or ...? > > So there are some powerful ideas in this mixture, but the blurring going > on disturbs me. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://home.mira.net/~andy > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making > On 21/08/2017 2:02 PM, Larry Purss wrote: > > On page 204 of the Wertsch article : ?The Primacy of Mediated Action in > Sociocultural Studies? is the notion of broadening the concept of > *Settings* On page 204 is this paragraph: > > ?Vygotsky?s analysis of mediation is central to understanding his > contribution to psychology. Indeed, it is the key in his approach to > understanding how human mental functioning is tied to cultural > > [settings], > > institutional [settings], and historical [settings] since these > > settings > > shape and provide the cultural tools that are mastered by individuals > > to > > form this functioning. In this approach the mediational means are what > might be termed the *carriers* of sociocultural patterns and > > knowledge.? > > > I notice that other traditions posit the notion of {worlds] that come > into existence with human approaches to [worlds]. > > Is it ok to consider that Wertsch who is exploring linking human mental > functioning to human settings is indicating the same realm as others > > who > > are exploring human mental functioning linking to human *worlds*. > > In particular the author John William Miller posits the actuality of > *midworlds* that resemble or have a family semblance to the notion of > *settings*. > Also Continental Philosophy explores *worlds* that exist as human > dwelling places? > > The notions of [settings] and [worlds] seem to be linked? > > > > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > > > > > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Sep 7 14:46:07 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 21:46:07 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc In-Reply-To: References: <1504395379860.44668@iped.uio.no> <1504631264672.63271@iped.uio.no> <1504645116936.65633@iped.uio.no> <72f0a4f9-dd68-cbe3-838b-2d9be32e0d88@mira.net> <5b0aa0b6-b54e-1855-13c4-011ce9d9f8f0@mira.net> , Message-ID: <1504820767404.14836@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing, Antti! A ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Antti Rajala Sent: 07 September 2017 20:12 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc Thanks a lot for these elaborations. Very inspiring discussion. I am also reminded of Andy's effort to revise Leontjev's ideas through the lens of more contemporary theorizing of society. This I see as a sign of a living tradition. Someone asked for the abstracts of the Ratner and Teo session in a private message. You can find the whole: http book of abstracts at www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/istp2017/downloadfiles/ISTP2017proceedings0808web.pdf Below is Teo's abstract Best, Antti Presentation 2: With Marx, Beyond Marx: Elements of a critical theory of subjectivity Thomas Teo, York University, tteo@yorku.ca Marx applied historical thinking to his own theory and suggested that one should not use his theory as a dogma. Yet, he also set out basic principles for a theory of subjectivity with his emphasis on what I would call socio-subjectivity and the notion that intra-subjectivity (the focus of traditional psychology) as well as inter-subjectivity (emphasized by hermeneutic, dialogical, and some phenomenological approaches) are part of socio-subjectivity. The theoretical task is to connect and understand the relationship between these three forms of subjectivity. But socio-subjectivity itself is not a static entity but changes according to transformations in society, economy, and culture. As Marx understood, a theory of subjectivity needs to understand the reality of capitalism, and one should add now, neo-liberalism. Changes in capitalist society such as capital as power and modes of exchange, in addition to modes of production, new forms of dispossession in conjuncture with new embodiments of identity, need to be accounted for. Neo-liberalism produces new forms of ideology, and a strong case is made, to keep to a Marxist concept of ideology, despite the criticisms of false consciousness since poststructuralism. It is argued that living in a post-truth world it is crucial to keep to the concept of ideology. However, I suggest that ideology needs to be augmented by a concept of bodiology, with the body as carrier of distorted images. It is suggested that Marx needs to be read, understood, and applied historically, which would be Marx?s own intention. Ideas for traditional and new forms of resistance are discussed. On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 12:42 AM, Greg Thompson wrote: > I'd like to second Andy's point about the importance of revisiting Marx > (and yes, Hegel too) to discover anew his ideas. > > When I was a grad student teaching in the undergraduate core sequence at > the University of Chicago, an instructor in a meeting about the course > commented that the neo-liberal ideology of free market capitalism was > dominating students' thinking in these core courses. In response, > sociologist John Levy-Martin noted that Marx is the "nuclear submarine of > social theory" and that the neo-liberal economic theory was nothing more > than a bunch of pea shooters. > > Although I'm not a fan of the weaponizing metaphor, I think there is > something to the larger point that Marx's work still holds a great deal of > promise even today. (and I might add that here in America scholars assume > that Vygotsky is entirely detachable from Marx - that may be a survival > mechanism for many Vygotsky-ians (given the anti-Marx/anti-Communist > sentiment in the U.S.), but it is also very unfortunate, so I'm very glad > to see the Vygotsky and Marx book). > > I am lucky enough to regularly have the opportunity to teach Marx to > undergraduate anthropologists. One thing that is very clear to me is that > Marx's way of thinking is astonishingly novel - so much so that it is a > near impossible chore to try and get these American undergraduates to > understand what he is saying (precisely because his way of thinking is too > foreign to the average American raised in the midst of unbridled capitalism > with all its ideology, obfuscations, and enticements). And the few that > "get" Marx are equipped with an incredibly powerful tool for thinking > (anthropologically) about and making the world anew. > > -greg > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > With Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, epistemology and ontology all > became > > obsolete really. Marx's ideas on these topics have to be gleaned from > > occasional remarks and unpublished notes. But, taking the Theses on > > Feuerbach, and the key passages in the German Ideology and the Grundrisse > > as defining "Marx's epistemology and ontology" then I would say we are > > still waiting for a time when this standpoint will come into its own. > > > > Do we have a reviewer for that book yet? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 7/09/2017 1:44 AM, Antti Rajala wrote: > > > >> Andy, thanks for these thoughts and your welcoming words. I agree with > >> your reading of the Vygotsky's essay. I think Vygotsky also said that > the > >> Marxist psychology could not be found in Marx's text but had to be > created. > >> In this he used Marx method, as you pointed out. > >> > >> I am no expert of Marxism but found the discussion in the symposium > >> interesting. The discussion was sparked by the presentations of Carl > Ratner > >> and Thomas Teo respectively. If I remember it right, Teo complemented > >> Marx's original insights with some more postmodernist theorizing, > whereas > >> Ratner appeared to rely more on a more traditional reading of Marx. > >> > >> Andy, to what extent do you think that the ontological/epistemological > >> foundation of Marx is still valid today? (perhaps too broad a > question). I > >> am looking forward to read the hopefully forthcoming review of the > edited > >> volume by Ratner and Nunes Henrique Silva on Vygotsky and Marx in MCA. > >> > >> Antti > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andy Blunden >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: > >> > >> Antti, > >> > >> I think the development of a tradition of practice > >> (such as Marxism) means continually returning to the > >> original sources and *digging deeper* into them, while > >> responding to the problems thrown up by the present > >> world. What Vygotsky ridiculed was not just the > >> re-assertion of the original sources, but their > >> mindless and superficial repetition. Whenever Marxism > >> has fallen into crisis, it has sparked a "return to > >> Marx" - not to go back to an original truth, but to > >> look again at what was being taken for granted, and > >> find new sources of inspiration. Vygotsky did this in > >> his reading of /Capital/ in particular. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> (PS Nice to hear your voice on this list, Antti) > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> > >> > >> On 6/09/2017 3:29 PM, Antti Rajala wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> In ISTP (Theory & Psychology) conference in Tokyo > >> a couple of weeks ago > >> there was a session on Vygotsky and Marxism, in > >> which a similar issue was > >> raised: whether the Marxist research should be > >> continually updated as a > >> living tradition or be more original to the > >> sources. Wasn't it Vygotsky > >> himself who emphasized the former position in his > >> essay on the Crisis of > >> Psychology when he mocked people who were just > >> picking citations from Marx > >> book and pretending that's Marxist psychology. > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk > >> > wrote: > >> > >> Hi Alfredo, > >> > >> Yes, my feeling is that it is better if > >> different people are able to > >> pursue different paths so they are able to > >> develop (and hopefully share) > >> different perspectives. One of the things we > >> take away from a conference > >> (as, in different ways, from other forms of > >> interaction) is a richer sense > >> of the ways in which other people see things > >> differently. Knowing a bit > >> about how others see things helps to enrich > >> the possibilities available to > >> us - so we become more than just our own selves. > >> > >> All the best, > >> > >> Rod > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 21:59 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> I think I got this e-mail back from the > >> server, here I try again. > >> ________________________________________ > >> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 19:07 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc > >> > >> Jaakko, yes, I agree with you those in between > >> sessions, and the after > >> sessions too, are part of the best these type > >> of congress offers. I am > >> happy I could enjoy some of that with you in > >> Quebec! It was a real pleasure. > >> > >> Rod, yes, it would have been so great meeting > >> you too. In any case, > >> concerning perezhivanie and other notions, I > >> am glad thta you bring this > >> distinction between those who seek to defend > >> some 'core, true meaning', and > >> those who attempt to bring those notions into > >> new uses etc. This seems to > >> be at the heart of the field today, and > >> definitely resonates with > >> discussions having gone on here. I don't > >> think, (nor probably do you) that > >> in most cases the dichotomy is that > >> straightforward; rather, there seems to > >> be a tension between one's efforts to build on > >> a given body of scholar work > >> in a coherent manner, and one's goals of > >> addressing real, contemporary > >> problems. I feel that here at xmca we tend to > >> be very strong on the former > >> effort, but could be better in the latter. > >> Just my sense. Cheers, Alfredo > >> ________________________________________ > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> >> > > >> on behalf of Rod Parker-Rees > >> >> > > >> > >> Sent: 05 September 2017 11:17 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> Dear Alfredo, > >> > >> I am sorry I did not get the opportunity to > >> meet you at ISCAR. > >> > >> The highlight of the conference for me was the > >> opportunity to explore a > >> wide range of different perspectives on key > >> aspects of cultural-historical > >> research. The first meeting of the round-table > >> discussion group focusing on > >> perezhivanie was well attended and somewhat > >> chaotic, as a lot of people set > >> out their own understanding of the > >> significance of this concept. Here there > >> was only time for an initial presentation of > >> positions - and the beginnings > >> of exploration of disagreements but the topic > >> was also addressed in many > >> paper presentations and the second and third > >> round-table meetings were > >> smaller, allowing more extensive discussion, > >> which I thought was > >> particularly valuable in clarifying why > >> perezhivanie is such a useful (and > >> flexible) concept. > >> > >> Discussions at the conference illustrated the > >> tensions between those who > >> seek to defend a core, 'true' meaning (through > >> careful historical analysis > >> of documents and arguments) and those who want > >> to loosen the boundaries of > >> what 'counts' as perezhivanie so that the > >> concept can be used in new ways > >> and in new contexts. Having the opportunity to > >> take conversations forward > >> beyond initial disagreement helped me to see > >> the 'agreed' meaning > >> (znachenie) of perezhivanie as a fluid, > >> dynamic product of continuing > >> interactions - both influencing and influenced > >> by the particular > >> refractions of individual interpretations > >> (smysl). Our 'own' understanding > >> is immeasurably enriched by opportunities to > >> encounter and engage with > >> other people's perspectives - not just what > >> they think and know but also > >> what they care about! My understanding of the > >> writing of Fernando Gonzalez > >> Rey, Anna Stetsenko, Barbara Rogoff, Nikolai > >> Veresov and many others will > >> be informed by what I have learned from seeing > >> how they present their own > >> understandings but also, in different but > >> equally important ways, from > >> seeing how they engage with other people and > >> with other people's ideas. > >> > >> All the best, > >> > >> Rod > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > >> mailman.ucsd.edu ] On > >> Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil > >> Sent: 02 September 2017 19:36 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> >> > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] ISCAR experiences, > >> reflections, etc > >> > >> Dear all, > >> > >> > >> I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI > >> conference finished today, just one > >> day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I > >> committed to attending both > >> conferences and could only be the first days > >> in Quebec. Still, I was > >> fortunate enough to catch up with many > >> colleagues, to share some of my > >> work, and get to hear about that of many > >> others that are doing great things > >> around the globe. > >> > >> > >> One (not so) surprising discovery I made was > >> the huge amount of people > >> that actually lurks into this list, but who > >> nonetheless very seldom if ever > >> write (whether for lack of time to delve into > >> the sometimes quite long > >> posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to > >> read than write). We all > >> knew and had talked about this, but it was > >> quite remarkable the amount of > >> people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here > >> in Europe (EARLI). > >> > >> > >> So, now that I have met some of you, and that > >> you have got to see and hear > >> more of ISCAR than those of us who had to > >> leave earlier or could not join > >> at all. What was your highlight of the > >> congress and why? It would be lovely > >> if some of you would take a step forward and > >> tell us a bit of what you > >> found most interesting, what you found was > >> missing, what you found should > >> have not been. > >> > >> > >> In can be the first: One of my favourite > >> moments was listening to Fernando > >> G. Rey present without slides or any other > >> device, passionately talking > >> about child development and claiming, "... for > >> the first need of the child > >> is that of contact with other people"... I > >> also very much enjoyed seeing > >> Mike in a several meters wide screen > >> commenting on Engestr?m's Keynote, > >> rising the longest ovation I got to hear > >> during my brief three days in > >> Quebec. > >> > >> > >> These are just anecdotes, but I would love if > >> you could tell us more on > >> how it went for you, what you found there, for > >> us who could not be there. I > >> think it would be very much appreciated by > >> many, while we get the time to > >> have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and > >> prepare the discussion on > >> the article from the last (third) MCA issue. > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> ________________________________ > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > >> ] >> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > >> > >> > > >> > >> This email and any files with it are > >> confidential and intended solely for > >> the use of the recipient to whom it is > >> addressed. If you are not the > >> intended recipient then copying, distribution > >> or other use of the > >> information contained is strictly prohibited > >> and you should not rely on it. > >> If you have received this email in error > >> please let the sender know > >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). > >> Internet emails are not > >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >> Plymouth University accepts > >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your > >> responsibility to scan emails > >> and their attachments. Plymouth University > >> does not accept responsibility > >> for any changes made after it was sent. > >> Nothing in this email or its > >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or > >> services unless accompanied > >> by an official order form. > >> > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif > >> ] >> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass > >> > > >> > >> This email and any files with it are > >> confidential and intended solely for > >> the use of the recipient to whom it is > >> addressed. If you are not the > >> intended recipient then copying, distribution > >> or other use of the > >> information contained is strictly prohibited > >> and you should not rely on it. > >> If you have received this email in error > >> please let the sender know > >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). > >> Internet emails are not > >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, > >> Plymouth University accepts > >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your > >> responsibility to scan emails > >> and their attachments. Plymouth University > >> does not accept responsibility > >> for any changes made after it was sent. > >> Nothing in this email or its > >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or > >> services unless accompanied > >> by an official order form. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Sep 7 14:58:28 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 21:58:28 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> , Message-ID: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I missed his meaning). We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. David On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to > is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly > abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, > Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >> >> just wondering >> >> Martin >> >> >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>> wrote: >>> >>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>> to >>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>> is >>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>> essential features of the whole". >>> >>> Here is their longer explanation: >>> >>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>> that >>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>> the >>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>> requires >>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>> and >>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>> natural >>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>> >>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>> ) >>> >>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>> about >>> unit of analysis.? >>> >>> ?-greg? >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >> >> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 18:51:59 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 11:51:59 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> Message-ID: <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? Researchers need to be clear about the unit of analysis each of them are using and of course, collaboration is much easier if you are all using the same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of substantiating a concept while a concept remains unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and definitions - all of which still fall short of a concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The first three chapters of the story of "unit of analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next year: http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations between the subunits" ? The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties related to that. As David suggested, it is the much more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny particle which all these things are made of, but which combines in different forms of movement to give us the various physical forms of what is all water. It is an unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" something real to us, whose manifold physical properties arising from its V-shape, and its electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. But a hierarchy of units and in particular the micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a fan of trying to systematise the world with a "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing else*. Any move away from this destroys the ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate of such actions, what the hell is it??? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > conception of what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and > Andy and Martin stress the importance of the observer. > Anyone with some experience should have some sense of it > (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of > the unit (worded like the psychological researcher I am, > but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I missed his meaning). > > We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > classifiability and the types of relations between them. > What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the > relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds between > the elements) as well as those with other molecules of > water (how fast they travel relative to each other), which > was David Kellogg's point. So the analogy to activity is > that it is like the molecule, while actions are like the > elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > activity must contain not only actions, but also > relationships between them. If we move up to the > biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than > cells, and I'm not just referring to entities like > extracellular fluid. The identifiability, classification, > and interrelations between cells and their constituents > all help to make the unit so interesting to science. > Likewise, the constituents of activities are more than > actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. Also, we need > to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, > and discern the interrelations between them and their > constituents. > > I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > characterizing the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to > read corrections. > > David > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we > need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There > are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and > saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > example, Marx's concept of capital is > buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" > concept of capital at all, of course. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a > preliminary concept, one might say an everyday > concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon > that is to be studied in such a way that it can be > elaborated, in the course of investigation, into > an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > > just wondering > > Martin > > > On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > > wrote: > > Not sure if others might feel this is an > oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in > Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > the volume Discourse and Education and found > it useful. The short of it is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that > "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) > apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific problems. In > their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find the right > unit of analysis - one that > preserves the essential features of the whole. > In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance down > below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of > nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen > separately will not illuminate the > essential properties of water. Similarly, > meaningful language use requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects > beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental > representations. All of these linguistic and > psychological factors play a role in > linguistic communication, but natural > language use also involves social action in a > context that includes other > actors and socially significant regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a > useful one for thinking about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > > > > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 19:11:37 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 12:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping what their unit of analysis is. In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people to be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or are we engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom from different perspectives. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam > Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of > what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some > sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need > basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like > the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I > missed his meaning). > > We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability > and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, > but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds > between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how > fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. > So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions > are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity > must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we > move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity > of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just > referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all > help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents > of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and > discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing > the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > David > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> >>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>> >>> just wondering >>> >>> Martin >>> >>> >>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>>> to >>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>>> is >>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>> essential features of the whole". >>>> >>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>> >>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>>> that >>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>>> the >>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>> requires >>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>>> and >>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>>> natural >>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>> >>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>> ) >>>> >>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>>> about >>>> unit of analysis.? >>>> >>>> ?-greg? >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>> Assistant Professor >>>> Department of Anthropology >>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>> Brigham Young University >>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>> >>> >>> > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 19:45:55 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 11:45:55 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> Message-ID: Andy: We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is and is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there are three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it is still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did in the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the child's own circadian rhythm. c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological adaptation for this purpose would. Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, historically, genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which is not made up of mediated actions. David Kellogg On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree > reliably on examples of the unit" ? > Researchers need to be clear about the unit of analysis each of them are > using and of course, collaboration is much easier if you are all using the > same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of substantiating a concept > while a concept remains unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes > and definitions - all of which still fall short of a concept. To grasp the > concept of something, like "unit of analysis," you have to know the > narrative in which the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and > conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The first three chapters > of the story of "unit of analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, > Hegel & Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next year: > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. > > "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations > between the subunits" ? > The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of its composition as > H2O and all the chemical properties related to that. As David suggested, it > is the much more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, snow, hail > and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes ... seas, oceans ... vapour, > steam ... - which is expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny > particle which all these things are made of, but which combines in > different forms of movement to give us the various physical forms of what > is all water. It is an unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because > it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of the unit must be > visceral. The water molecule is so small it can be held in the hand, tossed > around and stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, like with > metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of particles (stones, pieces of > bread, household objects, etc) which makes the concept of a "water > molecule" something real to us, whose manifold physical properties arising > from its V-shape, and its electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This > contrasts with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and "fields" which > are intangibles (though of course we find ways of grasping them viscerally > nonetheless). > > Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the same units > aggregate. The unit relates to the range of phenomena it unifies. Different > insights are provided by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. > But a hierarchy of units and in particular the micro/macro pair are a theme > which runs right through this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" > the macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: cell/organism, > atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated > action/activity, etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but > personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a fan of trying to > systematise the world with a "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives > us an entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) > > I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities are composed of > artefact-mediated actions and nothing else*. Any move away from this > destroys the ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. If it is > not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate of such actions, what the hell > is it??? > > Andy > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >> missed his meaning). >> >> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> >> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> >> David >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >> >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we >> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There >> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and >> saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For >> example, Marx's concept of capital is >> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" >> concept of capital at all, of course. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >> concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon >> that is to be studied in such a way that it can be >> elaborated, in the course of investigation, into >> an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >> >> just wondering >> >> Martin >> >> >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >> > > wrote: >> >> Not sure if others might feel this is an >> oversimplification of unit of >> analysis, but I just came across this in >> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >> the volume Discourse and Education and found >> it useful. The short of it is >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >> "preserves the >> essential features of the whole". >> >> Here is their longer explanation: >> >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >> apply the concept "unit of >> analysis" to social scientific problems. In >> their account, an adequate >> approach to any phenomenon must find the right >> unit of analysis - one that >> preserves the essential features of the whole. >> In order to study water, a >> scientist must not break the substance down >> below the level of an >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of >> nothing but hydrogen and >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >> separately will not illuminate the >> essential properties of water. Similarly, >> meaningful language use requires >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >> beyond phonology, >> grammar, semantics, and mental >> representations. All of these linguistic and >> psychological factors play a role in >> linguistic communication, but natural >> language use also involves social action in a >> context that includes other >> actors and socially significant regularities." >> >> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >> ) >> >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a >> useful one for thinking about >> unit of analysis.? >> >> ?-greg? >> >> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 19:55:26 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 12:55:26 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> Message-ID: <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our various body parts are essentially artefacts. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > Andy: > > We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of > the adolescent into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes > to begin at the beginning. So Vygotsky is discussing the > way in which the first year of life both is and is not the > same as intra-uterine development. He points out that > there are three "activities" (and that is the term that he > uses) that are similar. > > a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions > perfectly well (that is, the child responds to hunger and > even actively seeks milk) the nature of the child's food > does not depend on these animal functions: it is still, as > it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. > > b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness > and activity, the main (as opposed to the leading) > "activity" is inactive sleep, and the child does not keep > a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did in > the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an > adaptation to the circadian rhythm of the mother as much > as the establishment of the child's own circadian rhythm. > > c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move > arms and legs, the human child doesn't use them for > locomotion for many months after birth and instead depends > on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological > adaptation for this purpose would. > > Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet > mediated; if they were, then the child's discovery of her > or his own ability to act upon objects ("tools") and the > child's discovery of her or his ability to mean ("signs") > would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, > historically, genetically, developmentally there must > necessarily exist activity which is not made up of > mediated actions. > > David Kellogg > > On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to > be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? > Researchers need to be clear about the unit of > analysis each of them are using and of course, > collaboration is much easier if you are all using the > same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of > substantiating a concept while a concept remains > unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and > definitions - all of which still fall short of a > concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit > of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which > the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and > conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The > first three chapters of the story of "unit of > analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & > Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next > year: > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. > > "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are > the relations between the subunits" ? > The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of > its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties > related to that. As David suggested, it is the much > more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, > snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes > ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is > expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny > particle which all these things are made of, but which > combines in different forms of movement to give us the > various physical forms of what is all water. It is an > unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because > it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of > the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so > small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and > stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, > like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of > particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, > etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" > something real to us, whose manifold physical > properties arising from its V-shape, and its > electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts > with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and > "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we > find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). > > Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the > same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of > phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided > by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. > But a hierarchy of units and in particular the > micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through > this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the > macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: > cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word > meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, > etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but > personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a > fan of trying to systematise the world with a > "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an > entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) > > I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities > are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing > else*. Any move away from this destroys the > ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. > If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate > of such actions, what the hell is it??? > > Andy > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > > The issues that have arisen in this discussion > clarify the conception of what sort of entity a > "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > importance of the observer. Anyone with some > experience should have some sense of it (Martin's > point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need basically to be able to agree reliably on > examples of the unit (worded like the > psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy > will correct me if I missed his meaning). > > We also need to address two other aspects of > units--their classifiability and the types of > relations between them. What makes water not an > element, but a compound, are the relations between > the subunits (the chemical bonds between the > elements) as well as those with other molecules of > water (how fast they travel relative to each > other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the > analogy to activity is that it is like the > molecule, while actions are like the elements. > What is new to this discussion is that the > activity must contain not only actions, but also > relationships between them. If we move up to the > biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of > more than cells, and I'm not just referring to > entities like extracellular fluid. The > identifiability, classification, and > interrelations between cells and their > constituents all help to make the unit so > interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents > of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's > triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be > able to identify an activity, classify activities, > and discern the interrelations between them and > their constituents. > > I think that is getting us close to David > Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of > unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > David > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > > >> wrote: > > Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of > analysis we > need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. > There > are "everyday" concepts which are utterly > abstract and > saturated with ideology and received > knowledge. For > example, Marx's concept of capital is > buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > "everyday" > concept of capital at all, of course. > > Andy > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > > > On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a > preliminary concept, one might say an everyday > concept, that permits one to grasp the > phenomenon > that is to be studied in such a way that > it can be > elaborated, in the course of > investigation, into > an articulated and explicit scientific > concept? > > just wondering > > Martin > > > On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > > >> wrote: > > Not sure if others might feel this is an > oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in > Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > the volume Discourse and Education and > found > it useful. The short of it is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that > "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) > apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific > problems. In > their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find > the right > unit of analysis - one that > preserves the essential features of > the whole. > In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance > down > below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made > up of > nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen > separately will not illuminate the > essential properties of water. Similarly, > meaningful language use requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects > beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental > representations. All of these > linguistic and > psychological factors play a role in > linguistic communication, but natural > language use also involves social > action in a > context that includes other > actors and socially significant > regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on > Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education > > > > > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor > was a > useful one for thinking about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > > > > > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 20:19:43 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 20:19:43 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> Message-ID: Not everyone agrees: (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of other people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not mediated* for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." AND (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things are subjectively ?everyone?s.? Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting why we do not need the concept, Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our > various body parts are essentially artefacts. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > >> Andy: >> >> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent >> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So >> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is and >> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there are >> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. >> >> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well >> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the >> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it is >> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >> >> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the >> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did in >> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to >> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >> child's own circadian rhythm. >> >> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth >> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological >> adaptation for this purpose would. >> >> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they >> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean >> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, historically, >> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which is >> not made up of mediated actions. >> >> David Kellogg >> >> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden > ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >> >> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >> analysis each of them are using and of course, >> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >> year: >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >> Marx_public.pdf >> > Marx_public.pdf> >> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >> >> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >> the relations between the subunits" ? >> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >> particle which all these things are made of, but which >> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >> something real to us, whose manifold physical >> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >> >> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >> >> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >> >> Andy >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >> >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >> examples of the unit (worded like the >> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >> >> We also need to address two other aspects of >> units--their classifiability and the types of >> relations between them. What makes water not an >> element, but a compound, are the relations between >> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> water (how fast they travel relative to each >> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >> analogy to activity is that it is like the >> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >> What is new to this discussion is that the >> activity must contain not only actions, but also >> relationships between them. If we move up to the >> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >> entities like extracellular fluid. The >> identifiability, classification, and >> interrelations between cells and their >> constituents all help to make the unit so >> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >> and discern the interrelations between them and >> their constituents. >> >> I think that is getting us close to David >> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> >> David >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >> >> > >> >> wrote: >> >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >> analysis we >> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >> There >> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >> abstract and >> saturated with ideology and received >> knowledge. For >> example, Marx's concept of capital is >> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >> "everyday" >> concept of capital at all, of course. >> >> Andy >> >> ----------------------------- >> ------------------------------- >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> > > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> > > >> >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >> concept, that permits one to grasp the >> phenomenon >> that is to be studied in such a way that >> it can be >> elaborated, in the course of >> investigation, into >> an articulated and explicit scientific >> concept? >> >> just wondering >> >> Martin >> >> >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >> > >> > >> >> wrote: >> >> Not sure if others might feel this is an >> oversimplification of unit of >> analysis, but I just came across this in >> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >> the volume Discourse and Education and >> found >> it useful. The short of it is >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >> "preserves the >> essential features of the whole". >> >> Here is their longer explanation: >> >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >> apply the concept "unit of >> analysis" to social scientific >> problems. In >> their account, an adequate >> approach to any phenomenon must find >> the right >> unit of analysis - one that >> preserves the essential features of >> the whole. >> In order to study water, a >> scientist must not break the substance >> down >> below the level of an >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >> up of >> nothing but hydrogen and >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >> separately will not illuminate the >> essential properties of water. Similarly, >> meaningful language use requires >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >> beyond phonology, >> grammar, semantics, and mental >> representations. All of these >> linguistic and >> psychological factors play a role in >> linguistic communication, but natural >> language use also involves social >> action in a >> context that includes other >> actors and socially significant >> regularities." >> >> (entire chapter can be found on >> Research Gate at: >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >> > net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >> ) >> >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >> was a >> useful one for thinking about >> unit of analysis.? >> >> ?-greg? >> >> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> >> > > >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> >> > > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 20:32:08 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 13:32:08 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> Message-ID: <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. Eating and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and identify the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. As David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural functions. We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and the use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at this conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make sense of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I entirely agree with. Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in the CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for talking at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Not everyone agrees: > > (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of other > people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their > voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature > of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not mediated* > for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings > and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are > themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." > > AND > > (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything > to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, > their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects > addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around > him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate > together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given > to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and > nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things > are subjectively ?everyone?s.? > > Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a > piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting why > we do not need the concept, > > Michael > > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > * > > On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >> >>> Andy: >>> >>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent >>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So >>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is and >>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there are >>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. >>> >>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well >>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the >>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it is >>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>> >>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the >>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did in >>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to >>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>> >>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth >>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological >>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>> >>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they >>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean >>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, historically, >>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which is >>> not made up of mediated actions. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> >>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>> >>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>> year: >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>> Marx_public.pdf >>> >> Marx_public.pdf> >>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>> >>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>> >>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>> >>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> >>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>> >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>> >>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>> identifiability, classification, and >>> interrelations between cells and their >>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>> their constituents. >>> >>> I think that is getting us close to David >>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>> >>> David >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>> >>> >> >>> >> wrote: >>> >>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>> analysis we >>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>> There >>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>> abstract and >>> saturated with ideology and received >>> knowledge. For >>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>> "everyday" >>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ----------------------------- >>> ------------------------------- >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> >> > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> >>> >> > >>> >>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>> >>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>> phenomenon >>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>> it can be >>> elaborated, in the course of >>> investigation, into >>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>> concept? >>> >>> just wondering >>> >>> Martin >>> >>> >>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> wrote: >>> >>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>> oversimplification of unit of >>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>> found >>> it useful. The short of it is >>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>> "preserves the >>> essential features of the whole". >>> >>> Here is their longer explanation: >>> >>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>> apply the concept "unit of >>> analysis" to social scientific >>> problems. In >>> their account, an adequate >>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>> the right >>> unit of analysis - one that >>> preserves the essential features of >>> the whole. >>> In order to study water, a >>> scientist must not break the substance >>> down >>> below the level of an >>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>> up of >>> nothing but hydrogen and >>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>> separately will not illuminate the >>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>> meaningful language use requires >>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>> beyond phonology, >>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>> representations. All of these >>> linguistic and >>> psychological factors play a role in >>> linguistic communication, but natural >>> language use also involves social >>> action in a >>> context that includes other >>> actors and socially significant >>> regularities." >>> >>> (entire chapter can be found on >>> Research Gate at: >>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>> >> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>> >> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>> >> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>> ) >>> >>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>> was a >>> useful one for thinking about >>> unit of analysis.? >>> >>> ?-greg? >>> >>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> >>> >> > >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >>> >> > >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 20:44:52 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 20:44:52 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> Message-ID: Andy, if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to say that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. If the body is mediating, then between what and what? Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use because of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that instrumentalism. (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the way language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that have become available from the family archive. Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as > parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. Eating > and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through > participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and identify > the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. As > David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural functions. > We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction > between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and the > use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, > which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at this > conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make sense > of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not > everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I entirely > agree with. > > Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in the > CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same > tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for talking > at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >> Not everyone agrees: >> >> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of other >> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their >> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >> mediated* >> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >> >> AND >> >> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things >> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >> >> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a >> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting why >> we do not need the concept, >> >> Michael >> >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>> Andy: >>>> >>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent >>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So >>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is >>>> and >>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there >>>> are >>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. >>>> >>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well >>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the >>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: >>>> it is >>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>> >>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, >>>> the >>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he >>>> did in >>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to >>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>> >>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after >>>> birth >>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>> morphological >>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>> >>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they >>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to >>>> mean >>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>> historically, >>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>> which is >>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>> >>>> David Kellogg >>>> >>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>> >>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>> >>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>> year: >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>> >>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>> >>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>> >>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>> >>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> >>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>> >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>> >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>> their constituents. >>>> >>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>> >>>> David >>>> >>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>> >>>> >>> >>>> >> wrote: >>>> >>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>> analysis we >>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>> There >>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>> abstract and >>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>> knowledge. For >>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>> "everyday" >>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ----------------------------- >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> >>>> >>> > >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> >>>> >>> > >>>> >>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>> >>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>> it can be >>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>> investigation, into >>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>> concept? >>>> >>>> just wondering >>>> >>>> Martin >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>> >>> >>>> >>> >>>> >> wrote: >>>> >>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>> found >>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>> "preserves the >>>> essential features of the whole". >>>> >>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>> >>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>> problems. In >>>> their account, an adequate >>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>> the right >>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>> preserves the essential features of >>>> the whole. >>>> In order to study water, a >>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>> down >>>> below the level of an >>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>> up of >>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>> meaningful language use requires >>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>> beyond phonology, >>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>> representations. All of these >>>> linguistic and >>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>> language use also involves social >>>> action in a >>>> context that includes other >>>> actors and socially significant >>>> regularities." >>>> >>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>> Research Gate at: >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>> >>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>> >>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>> >>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>> ) >>>> >>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>> was a >>>> useful one for thinking about >>>> unit of analysis.? >>>> >>>> ?-greg? >>>> >>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>> Assistant Professor >>>> Department of Anthropology >>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>> Brigham Young University >>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>> >>>> >>> > >>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>> >>>> >>> > >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 21:02:01 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 14:02:01 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> Message-ID: "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? To say that there is always something in between any two things you want to mention is not "explaining everything." "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such distinction, for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through practical interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same way a child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not me*, etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind and body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears from time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost everything we do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is delusional. Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things explain nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Andy, > if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to say > that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if something > explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. > > If the body is mediating, then between what and what? > > Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an > Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? > > There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use because > of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that instrumentalism. > (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the way > language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of > mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that have > become available from the family archive. > > Michael > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > * > > On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as >> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. Eating >> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and identify >> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. As >> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural functions. >> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and the >> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, >> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at this >> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make sense >> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I entirely >> agree with. >> >> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in the >> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same >> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for talking >> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >> >>> Not everyone agrees: >>> >>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of other >>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their >>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>> mediated* >>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>> >>> AND >>> >>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things >>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>> >>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a >>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting why >>> we do not need the concept, >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>> >>>> Andy: >>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent >>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So >>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is >>>>> and >>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there >>>>> are >>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. >>>>> >>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well >>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the >>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: >>>>> it is >>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>> >>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, >>>>> the >>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he >>>>> did in >>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to >>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>> >>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after >>>>> birth >>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>> morphological >>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>> >>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they >>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to >>>>> mean >>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>> historically, >>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>> which is >>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>> >>>>> David Kellogg >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> >>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>> year: >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>> >>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>> >>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>> >>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>> >>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> >>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>> >>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>> >>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>> their constituents. >>>>> >>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>> >>>>> David >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>>> >> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>> analysis we >>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>> There >>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>> abstract and >>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>> knowledge. For >>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>> "everyday" >>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> >>>>> >>>> > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> >>>>> >>>> > >>>>> >>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>> phenomenon >>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>> it can be >>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>> investigation, into >>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>> >>>>> just wondering >>>>> >>>>> Martin >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>>> >> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>> found >>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>> "preserves the >>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>> >>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>> >>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>> problems. In >>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>> the right >>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>> the whole. >>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>> down >>>>> below the level of an >>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>> up of >>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>> representations. All of these >>>>> linguistic and >>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>> language use also involves social >>>>> action in a >>>>> context that includes other >>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>> regularities." >>>>> >>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>> >>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>> >>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>> >>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>> ) >>>>> >>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>> was a >>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>> >>>>> ?-greg? >>>>> >>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>> >>>>> >>>> > >>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>> >>>>> >>>> > >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> > From ivan@llaisdy.com Thu Sep 7 22:09:55 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:09:55 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> Message-ID: <616D8D9A-4133-4736-86BB-FAC2E2598763@llaisdy.com> -- festina lente > On 8 Sep 2017, at 03:45, David Kellogg wrote: > > three "activities" From ivan@llaisdy.com Thu Sep 7 22:10:25 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:10:25 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> Message-ID: <2FAD9BBB-B917-4BFD-89D3-007E06CBCD01@llaisdy.com> Dear David What is the term Vygotsky uses for these three "activities"? I might expect Vygotsky to say (following Spinoza) that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity. Best wishes Ivan -- festina lente > On 8 Sep 2017, at 03:45, David Kellogg wrote: > > Andy: > > We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent > into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So > Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is and > is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there are > three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. > > a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well > (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the > nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it is > still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. > > b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the > main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the > child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did in > the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to > the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the > child's own circadian rhythm. > > c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, the > human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth and > instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological > adaptation for this purpose would. > > Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they > were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon > objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean > ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, historically, > genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which is > not made up of mediated actions. > > David Kellogg > >> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree >> reliably on examples of the unit" ? >> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of analysis each of them are >> using and of course, collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of substantiating a concept >> while a concept remains unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes >> and definitions - all of which still fall short of a concept. To grasp the >> concept of something, like "unit of analysis," you have to know the >> narrative in which the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The first three chapters >> of the story of "unit of analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, >> Hegel & Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next year: >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >> >> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations >> between the subunits" ? >> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of its composition as >> H2O and all the chemical properties related to that. As David suggested, it >> is the much more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, snow, hail >> and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes ... seas, oceans ... vapour, >> steam ... - which is expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >> particle which all these things are made of, but which combines in >> different forms of movement to give us the various physical forms of what >> is all water. It is an unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of the unit must be >> visceral. The water molecule is so small it can be held in the hand, tossed >> around and stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, like with >> metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of particles (stones, pieces of >> bread, household objects, etc) which makes the concept of a "water >> molecule" something real to us, whose manifold physical properties arising >> from its V-shape, and its electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This >> contrasts with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and "fields" which >> are intangibles (though of course we find ways of grasping them viscerally >> nonetheless). >> >> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the same units >> aggregate. The unit relates to the range of phenomena it unifies. Different >> insights are provided by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the micro/macro pair are a theme >> which runs right through this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" >> the macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: cell/organism, >> atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated >> action/activity, etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a fan of trying to >> systematise the world with a "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives >> us an entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >> >> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities are composed of >> artefact-mediated actions and nothing else*. Any move away from this >> destroys the ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. If it is >> not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate of such actions, what the hell >> is it??? >> >> Andy >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>> >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >>> missed his meaning). >>> >>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>> >>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>> >>> David >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>> >>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we >>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There >>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and >>> saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For >>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" >>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> >>> >>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>> >>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>> concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon >>> that is to be studied in such a way that it can be >>> elaborated, in the course of investigation, into >>> an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>> >>> just wondering >>> >>> Martin >>> >>> >>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>> >> > wrote: >>> >>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>> oversimplification of unit of >>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>> the volume Discourse and Education and found >>> it useful. The short of it is >>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>> "preserves the >>> essential features of the whole". >>> >>> Here is their longer explanation: >>> >>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>> apply the concept "unit of >>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In >>> their account, an adequate >>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right >>> unit of analysis - one that >>> preserves the essential features of the whole. >>> In order to study water, a >>> scientist must not break the substance down >>> below the level of an >>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of >>> nothing but hydrogen and >>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>> separately will not illuminate the >>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>> meaningful language use requires >>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>> beyond phonology, >>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>> representations. All of these linguistic and >>> psychological factors play a role in >>> linguistic communication, but natural >>> language use also involves social action in a >>> context that includes other >>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>> >>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>> >> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>> ) >>> >>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a >>> useful one for thinking about >>> unit of analysis. >>> >>> -greg >>> >>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Sep 7 22:36:38 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 14:36:38 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <2FAD9BBB-B917-4BFD-89D3-007E06CBCD01@llaisdy.com> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <2FAD9BBB-B917-4BFD-89D3-007E06CBCD01@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Ivan: Vygotsky refers to them as "moments". But...moments of what? We read on and we find: ??????, ????? ??, ? ??? ?? ???? ?????????? ????????? ?????????? ???? ????? ?????, ? ??????? ? ?????? ?? ?????????? ??? ????????? ????? ????????? ? ??????. ?? ????? ? ????, ??-??????, ????????? ???????????? ?????? ? ???????, ??????? ?????????? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????, ???????? ?????????? ?? ?? ???????????? ????????. "However, at the same time, there is here an important break in the shared line in which there had not, at first, occurred any split, in the relationship between the personality and the environment. We have in mind, first of all, the first utilization of tools by the child, which constitutes the very basis of human activity, distinguishing it from animal activity." I think this shows that Wolff-Michael and Andy are taking symmetrical positions, one on each extreme of Vygotsky. Wolf-Michael is saying that mediation is not necessary at all. And Andy is saying that actually the distinction between before and after this developmental moment is not necessary. Weirdly, the result is the same thing. If I were in a grouchy mood, I would say that they are destroying the actual basis of Vygotsky's ideas and retreating into metaphysics. But of course Vygotsky's ideas are not such fragile things. I think worries about translation (including "moment" and "activity") are well-founded, but not solvable by replacing one word with another (e.g. "learning" with "instruction" or "learning-and-teaching"). The ideas do not rely on this word or that; they always depend on the choices Vygotsky makes between words rather than on the words themselves (e.g. the relationship between "learning" and "development" or between "meaning" and "sense"). It's like music: you can transpose the key as much as you like, because the music is between the notes and not within them. David Kellogg On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > Dear David > > What is the term Vygotsky uses for these three "activities"? I might > expect Vygotsky to say (following Spinoza) that the neo-nate is not active > at all, but passive, and that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity. > > Best wishes > > Ivan > > > -- > festina lente > > > > On 8 Sep 2017, at 03:45, David Kellogg wrote: > > > > Andy: > > > > We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent > > into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So > > Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is > and > > is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there > are > > three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. > > > > a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well > > (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the > > nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it > is > > still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. > > > > b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the > > main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the > > child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did > in > > the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to > > the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the > > child's own circadian rhythm. > > > > c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, > the > > human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth > and > > instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological > > adaptation for this purpose would. > > > > Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they > > were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon > > objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean > > ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, > historically, > > genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which > is > > not made up of mediated actions. > > > > David Kellogg > > > >> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > >> > >> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree > >> reliably on examples of the unit" ? > >> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of analysis each of them are > >> using and of course, collaboration is much easier if you are all using > the > >> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of substantiating a concept > >> while a concept remains unclear or diverse, just like lists of > attributes > >> and definitions - all of which still fall short of a concept. To grasp > the > >> concept of something, like "unit of analysis," you have to know the > >> narrative in which the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and > >> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The first three > chapters > >> of the story of "unit of analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, > >> Hegel & Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next year: > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > >> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. > >> > >> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations > >> between the subunits" ? > >> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of its composition > as > >> H2O and all the chemical properties related to that. As David > suggested, it > >> is the much more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, snow, > hail > >> and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes ... seas, oceans ... vapour, > >> steam ... - which is expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a > tiny > >> particle which all these things are made of, but which combines in > >> different forms of movement to give us the various physical forms of > what > >> is all water. It is an unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, > because > >> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of the unit must be > >> visceral. The water molecule is so small it can be held in the hand, > tossed > >> around and stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, like > with > >> metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of particles (stones, pieces of > >> bread, household objects, etc) which makes the concept of a "water > >> molecule" something real to us, whose manifold physical properties > arising > >> from its V-shape, and its electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This > >> contrasts with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and "fields" which > >> are intangibles (though of course we find ways of grasping them > viscerally > >> nonetheless). > >> > >> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the same units > >> aggregate. The unit relates to the range of phenomena it unifies. > Different > >> insights are provided by different units, *not necessarily in a > hierarchy*. > >> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the micro/macro pair are a > theme > >> which runs right through this narrative, the micro in some way > "explaining" > >> the macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: cell/organism, > >> atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word meaning/utterance, > artefact-mediated > >> action/activity, etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but > >> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a fan of trying to > >> systematise the world with a "complete set" of units. Just one unit > gives > >> us an entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) > >> > >> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities are composed of > >> artefact-mediated actions and nothing else*. Any move away from this > >> destroys the ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. If > it is > >> not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate of such actions, what the > hell > >> is it??? > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > >>> > >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception > of > >>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have > some > >>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need > >>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded > like > >>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me > if I > >>> missed his meaning). > >>> > >>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > classifiability > >>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > element, > >>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > bonds > >>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > (how > >>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > point. > >>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > actions > >>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > activity > >>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If > we > >>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity > >>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just > >>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > >>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > constituents all > >>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > constituents > >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > >>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, > and > >>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > >>> > >>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > characterizing > >>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >>> > >>> David > >>> > >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: > >>> > >>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we > >>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There > >>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and > >>> saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > >>> example, Marx's concept of capital is > >>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" > >>> concept of capital at all, of course. > >>> > >>> Andy > >>> > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> Andy Blunden > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>> > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>> > >>> > >>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >>> > >>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a > >>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday > >>> concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon > >>> that is to be studied in such a way that it can be > >>> elaborated, in the course of investigation, into > >>> an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > >>> > >>> just wondering > >>> > >>> Martin > >>> > >>> > >>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > >>> >>> > wrote: > >>> > >>> Not sure if others might feel this is an > >>> oversimplification of unit of > >>> analysis, but I just came across this in > >>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to > >>> the volume Discourse and Education and found > >>> it useful. The short of it is > >>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that > >>> "preserves the > >>> essential features of the whole". > >>> > >>> Here is their longer explanation: > >>> > >>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) > >>> apply the concept "unit of > >>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In > >>> their account, an adequate > >>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right > >>> unit of analysis - one that > >>> preserves the essential features of the whole. > >>> In order to study water, a > >>> scientist must not break the substance down > >>> below the level of an > >>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of > >>> nothing but hydrogen and > >>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen > >>> separately will not illuminate the > >>> essential properties of water. Similarly, > >>> meaningful language use requires > >>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects > >>> beyond phonology, > >>> grammar, semantics, and mental > >>> representations. All of these linguistic and > >>> psychological factors play a role in > >>> linguistic communication, but natural > >>> language use also involves social action in a > >>> context that includes other > >>> actors and socially significant regularities." > >>> > >>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_ > Introduct > >>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >>> publication/319322253_Introduc > >>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> > >>> ) > >>> > >>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a > >>> useful one for thinking about > >>> unit of analysis. > >>> > >>> -greg > >>> > >>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >>> Assistant Professor > >>> Department of Anthropology > >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >>> Brigham Young University > >>> Provo, UT 84602 > >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >>> > >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 7 22:44:17 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 15:44:17 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <2FAD9BBB-B917-4BFD-89D3-007E06CBCD01@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: not at all! andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 3:36 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > '''. And Andy is saying that actually the > distinction between before and after this developmental moment is not > necessary. From ivan@llaisdy.com Thu Sep 7 22:56:08 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:56:08 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <2FAD9BBB-B917-4BFD-89D3-007E06CBCD01@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: <7F778B5E-14BB-46EE-AC71-DC8AE4CBAA25@llaisdy.com> So now you seem to be saying that Vygotsky does *not* use the term "activities" to refer to feeding, sleeping, and locomotion --- and according to the paragraph you quote, Vygotsky would not regard the latter two as activity as they are not mediated. Careful translation aims to preserve the structure of thinking in the source text. Sensitive word choice is a prerequisite. Ivan -- festina lente > On 8 Sep 2017, at 06:36, David Kellogg wrote: > > Ivan: > > Vygotsky refers to them as "moments". But...moments of what? We read on and > we find: > > ??????, ????? ??, ? ??? ?? ???? ?????????? ????????? ?????????? ???? ????? > ?????, ? ??????? ? ?????? ?? ?????????? ??? ????????? ????? ????????? ? > ??????. ?? ????? ? ????, ??-??????, ????????? ???????????? ?????? ? > ???????, ??????? ?????????? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????, > ???????? ?????????? ?? ?? ???????????? ????????. > > "However, at the same time, there is here an important break in the shared > line in which there had not, at first, occurred any split, in the > relationship between the personality and the environment. We have in mind, > first of all, the first utilization of tools by the child, which > constitutes the very basis of human activity, distinguishing it from animal > activity." > > I think this shows that Wolff-Michael and Andy are taking symmetrical > positions, one on each extreme of Vygotsky. Wolf-Michael is saying that > mediation is not necessary at all. And Andy is saying that actually the > distinction between before and after this developmental moment is not > necessary. Weirdly, the result is the same thing. If I were in a grouchy > mood, I would say that they are destroying the actual basis of Vygotsky's > ideas and retreating into metaphysics. But of course Vygotsky's ideas are > not such fragile things. > > I think worries about translation (including "moment" and "activity") are > well-founded, but not solvable by replacing one word with another (e.g. > "learning" with "instruction" or "learning-and-teaching"). The ideas do not > rely on this word or that; they always depend on the choices Vygotsky makes > between words rather than on the words themselves (e.g. the relationship > between "learning" and "development" or between "meaning" and "sense"). > It's like music: you can transpose the key as much as you like, because the > music is between the notes and not within them. > > David Kellogg > >> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >> >> Dear David >> >> What is the term Vygotsky uses for these three "activities"? I might >> expect Vygotsky to say (following Spinoza) that the neo-nate is not active >> at all, but passive, and that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity. >> >> Best wishes >> >> Ivan >> >> >> -- >> festina lente >> >> >>> On 8 Sep 2017, at 03:45, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>> Andy: >>> >>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the adolescent >>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. So >>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is >> and >>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there >> are >>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are similar. >>> >>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly well >>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) the >>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: it >> is >>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>> >>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, the >>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he did >> in >>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation to >>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>> >>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >> the >>> human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after birth >> and >>> instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a morphological >>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>> >>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if they >>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to mean >>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >> historically, >>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity which >> is >>> not made up of mediated actions. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> >>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >>>> >>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree >>>> reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of analysis each of them are >>>> using and of course, collaboration is much easier if you are all using >> the >>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of substantiating a concept >>>> while a concept remains unclear or diverse, just like lists of >> attributes >>>> and definitions - all of which still fall short of a concept. To grasp >> the >>>> concept of something, like "unit of analysis," you have to know the >>>> narrative in which the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The first three >> chapters >>>> of the story of "unit of analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, >>>> Hegel & Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next year: >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>> >>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations >>>> between the subunits" ? >>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of its composition >> as >>>> H2O and all the chemical properties related to that. As David >> suggested, it >>>> is the much more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, snow, >> hail >>>> and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes ... seas, oceans ... vapour, >>>> steam ... - which is expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a >> tiny >>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which combines in >>>> different forms of movement to give us the various physical forms of >> what >>>> is all water. It is an unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, >> because >>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of the unit must be >>>> visceral. The water molecule is so small it can be held in the hand, >> tossed >>>> around and stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, like >> with >>>> metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of particles (stones, pieces of >>>> bread, household objects, etc) which makes the concept of a "water >>>> molecule" something real to us, whose manifold physical properties >> arising >>>> from its V-shape, and its electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This >>>> contrasts with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and "fields" which >>>> are intangibles (though of course we find ways of grasping them >> viscerally >>>> nonetheless). >>>> >>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the same units >>>> aggregate. The unit relates to the range of phenomena it unifies. >> Different >>>> insights are provided by different units, *not necessarily in a >> hierarchy*. >>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the micro/macro pair are a >> theme >>>> which runs right through this narrative, the micro in some way >> "explaining" >>>> the macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: cell/organism, >>>> atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word meaning/utterance, >> artefact-mediated >>>> action/activity, etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a fan of trying to >>>> systematise the world with a "complete set" of units. Just one unit >> gives >>>> us an entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>> >>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities are composed of >>>> artefact-mediated actions and nothing else*. Any move away from this >>>> destroys the ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. If >> it is >>>> not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate of such actions, what the >> hell >>>> is it??? >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>> >>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception >> of >>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have >> some >>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts >> need >>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded >> like >>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me >> if I >>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>> >>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> classifiability >>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an >> element, >>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical >> bonds >>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water >> (how >>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's >> point. >>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while >> actions >>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the >> activity >>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If >> we >>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the >> complexity >>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> constituents all >>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> constituents >>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, >> and >>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>> >>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> characterizing >>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>> >>>>> David >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > >>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we >>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There >>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and >>>>> saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For >>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" >>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon >>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that it can be >>>>> elaborated, in the course of investigation, into >>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>>>> >>>>> just wondering >>>>> >>>>> Martin >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>> >>>> > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found >>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>> "preserves the >>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>> >>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>> >>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In >>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right >>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. >>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>> scientist must not break the substance down >>>>> below the level of an >>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of >>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>> representations. All of these linguistic and >>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>> language use also involves social action in a >>>>> context that includes other >>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>> >>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_ >> Introduct >>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>> > publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>> ) >>>>> >>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a >>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>> >>>>> -greg >>>>> >>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>> >>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Fri Sep 8 05:02:10 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 05:02:10 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> Message-ID: Andy, about the body, and mind, I think it would be good to re-read the chapter on Spinoza in Il'enkov's *Dialectical Logic*. He writes about the thinking body, not about the mediation of body and mind by something else. These two are but manifestations. THough developed in a very different tradition (Maine de Biran), the materialist philosopher Michel Henry's *Incarnation: Une Philosphie de la Chair* can be read in the same way. One of the problems may lie in the English word body, which does not have the same possibilities as the German and French pairs K?rper/Leib and corps/chair. That is a big problem, as you are stuck with the material body, always opposed to thought, and then you need mediation to get the two together. Chair is something like a thinking body. Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? > To say that there is always something in between any two things you want > to mention is not "explaining everything." > > "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" > Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such distinction, > for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through practical > interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same way a > child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not me*, > etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind and > body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears from > time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a > distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost everything we > do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is delusional. > > Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our > upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural > inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and > tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All > *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things explain > nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >> Andy, >> if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to say >> that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if something >> explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. >> >> If the body is mediating, then between what and what? >> >> Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an >> Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? >> >> There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use because >> of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that >> instrumentalism. >> (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the way >> language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of >> mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that have >> become available from the family archive. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as >>> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. >>> Eating >>> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >>> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and >>> identify >>> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. As >>> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural >>> functions. >>> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >>> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and the >>> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, >>> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at >>> this >>> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make >>> sense >>> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >>> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I entirely >>> agree with. >>> >>> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in the >>> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same >>> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for >>> talking >>> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> >>> Not everyone agrees: >>>> >>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of >>>> other >>>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their >>>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>>> mediated* >>>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>>> >>>> AND >>>> >>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things >>>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>>> >>>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a >>>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting >>>> why >>>> we do not need the concept, >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> -------------------- >>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>> University of Victoria >>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>> >>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>> >>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>> >>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>>> >>>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>> >>>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Andy: >>>>> >>>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the >>>>>> adolescent >>>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. >>>>>> So >>>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is >>>>>> and >>>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there >>>>>> are >>>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are >>>>>> similar. >>>>>> >>>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly >>>>>> well >>>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) >>>>>> the >>>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: >>>>>> it is >>>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>>> >>>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, >>>>>> the >>>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he >>>>>> did in >>>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation >>>>>> to >>>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>>> >>>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >>>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after >>>>>> birth >>>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>>> morphological >>>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>>> >>>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if >>>>>> they >>>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to >>>>>> mean >>>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>>> historically, >>>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>>> which is >>>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>>> >>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>> >>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>>> year: >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>>> >>>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>>> >>>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>>> >>>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>>> >>>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> >>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>> >>>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>>> >>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>>> their constituents. >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>> >>>>>> David >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>>> analysis we >>>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>>> There >>>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>>> abstract and >>>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>>> knowledge. For >>>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>>> "everyday" >>>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> rg/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> > >>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>>> it can be >>>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>>> investigation, into >>>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>>> concept? >>>>>> >>>>>> just wondering >>>>>> >>>>>> Martin >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>>> found >>>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>>> "preserves the >>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>> >>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>> >>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>>> problems. In >>>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>>> the right >>>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>>> the whole. >>>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>>> down >>>>>> below the level of an >>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>>> up of >>>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>>> representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic and >>>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>>> language use also involves social >>>>>> action in a >>>>>> context that includes other >>>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>>> regularities." >>>>>> >>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>>>>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>> >>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>>> >>>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>> >>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>>> ) >>>>>> >>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>>> was a >>>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>> >>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>> >>>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> > >>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > From ablunden@mira.net Fri Sep 8 05:41:51 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 22:41:51 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> Message-ID: <21351479-ac14-cf50-6da3-7c90f6e9a677@mira.net> Michael, being an English-speaker is not an explanation for someone's every shortcoming; as it happens I read enough German and French to not be blinded by my native language, but I am also a very mindful user of my own language. I used the words "mind" and "body" because of the cultural history of this word-pair. *Of course* it is a "thinking body." But all that solves is some medieval problems of ontology. I have never had the pleasure of talking to you in person, Michael, but I have the impression that you have a mind. Am I right? Do you have a mind? Do you act consciously or are you just a piece of flesh responding to stimuli according to the laws of physics and chemistry? And aren't you able to distinguish between what is in your mind and something that exists independently of you? Where did this remarkable ability come from? I think that that (among others) is a fair question. Responding with truisms of ontology is no answer. Being aware of oneself, being a conscious being, is not a trivial matter or a mistake. As Psychologists we are interested in all the questions the study of the mind throws up Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 8/09/2017 10:02 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Andy, about the body, and mind, I think it would be good to re-read the > chapter on Spinoza in Il'enkov's *Dialectical Logic*. He writes about the > thinking body, not about the mediation of body and mind by something else. > These two are but manifestations. THough developed in a very different > tradition (Maine de Biran), the materialist philosopher Michel Henry's > *Incarnation: > Une Philosphie de la Chair* can be read in the same way. > > One of the problems may lie in the English word body, which does not have > the same possibilities as the German and French pairs K?rper/Leib and > corps/chair. That is a big problem, as you are stuck with the material > body, always opposed to thought, and then you need mediation to get the two > together. Chair is something like a thinking body. > > Michael > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > * > > On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? >> To say that there is always something in between any two things you want >> to mention is not "explaining everything." >> >> "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" >> Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such distinction, >> for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through practical >> interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same way a >> child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not me*, >> etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind and >> body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears from >> time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a >> distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost everything we >> do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is delusional. >> >> Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our >> upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural >> inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and >> tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All >> *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things explain >> nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >> >>> Andy, >>> if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to say >>> that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if something >>> explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. >>> >>> If the body is mediating, then between what and what? >>> >>> Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an >>> Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? >>> >>> There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use because >>> of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that >>> instrumentalism. >>> (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the way >>> language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of >>> mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that have >>> become available from the family archive. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as >>>> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. >>>> Eating >>>> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >>>> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and >>>> identify >>>> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. As >>>> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural >>>> functions. >>>> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >>>> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and the >>>> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, >>>> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at >>>> this >>>> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make >>>> sense >>>> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >>>> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I entirely >>>> agree with. >>>> >>>> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in the >>>> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same >>>> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for >>>> talking >>>> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>> >>>> Not everyone agrees: >>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of >>>>> other >>>>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, their >>>>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>>>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>>>> mediated* >>>>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>>>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>>>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>>>> >>>>> AND >>>>> >>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>>>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>>>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>>>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>>>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>>>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>>>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>>>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things >>>>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>>>> >>>>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I have a >>>>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting >>>>> why >>>>> we do not need the concept, >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>>>> >>>>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>>> >>>>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy: >>>>>> >>>>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the >>>>>>> adolescent >>>>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. >>>>>>> So >>>>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both is >>>>>>> and >>>>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that there >>>>>>> are >>>>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are >>>>>>> similar. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly >>>>>>> well >>>>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal functions: >>>>>>> it is >>>>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and activity, >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and the >>>>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he >>>>>>> did in >>>>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an adaptation >>>>>>> to >>>>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of the >>>>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and legs, >>>>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months after >>>>>>> birth >>>>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>>>> morphological >>>>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if >>>>>>> they >>>>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act upon >>>>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to >>>>>>> mean >>>>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>>>> historically, >>>>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>>>> which is >>>>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> >>>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>>>> year: >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>> >>>>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> >>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>>>> their constituents. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>>>> analysis we >>>>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>>>> There >>>>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>>>> abstract and >>>>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>>>> knowledge. For >>>>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>>>> "everyday" >>>>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> rg/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> > >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>>>> phenomenon >>>>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>>>> it can be >>>>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>>>> investigation, into >>>>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>>>> concept? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>>>> found >>>>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>>>> "preserves the >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>>>> problems. In >>>>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>>>> the right >>>>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>>>> the whole. >>>>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>>>> down >>>>>>> below the level of an >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>>>> up of >>>>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>>>> representations. All of these >>>>>>> linguistic and >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>>>> language use also involves social >>>>>>> action in a >>>>>>> context that includes other >>>>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>>>> regularities." >>>>>>> >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>>>>>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>> >>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>>>> >>>>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>> >>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>>>> ) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>>>> was a >>>>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> > >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Fri Sep 8 06:16:38 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:16:38 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <21351479-ac14-cf50-6da3-7c90f6e9a677@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> <21351479-ac14-cf50-6da3-7c90f6e9a677@mira.net> Message-ID: Hi Andy, (by the way, I understand what is happening here as discourses playing themselves out, and your or my person as being incidental, others could be saying the same because it is a possibility of saying/writing----so nothing personal) You make an interesting point about my mind. Actually, if you knew me, if we had had the occasion to speak face to face, you would know that I do not claim mind to be my own, mind is a collective (cultural) feature. Whatever "I" can think, is a collective possibility for thinking. So my person is incidental to what I say and write (am consciously aware of). Same for relationships. I do not live a relation as a subject giving something, and getting something in return. Instead, "I" understand that *what I can be is a function of the relation, of the we; there is no ME preceding the we, my sense of ME and I are a function of the WE of which I am a part*. So you may attribute a mind to me, but it is not my mind; culture and society reproduce themselves in and through "me," which they make possible in the first place. Same with life. It is not MY life. Life maintains and manifests itself through whatever recognizes itself to be ME. This me is mortal, life goes on; I am mortal, society (culture) goes on. I learned a lot from watching my bees. The workers live, in the summer, perhaps 3 weeks. But the colony lives on. Within a few months, only the queen is "the same," not quite, but sufficient for the present purposes. Within 2-3 years, if you don't have a swarm, many bees have been born and died, many generations have passed, but the colony continues to thrive. Life goes on, and the bee society goes on. The individual bee comes and goes. I have thought about why it might be that there is so much crime in the US even though it has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world? If you take Vygotsky's diction that every higher psychological function WAS a social relation, then you may conclude that the criminal mind, too, exists in the social relations and that whatever shows up in the individual criminal is only a manifestation of this ensemble of societal relations... Cheers, Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 5:41 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Michael, being an English-speaker is not an explanation for someone's > every shortcoming; as it happens I read enough German and French to not be > blinded by my native language, but I am also a very mindful user of my own > language. I used the words "mind" and "body" because of the cultural > history of this word-pair. > > *Of course* it is a "thinking body." But all that solves is some medieval > problems of ontology. > > I have never had the pleasure of talking to you in person, Michael, but I > have the impression that you have a mind. Am I right? Do you have a mind? > Do you act consciously or are you just a piece of flesh responding to > stimuli according to the laws of physics and chemistry? And aren't you able > to distinguish between what is in your mind and something that exists > independently of you? Where did this remarkable ability come from? I think > that that (among others) is a fair question. Responding with truisms of > ontology is no answer. Being aware of oneself, being a conscious being, is > not a trivial matter or a mistake. As Psychologists we are interested in > all the questions the study of the mind throws up > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 8/09/2017 10:02 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >> Andy, about the body, and mind, I think it would be good to re-read the >> chapter on Spinoza in Il'enkov's *Dialectical Logic*. He writes about the >> thinking body, not about the mediation of body and mind by something else. >> These two are but manifestations. THough developed in a very different >> tradition (Maine de Biran), the materialist philosopher Michel Henry's >> *Incarnation: >> Une Philosphie de la Chair* can be read in the same way. >> >> One of the problems may lie in the English word body, which does not have >> the same possibilities as the German and French pairs K?rper/Leib and >> corps/chair. That is a big problem, as you are stuck with the material >> body, always opposed to thought, and then you need mediation to get the >> two >> together. Chair is something like a thinking body. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? >>> To say that there is always something in between any two things you want >>> to mention is not "explaining everything." >>> >>> "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" >>> Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such distinction, >>> for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through >>> practical >>> interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same way a >>> child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not >>> me*, >>> etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind and >>> body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears >>> from >>> time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a >>> distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost everything >>> we >>> do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is >>> delusional. >>> >>> Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our >>> upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural >>> inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and >>> tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All >>> *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things explain >>> nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> >>> Andy, >>>> if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to >>>> say >>>> that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if >>>> something >>>> explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. >>>> >>>> If the body is mediating, then between what and what? >>>> >>>> Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an >>>> Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? >>>> >>>> There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use >>>> because >>>> of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that >>>> instrumentalism. >>>> (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the >>>> way >>>> language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of >>>> mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that >>>> have >>>> become available from the family archive. >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> >>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> -------------------- >>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>> University of Victoria >>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>> >>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>> >>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>> >>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>>> >>>> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know as >>>> >>>>> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. >>>>> Eating >>>>> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >>>>> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and >>>>> identify >>>>> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. >>>>> As >>>>> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural >>>>> functions. >>>>> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >>>>> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and >>>>> the >>>>> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, >>>>> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at >>>>> this >>>>> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make >>>>> sense >>>>> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >>>>> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I >>>>> entirely >>>>> agree with. >>>>> >>>>> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in >>>>> the >>>>> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the same >>>>> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for >>>>> talking >>>>> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Not everyone agrees: >>>>> >>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of >>>>>> other >>>>>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, >>>>>> their >>>>>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>>>>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>>>>> mediated* >>>>>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>>>>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>>>>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>>>>> >>>>>> AND >>>>>> >>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>>>>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>>>>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>>>>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>>>>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>>>>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>>>>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>>>>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these things >>>>>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>>>>> >>>>>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I >>>>>> have a >>>>>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting >>>>>> why >>>>>> we do not need the concept, >>>>>> >>>>>> Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> -------------------- >>>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>>> University of Victoria >>>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>>> >>>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>>> >>>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>>> >>>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>>>> >>>>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the >>>>>>>> adolescent >>>>>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the beginning. >>>>>>>> So >>>>>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life both >>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that >>>>>>>> there >>>>>>>> are >>>>>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are >>>>>>>> similar. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly >>>>>>>> well >>>>>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks milk) >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal >>>>>>>> functions: >>>>>>>> it is >>>>>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and >>>>>>>> activity, >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or he >>>>>>>> did in >>>>>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an >>>>>>>> adaptation >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and >>>>>>>> legs, >>>>>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months >>>>>>>> after >>>>>>>> birth >>>>>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>>>>> morphological >>>>>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if >>>>>>>> they >>>>>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act >>>>>>>> upon >>>>>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability to >>>>>>>> mean >>>>>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>>>>> historically, >>>>>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>>>>> which is >>>>>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>>>>> year: >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>>>>> their constituents. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>>>>> analysis we >>>>>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>>>>> There >>>>>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>>>>> abstract and >>>>>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>>>>> knowledge. For >>>>>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>>>>> "everyday" >>>>>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> rg/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>>>>> phenomenon >>>>>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>>>>> it can be >>>>>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>>>>> investigation, into >>>>>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>>>>> concept? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>>>>> found >>>>>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>>>>> "preserves the >>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>>>>> problems. In >>>>>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>>>>> the right >>>>>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>>>>> the whole. >>>>>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>>>>> down >>>>>>>> below the level of an >>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>>>>> up of >>>>>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>>>>> representations. All of these >>>>>>>> linguistic and >>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>>>>> language use also involves social >>>>>>>> action in a >>>>>>>> context that includes other >>>>>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>>>>> regularities." >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>>>>>>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>>>>> was a >>>>>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> ryThompson >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Fri Sep 8 06:39:40 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:39:40 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> <21351479-ac14-cf50-6da3-7c90f6e9a677@mira.net> Message-ID: I thought that the following quotation from Vygotsky (2010) (J Russ and East Europ Psych), p. 93?94 is relevant to the present discussion and the exchange between David and Andy. Michael The psychophys[ical] problem*** (the nub of the question of the spiritual and the material in human consciousness) consists?(if it is viewed not in the abstract-static (Fechner, Spinoza), i.e., a parallelistic correlation of previously severed attributes?thinking and extension but rather in a function[al-]dynamic and concrete context[)]?not in the relation between the brain and the psyche (whether thought can move a cerebral atom 1 micron without expending energy), but in the relation between thinking and speech, in which the latt[er] is its materialization, its objectivization, its embodiment, a continuous transition of the external to the internal and the internal to the external, a real rather than imaginary unity and struggle of opposites (m[ay]b[e] the main thing in the development?historical?of consciousness[)]. Cf. Marx: the materiality of consciousness in its link to language. Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Andy, (by the way, I understand what is happening here as discourses > playing themselves out, and your or my person as being incidental, others > could be saying the same because it is a possibility of > saying/writing----so nothing personal) > > You make an interesting point about my mind. Actually, if you knew me, if > we had had the occasion to speak face to face, you would know that I do not > claim mind to be my own, mind is a collective (cultural) feature. Whatever > "I" can think, is a collective possibility for thinking. So my person is > incidental to what I say and write (am consciously aware of). Same for > relationships. I do not live a relation as a subject giving something, and > getting something in return. Instead, "I" understand that *what I can be > is a function of the relation, of the we; there is no ME preceding the we, > my sense of ME and I are a function of the WE of which I am a part*. > > So you may attribute a mind to me, but it is not my mind; culture and > society reproduce themselves in and through "me," which they make possible > in the first place. Same with life. It is not MY life. Life maintains and > manifests itself through whatever recognizes itself to be ME. This me is > mortal, life goes on; I am mortal, society (culture) goes on. I learned a > lot from watching my bees. The workers live, in the summer, perhaps 3 > weeks. But the colony lives on. Within a few months, only the queen is "the > same," not quite, but sufficient for the present purposes. Within 2-3 > years, if you don't have a swarm, many bees have been born and died, many > generations have passed, but the colony continues to thrive. Life goes on, > and the bee society goes on. The individual bee comes and goes. > > I have thought about why it might be that there is so much crime in the US > even though it has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world? If > you take Vygotsky's diction that every higher psychological function WAS a > social relation, then you may conclude that the criminal mind, too, exists > in the social relations and that whatever shows up in the individual > criminal is only a manifestation of this ensemble of societal relations... > > Cheers, > > Michael > > > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > * > > On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 5:41 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> Michael, being an English-speaker is not an explanation for someone's >> every shortcoming; as it happens I read enough German and French to not be >> blinded by my native language, but I am also a very mindful user of my own >> language. I used the words "mind" and "body" because of the cultural >> history of this word-pair. >> >> *Of course* it is a "thinking body." But all that solves is some medieval >> problems of ontology. >> >> I have never had the pleasure of talking to you in person, Michael, but I >> have the impression that you have a mind. Am I right? Do you have a mind? >> Do you act consciously or are you just a piece of flesh responding to >> stimuli according to the laws of physics and chemistry? And aren't you able >> to distinguish between what is in your mind and something that exists >> independently of you? Where did this remarkable ability come from? I think >> that that (among others) is a fair question. Responding with truisms of >> ontology is no answer. Being aware of oneself, being a conscious being, is >> not a trivial matter or a mistake. As Psychologists we are interested in >> all the questions the study of the mind throws up >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 8/09/2017 10:02 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >> >>> Andy, about the body, and mind, I think it would be good to re-read the >>> chapter on Spinoza in Il'enkov's *Dialectical Logic*. He writes about the >>> thinking body, not about the mediation of body and mind by something >>> else. >>> These two are but manifestations. THough developed in a very different >>> tradition (Maine de Biran), the materialist philosopher Michel Henry's >>> *Incarnation: >>> Une Philosphie de la Chair* can be read in the same way. >>> >>> One of the problems may lie in the English word body, which does not have >>> the same possibilities as the German and French pairs K?rper/Leib and >>> corps/chair. That is a big problem, as you are stuck with the material >>> body, always opposed to thought, and then you need mediation to get the >>> two >>> together. Chair is something like a thinking body. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>> "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? >>>> To say that there is always something in between any two things you want >>>> to mention is not "explaining everything." >>>> >>>> "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" >>>> Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such distinction, >>>> for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through >>>> practical >>>> interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same way >>>> a >>>> child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not >>>> me*, >>>> etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind >>>> and >>>> body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears >>>> from >>>> time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a >>>> distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost >>>> everything we >>>> do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is >>>> delusional. >>>> >>>> Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our >>>> upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural >>>> inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and >>>> tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All >>>> *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things >>>> explain >>>> nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>> >>>> Andy, >>>>> if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research to >>>>> say >>>>> that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if >>>>> something >>>>> explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. >>>>> >>>>> If the body is mediating, then between what and what? >>>>> >>>>> Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an >>>>> Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? >>>>> >>>>> There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use >>>>> because >>>>> of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that >>>>> instrumentalism. >>>>> (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to the >>>>> way >>>>> language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of >>>>> mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that >>>>> have >>>>> become available from the family archive. >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know >>>>> as >>>>> >>>>>> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. >>>>>> Eating >>>>>> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >>>>>> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and >>>>>> identify >>>>>> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using them. >>>>>> As >>>>>> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural >>>>>> functions. >>>>>> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >>>>>> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions and >>>>>> the >>>>>> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these capacities, >>>>>> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived at >>>>>> this >>>>>> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make >>>>>> sense >>>>>> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >>>>>> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I >>>>>> entirely >>>>>> agree with. >>>>>> >>>>>> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in >>>>>> the >>>>>> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the >>>>>> same >>>>>> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for >>>>>> talking >>>>>> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly ubiquitous. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Not everyone agrees: >>>>>> >>>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of >>>>>>> other >>>>>>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, >>>>>>> their >>>>>>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>>>>>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>>>>>> mediated* >>>>>>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>>>>>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>>>>>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>>>>>> >>>>>>> AND >>>>>>> >>>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>>>>>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>>>>>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>>>>>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>>>>>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>>>>>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>>>>>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>>>>>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these >>>>>>> things >>>>>>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I >>>>>>> have a >>>>>>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, suggesting >>>>>>> why >>>>>>> we do not need the concept, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> -------------------- >>>>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>>>> University of Victoria >>>>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>>>> >>>>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>>>> >>>>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>>>>> >>>>>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the >>>>>>>>> adolescent >>>>>>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the >>>>>>>>> beginning. >>>>>>>>> So >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life >>>>>>>>> both is >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that >>>>>>>>> there >>>>>>>>> are >>>>>>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are >>>>>>>>> similar. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly >>>>>>>>> well >>>>>>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks >>>>>>>>> milk) >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal >>>>>>>>> functions: >>>>>>>>> it is >>>>>>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and >>>>>>>>> activity, >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, and >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or >>>>>>>>> he >>>>>>>>> did in >>>>>>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an >>>>>>>>> adaptation >>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment of >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and >>>>>>>>> legs, >>>>>>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months >>>>>>>>> after >>>>>>>>> birth >>>>>>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>>>>>> morphological >>>>>>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if >>>>>>>>> they >>>>>>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act >>>>>>>>> upon >>>>>>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability >>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>> mean >>>>>>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>>>>>> historically, >>>>>>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>>>>>> which is >>>>>>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>>>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>>>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>>>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>>>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>>>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>>>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>>>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>>>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>>>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>>>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>>>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>>>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>>>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>>>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>>>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>>>>>> year: >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>>>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>>>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>>>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>>>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>>>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>>>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>>>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>>>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>>>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>>>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>>>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>>>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>>>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>>>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>>>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>>>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>>>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>>>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>>>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>>>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>>>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>>>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>>>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>>>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>>>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>>>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>>>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>>>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>>>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>>>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>>>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>>>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>>>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>>>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>>>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>>>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>>>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>>>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>>>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>>>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>>>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>>>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>>>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>>>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>>>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>>>> - >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>>>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>>>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>>>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>>>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>>>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>>>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>>>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>>>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>>>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>>>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>>>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>>>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>>>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>>>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>>>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>>>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>>>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>>>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>>>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>>>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>>>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>>>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>>>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>>>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>>>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>>>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>>>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>>>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>>>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>>>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>>>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>>>>>> their constituents. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>>>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>>>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>>>>>> analysis we >>>>>>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>>>>>> There >>>>>>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>>>>>> abstract and >>>>>>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>>>>>> knowledge. For >>>>>>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>>>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>>>>>> "everyday" >>>>>>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> rg/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>>>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>>>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>>>>>> phenomenon >>>>>>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>>>>>> it can be >>>>>>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>>>>>> investigation, into >>>>>>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>>>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>>>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>>>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>>>>>> found >>>>>>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>>>>>> "preserves the >>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>>>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>>>>>> problems. In >>>>>>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>>>>>> the right >>>>>>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>>>>>> the whole. >>>>>>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>>>>>> down >>>>>>>>> below the level of an >>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>>>>>> up of >>>>>>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>>>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>>>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>>>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>>>>>> representations. All of these >>>>>>>>> linguistic and >>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>>>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>>>>>> language use also involves social >>>>>>>>> action in a >>>>>>>>> context that includes other >>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>>>>>> regularities." >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>>>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>>>>>>>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>>>>>> was a >>>>>>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ryThompson >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>> >> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Fri Sep 8 06:51:10 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 06:51:10 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <8c625082-eada-65a9-c003-ee92b19b4e8d@mira.net> <121f8c8a-ee38-ef8b-7c29-e63502668403@mira.net> <9990d2ff-7de9-d2d9-ec33-b75fecc7a7cd@mira.net> <21351479-ac14-cf50-6da3-7c90f6e9a677@mira.net> Message-ID: And one more. Ekaterina Zavershneva, who is the scholar has been given access to the private archive of the Vygotsky family, transcribed and analyzed many of LSV's notes. After laying out the case of the role of sign mediation in his earlier work, she comes to the conclusion: The idea of the sign as the mediator between nature and culture was still used as a heuristically useful abstraction, but it gradually shifted to the background of the theory and was virtually replaced by other notions and ideas. (Zavershneva, 2014, p. 74) Zavershneva, E. Iu. (2014). The problem of consciousness in Vygotsky?s cultural-historical psychology. In A. Yasnitsky, R. Van der Veer, & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of cultural-historical psychology (pp. 63?97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. I thought this might be helpful to understand where Vygotsky was heading----exactly away from mediation. Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 6:39 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > I thought that the following quotation from Vygotsky (2010) (J Russ and > East Europ Psych), p. 93?94 is relevant to the present discussion and the > exchange between David and Andy. Michael > > The psychophys[ical] problem*** (the nub of the question of the spiritual > > and the material in human consciousness) consists?(if it is viewed not in > the > > abstract-static (Fechner, Spinoza), i.e., a parallelistic correlation of > previously > > severed attributes?thinking and extension but rather in a > function[al-]dynamic > > and concrete context[)]?not in the relation between the brain and the > psyche > > (whether thought can move a cerebral atom 1 micron without expending > energy), > > but in the relation between thinking and speech, in which the latt[er] is > > its materialization, its objectivization, its embodiment, a continuous > transition > > of the external to the internal and the internal to the external, a real > rather than > > imaginary unity and struggle of opposites (m[ay]b[e] the main thing in the > > development?historical?of consciousness[)]. Cf. Marx: the materiality of > > consciousness in its link to language. > > > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > * > > On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi Andy, (by the way, I understand what is happening here as discourses >> playing themselves out, and your or my person as being incidental, others >> could be saying the same because it is a possibility of >> saying/writing----so nothing personal) >> >> You make an interesting point about my mind. Actually, if you knew me, if >> we had had the occasion to speak face to face, you would know that I do not >> claim mind to be my own, mind is a collective (cultural) feature. Whatever >> "I" can think, is a collective possibility for thinking. So my person is >> incidental to what I say and write (am consciously aware of). Same for >> relationships. I do not live a relation as a subject giving something, and >> getting something in return. Instead, "I" understand that *what I can be >> is a function of the relation, of the we; there is no ME preceding the we, >> my sense of ME and I are a function of the WE of which I am a part*. >> >> So you may attribute a mind to me, but it is not my mind; culture and >> society reproduce themselves in and through "me," which they make possible >> in the first place. Same with life. It is not MY life. Life maintains and >> manifests itself through whatever recognizes itself to be ME. This me is >> mortal, life goes on; I am mortal, society (culture) goes on. I learned a >> lot from watching my bees. The workers live, in the summer, perhaps 3 >> weeks. But the colony lives on. Within a few months, only the queen is "the >> same," not quite, but sufficient for the present purposes. Within 2-3 >> years, if you don't have a swarm, many bees have been born and died, many >> generations have passed, but the colony continues to thrive. Life goes on, >> and the bee society goes on. The individual bee comes and goes. >> >> I have thought about why it might be that there is so much crime in the >> US even though it has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world? >> If you take Vygotsky's diction that every higher psychological function WAS >> a social relation, then you may conclude that the criminal mind, too, >> exists in the social relations and that whatever shows up in the individual >> criminal is only a manifestation of this ensemble of societal relations... >> >> Cheers, >> >> Michael >> >> >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> * >> >> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 5:41 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >>> Michael, being an English-speaker is not an explanation for someone's >>> every shortcoming; as it happens I read enough German and French to not be >>> blinded by my native language, but I am also a very mindful user of my own >>> language. I used the words "mind" and "body" because of the cultural >>> history of this word-pair. >>> >>> *Of course* it is a "thinking body." But all that solves is some >>> medieval problems of ontology. >>> >>> I have never had the pleasure of talking to you in person, Michael, but >>> I have the impression that you have a mind. Am I right? Do you have a mind? >>> Do you act consciously or are you just a piece of flesh responding to >>> stimuli according to the laws of physics and chemistry? And aren't you able >>> to distinguish between what is in your mind and something that exists >>> independently of you? Where did this remarkable ability come from? I think >>> that that (among others) is a fair question. Responding with truisms of >>> ontology is no answer. Being aware of oneself, being a conscious being, is >>> not a trivial matter or a mistake. As Psychologists we are interested in >>> all the questions the study of the mind throws up >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 8/09/2017 10:02 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> >>>> Andy, about the body, and mind, I think it would be good to re-read the >>>> chapter on Spinoza in Il'enkov's *Dialectical Logic*. He writes about >>>> the >>>> thinking body, not about the mediation of body and mind by something >>>> else. >>>> These two are but manifestations. THough developed in a very different >>>> tradition (Maine de Biran), the materialist philosopher Michel Henry's >>>> *Incarnation: >>>> Une Philosphie de la Chair* can be read in the same way. >>>> >>>> One of the problems may lie in the English word body, which does not >>>> have >>>> the same possibilities as the German and French pairs K?rper/Leib and >>>> corps/chair. That is a big problem, as you are stuck with the material >>>> body, always opposed to thought, and then you need mediation to get the >>>> two >>>> together. Chair is something like a thinking body. >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> >>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> -------------------- >>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>> University of Victoria >>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>> >>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>> >>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>> >>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>>> >>>> "if something explains everything, it in fact explains nothing" ? >>>>> To say that there is always something in between any two things you >>>>> want >>>>> to mention is not "explaining everything." >>>>> >>>>> "If the body is mediating, then between what and what?" >>>>> Basically between mind and body. Initially there is no such >>>>> distinction, >>>>> for a new-born, for example. But this distinction arises through >>>>> practical >>>>> interactions with the infant's socio-cultural environment, the same >>>>> way a >>>>> child gets to know that that there is *my hand* and that there is *not >>>>> me*, >>>>> etc. Repeating medieval aphorisms about "no distinctions between mind >>>>> and >>>>> body" and denouncing this as a "Western construct" - things one hears >>>>> from >>>>> time to time - is a waste of breath. We are not born with such a >>>>> distinction, but we make one, and after a certain age, almost >>>>> everything we >>>>> do is mediated by consciousness, even if that consciousness is >>>>> delusional. >>>>> >>>>> Also, we now know that the characteristically human adaptations - our >>>>> upright gait, our speech-enabled larynx and our hands are *cultural >>>>> inheritances*, just like the landscape, crops, domesticated animals and >>>>> tools we use, not to mention our languages, art, religions, etc. All >>>>> *artefacts* mediating our activity. You can say that these things >>>>> explain >>>>> nothing if you like, but I am not convinced. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> On 8/09/2017 1:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Andy, >>>>>> if everything is mediated, what is the point of doing more research >>>>>> to say >>>>>> that something is mediated by something? Like the adage goes, if >>>>>> something >>>>>> explains everything, it in fact explains nothing. >>>>>> >>>>>> If the body is mediating, then between what and what? >>>>>> >>>>>> Concerning the "meaning" of mediation in CHAT----this is perhaps an >>>>>> Anglo-Saxon CHAT that you are referring to? >>>>>> >>>>>> There are scholars saying that Vygotsky's work is not of much use >>>>>> because >>>>>> of his instrumentalism, mediation seems to me part of that >>>>>> instrumentalism. >>>>>> (That's why those people say that Bakhtin has a better approach to >>>>>> the way >>>>>> language works.) The later Vygotsky did not seem to go the route of >>>>>> mediation, or so say those more familiar with some of the notes that >>>>>> have >>>>>> become available from the family archive. >>>>>> >>>>>> Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> -------------------- >>>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>>> University of Victoria >>>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>>> >>>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>>> >>>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>>> >>>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:32 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Sure, not everyone agrees. I think understanding what we come to know >>>>>> as >>>>>> >>>>>>> parts of our body as artefacts makes a lot of things comprehensible. >>>>>>> Eating >>>>>>> and having sex, for example, are cultural practices and through >>>>>>> participation in these cultural practices people learn to name and >>>>>>> identify >>>>>>> the various parts of our body and the appropriate ways of using >>>>>>> them. As >>>>>>> David said, we are not born with this ability, but only natural >>>>>>> functions. >>>>>>> We are born without self-consciousness of any kind or any distinction >>>>>>> between mind and body. These are culturally acquired distinctions >>>>>>> and the >>>>>>> use of our bodies is the cultural means of acquiring these >>>>>>> capacities, >>>>>>> which ultimately come to be embodied in external objects. I arrived >>>>>>> at >>>>>>> this >>>>>>> conclusion (the body is an artefact) because it was necessary to make >>>>>>> sense >>>>>>> of the narrative of cultural psychology. But as you say, Michael, not >>>>>>> everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in this whole story that I >>>>>>> entirely >>>>>>> agree with. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Note however that "mediated" has taken on a very specific meaning in >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> CHAT tradition, it implies artefact-use for CHAT people and in the >>>>>>> same >>>>>>> tradition bodies are not "artefacts." So there is tons of room for >>>>>>> talking >>>>>>> at cross purposes here. But mediation is something utterly >>>>>>> ubiquitous. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 1:19 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Not everyone agrees: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 20) "Hence, the external corporeal existence of >>>>>>>> other >>>>>>>> people, their real-objective behavior, their activity with things, >>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>> voices and gestures and, consequently, the object-related nature >>>>>>>> of all the conditions of their lives (all that is other), *is not >>>>>>>> mediated* >>>>>>>> for individuals to become aware of them by the pure meanings >>>>>>>> and senses of so many physically external words,26 but are >>>>>>>> themselves the reality of affect and sense for each of us." >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> AND >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> (Mikhailov 2001, p. 27) Everything >>>>>>>> to which the child begins to relate in himself?close adults, >>>>>>>> their speech, and consequently the ?language? of household objects >>>>>>>> addressed to him, the ?language? of the whole of nature around >>>>>>>> him, in a word, everything that his organs of perception assimilate >>>>>>>> together with the subjectivity of adults?all these things are given >>>>>>>> to the child *not as an ensemble of mediators* between the child and >>>>>>>> nature, but, in fact, as subjectively his own; for all of these >>>>>>>> things >>>>>>>> are subjectively ?everyone?s.? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Mediationism has become something like a religion---Alfredo and I >>>>>>>> have a >>>>>>>> piece in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, >>>>>>>> suggesting >>>>>>>> why >>>>>>>> we do not need the concept, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> -------------------- >>>>>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>>>>> University of Victoria >>>>>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>>>>>>> -of-mathematics/>* >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> David, the germ cell of artefact-use is the use of our own body. Our >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> various body parts are essentially artefacts. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 12:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> We're currently translating Chapter Three of pedology of the >>>>>>>>>> adolescent >>>>>>>>>> into Korean. You know that Vygotsky likes to begin at the >>>>>>>>>> beginning. >>>>>>>>>> So >>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky is discussing the way in which the first year of life >>>>>>>>>> both is >>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>> is not the same as intra-uterine development. He points out that >>>>>>>>>> there >>>>>>>>>> are >>>>>>>>>> three "activities" (and that is the term that he uses) that are >>>>>>>>>> similar. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> a) Feeding. Although the child now uses animal functions perfectly >>>>>>>>>> well >>>>>>>>>> (that is, the child responds to hunger and even actively seeks >>>>>>>>>> milk) >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>> nature of the child's food does not depend on these animal >>>>>>>>>> functions: >>>>>>>>>> it is >>>>>>>>>> still, as it was during gestation, a product of the mother's body. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> b) Sleep. Although the child has periods of wakefulness and >>>>>>>>>> activity, >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>> main (as opposed to the leading) "activity" is inactive sleep, >>>>>>>>>> and the >>>>>>>>>> child does not keep a twenty-four hour cycle any more than she or >>>>>>>>>> he >>>>>>>>>> did in >>>>>>>>>> the womb. Even the use of the twenty-four hour cycle is an >>>>>>>>>> adaptation >>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>> the circadian rhythm of the mother as much as the establishment >>>>>>>>>> of the >>>>>>>>>> child's own circadian rhythm. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> c) Locomotion. Although the child now has space to move arms and >>>>>>>>>> legs, >>>>>>>>>> the human child doesn't use them for locomotion for many months >>>>>>>>>> after >>>>>>>>>> birth >>>>>>>>>> and instead depends on mother, just as a marsupial that has a >>>>>>>>>> morphological >>>>>>>>>> adaptation for this purpose would. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky's point is that these activities are not yet mediated; if >>>>>>>>>> they >>>>>>>>>> were, then the child's discovery of her or his own ability to act >>>>>>>>>> upon >>>>>>>>>> objects ("tools") and the child's discovery of her or his ability >>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>> mean >>>>>>>>>> ("signs") would not have the significance that they do. Ergo, >>>>>>>>>> historically, >>>>>>>>>> genetically, developmentally there must necessarily exist activity >>>>>>>>>> which is >>>>>>>>>> not made up of mediated actions. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> "Andy added the notion that experts need basically to >>>>>>>>>> be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit" ? >>>>>>>>>> Researchers need to be clear about the unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis each of them are using and of course, >>>>>>>>>> collaboration is much easier if you are all using the >>>>>>>>>> same unit of analysis. Exemplars are a way of >>>>>>>>>> substantiating a concept while a concept remains >>>>>>>>>> unclear or diverse, just like lists of attributes and >>>>>>>>>> definitions - all of which still fall short of a >>>>>>>>>> concept. To grasp the concept of something, like "unit >>>>>>>>>> of analysis," you have to know the narrative in which >>>>>>>>>> the concept is situated. Narrative knowledge and >>>>>>>>>> conceptual knowledge are mutually interdependent. The >>>>>>>>>> first three chapters of the story of "unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis" as I see it are in my paper "Goethe, Hegel & >>>>>>>>>> Marx" to be published in "Science & Society" next >>>>>>>>>> year: >>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> rg/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel- >>>>>>>>>> Marx_public.pdf> >>>>>>>>>> - Vygotsky is the 4th chapter. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> "What makes water not an element, but a compound, are >>>>>>>>>> the relations between the subunits" ? >>>>>>>>>> The idea of a water molecule pre-dates he discovery of >>>>>>>>>> its composition as H2O and all the chemical properties >>>>>>>>>> related to that. As David suggested, it is the much >>>>>>>>>> more ancient knowledge of the "water cycle" - rain, >>>>>>>>>> snow, hail and fog ... run-off, streams, rivers, lakes >>>>>>>>>> ... seas, oceans ... vapour, steam ... - which is >>>>>>>>>> expressed in the idea of a "water molecule" - a tiny >>>>>>>>>> particle which all these things are made of, but which >>>>>>>>>> combines in different forms of movement to give us the >>>>>>>>>> various physical forms of what is all water. It is an >>>>>>>>>> unfortunate choice for a archetypal example, because >>>>>>>>>> it appears to contradict my claim that the concept of >>>>>>>>>> the unit must be visceral. The water molecule is so >>>>>>>>>> small it can be held in the hand, tossed around and >>>>>>>>>> stacked together only in the imagination. Nonetheless, >>>>>>>>>> like with metaphors, it is our visceral knowledge of >>>>>>>>>> particles (stones, pieces of bread, household objects, >>>>>>>>>> etc) which makes the concept of a "water molecule" >>>>>>>>>> something real to us, whose manifold physical >>>>>>>>>> properties arising from its V-shape, and its >>>>>>>>>> electrical stickiness, are meaningful. This contrasts >>>>>>>>>> with the 18th/19th century idea of "forces" and >>>>>>>>>> "fields" which are intangibles (though of course we >>>>>>>>>> find ways of grasping them viscerally nonetheless). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Different phenomena are grasped by the way one and the >>>>>>>>>> same units aggregate. The unit relates to the range of >>>>>>>>>> phenomena it unifies. Different insights are provided >>>>>>>>>> by different units, *not necessarily in a hierarchy*. >>>>>>>>>> But a hierarchy of units and in particular the >>>>>>>>>> micro/macro pair are a theme which runs right through >>>>>>>>>> this narrative, the micro in some way "explaining" the >>>>>>>>>> macro which in turn explains the main phenomena: >>>>>>>>>> cell/organism, atom/molecule, commodity/capital, word >>>>>>>>>> meaning/utterance, artefact-mediated action/activity, >>>>>>>>>> etc. I am interested in this micro/macro relation but >>>>>>>>>> personally (despite my interest in Hegel) I am not a >>>>>>>>>> fan of trying to systematise the world with a >>>>>>>>>> "complete set" of units. Just one unit gives us an >>>>>>>>>> entire science. Let's not get too carried away. :) >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I hold the view, with A N Leontyev, that *Activities >>>>>>>>>> are composed of artefact-mediated actions and nothing >>>>>>>>>> else*. Any move away from this destroys the >>>>>>>>>> ontological foundation and takes us into metaphysics. >>>>>>>>>> If it is not an artefact-mediated action or aggregate >>>>>>>>>> of such actions, what the hell is it??? >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 3:41 AM, David Dirlam wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion >>>>>>>>>> clarify the conception of what sort of entity a >>>>>>>>>> "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some >>>>>>>>>> experience should have some sense of it (Martin's >>>>>>>>>> point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>>>>>>>>> need basically to be able to agree reliably on >>>>>>>>>> examples of the unit (worded like the >>>>>>>>>> psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy >>>>>>>>>> will correct me if I missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of >>>>>>>>>> units--their classifiability and the types of >>>>>>>>>> relations between them. What makes water not an >>>>>>>>>> element, but a compound, are the relations between >>>>>>>>>> the subunits (the chemical bonds between the >>>>>>>>>> elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>>>>>>>> water (how fast they travel relative to each >>>>>>>>>> other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the >>>>>>>>>> analogy to activity is that it is like the >>>>>>>>>> molecule, while actions are like the elements. >>>>>>>>>> What is new to this discussion is that the >>>>>>>>>> activity must contain not only actions, but also >>>>>>>>>> relationships between them. If we move up to the >>>>>>>>>> biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>>>>>>>>> complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of >>>>>>>>>> more than cells, and I'm not just referring to >>>>>>>>>> entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>>>>>>>> identifiability, classification, and >>>>>>>>>> interrelations between cells and their >>>>>>>>>> constituents all help to make the unit so >>>>>>>>>> interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's >>>>>>>>>> triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be >>>>>>>>>> able to identify an activity, classify activities, >>>>>>>>>> and discern the interrelations between them and >>>>>>>>>> their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David >>>>>>>>>> Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of >>>>>>>>>> unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis we >>>>>>>>>> need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. >>>>>>>>>> There >>>>>>>>>> are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>>>>>>> abstract and >>>>>>>>>> saturated with ideology and received >>>>>>>>>> knowledge. For >>>>>>>>>> example, Marx's concept of capital is >>>>>>>>>> buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>>>>>>> "everyday" >>>>>>>>>> concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ----------------------------- >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> rg/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a >>>>>>>>>> preliminary concept, one might say an everyday >>>>>>>>>> concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>>>>>>>> phenomenon >>>>>>>>>> that is to be studied in such a way that >>>>>>>>>> it can be >>>>>>>>>> elaborated, in the course of >>>>>>>>>> investigation, into >>>>>>>>>> an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>>>>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an >>>>>>>>>> oversimplification of unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in >>>>>>>>>> Wortham and Kim's Introduction to >>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and >>>>>>>>>> found >>>>>>>>>> it useful. The short of it is >>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that >>>>>>>>>> "preserves the >>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) >>>>>>>>>> apply the concept "unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific >>>>>>>>>> problems. In >>>>>>>>>> their account, an adequate >>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find >>>>>>>>>> the right >>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis - one that >>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of >>>>>>>>>> the whole. >>>>>>>>>> In order to study water, a >>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance >>>>>>>>>> down >>>>>>>>>> below the level of an >>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made >>>>>>>>>> up of >>>>>>>>>> nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen >>>>>>>>>> separately will not illuminate the >>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, >>>>>>>>>> meaningful language use requires >>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects >>>>>>>>>> beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental >>>>>>>>>> representations. All of these >>>>>>>>>> linguistic and >>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in >>>>>>>>>> linguistic communication, but natural >>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social >>>>>>>>>> action in a >>>>>>>>>> context that includes other >>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant >>>>>>>>>> regularities." >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on >>>>>>>>>> Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>>>>>>>>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> publication/319322253_Introduc >>>>>>>>>> tion_to_Discourse_and_Education>> >>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor >>>>>>>>>> was a >>>>>>>>>> useful one for thinking about >>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ryThompson >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>> >>> >> > From smago@uga.edu Fri Sep 8 08:08:01 2017 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 15:08:01 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] P-5 literacies Job at UGA! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We?re searching a position in P-5 literacy ed in my department. Please share widely! Applications may be submitted at https://facultyjobs.uga.edu/postings/2740 ? ? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ass't prof P-5 literacies August 2018 APPROVED TO DISTRIBUTE.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 457270 bytes Desc: ass't prof P-5 literacies August 2018 APPROVED TO DISTRIBUTE.pdf Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170908/98b2db22/attachment-0001.pdf From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Fri Sep 8 12:31:52 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 19:31:52 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no>, <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> Message-ID: <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study is, it is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean precisely this, I am not sure). I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or environment and hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter that are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation that you mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as the most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the production of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as consciousness in and through each and every single one of our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but some production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; historical events, which happen to have some individual people having them as inherent part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or totally unconscious event would not be historical). I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. Alfredo ________________________________ From: Andy Blunden Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping what their unit of analysis is. In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people to be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or are we engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom from different perspectives. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I missed his meaning). We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. David On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? just wondering Martin On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the essential features of the whole". Here is their longer explanation: "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural language use also involves social action in a context that includes other actors and socially significant regularities." (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct ion_to_Discourse_and_Education ) ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about unit of analysis.? ?-greg? -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From ablunden@mira.net Fri Sep 8 18:30:58 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2017 11:30:58 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural processes (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) but has no content other than its expression. People got by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is something quite different from the kind of empiricism which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some formula with a moment's reflection. Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois society as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, though this was a side benefit of the discovery. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. > The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; and > so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > whatever our object of study is, it is divided between the > visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > something else that, by implication, may have been said to > be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > > > I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is > when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system in > a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a > expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we know > what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some > concrete relation between climate or environment and > hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > micro particles of soil and other matter that are smashing > our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too > complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And > so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think > the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' > helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the opposite > to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That is, if > we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the > sense just implied (visceral is immediate > vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > the one that the three words already mentioned allow > for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > intellect and affect as the most important problem for > psychology for precisely this reason. > > > I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > the question is the production of awareness, of the > 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing with > Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, > not one micro and one macro. I am of course not saying > that one unit addresses all the problems one can pose > for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of unit > analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry > for a particular problem (you've written about this). You > ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds that his > mind is but one expression of a society.I would add that > whatever society is as a whole, it lives as consciousness > in and through each and every single one of our > consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, > the one denoting the unity of person and situation, seems > to me well suited; not a micro-unit that is micro with > respect to the macro-activity. > > > If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > hand, and affect on the other, but a very special relation > (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of > 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > would do so without implying an opposition between > the feeling and the felt, but some production process that > accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is not > so much about experience as it is about human situations; > historical events, which happen to have some individual > people having them as inherent part of their being > precisely that: historical events (a mindless or totally > unconscious event would not be historical). > > > I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is also > appreciated for allowing going deep into questions that > otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > > Alfredo > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* Andy Blunden > *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and Johnson > here (though not being American I don't see guns as quite > so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx > did when began Capital not from the abstract concept of > "value" but from the action of exchanging commodities . > Commodity exchange is just one form of value, but it is > the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most > fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of > Chapter 1, v. I. > > I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > > In any social system, including classroom activity, the > micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? > What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we > training people to be productive workers or are we > participating in social movements or are we engaged in > transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom from > different perspectives. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> >> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). >> >> Alfredo >> ________________________________________ >> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam >> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >> missed his meaning). >> >> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> >> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> >> David >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>> >>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>> >>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>>> >>>> just wondering >>>> >>>> Martin >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>>>> to >>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>>>> is >>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>> >>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>> >>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>>>> that >>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>>>> the >>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>>> requires >>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>>>> and >>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>>>> natural >>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>> >>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>> ) >>>>> >>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>>>> about >>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>> >>>>> ?-greg? >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>> >> > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sat Sep 9 19:55:22 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 11:55:22 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] So Why Play? Message-ID: One of the most interesting "moments" (that is, instances) of the conference in Quebec happened the day before the conference, at the CHACDOC session of the preconference institute. Mariane Hedegaard presented the case for the ZPD as an age specific proximal zone of development, using the rather algebraic slogan "children as explorers" (which, since "exploration" can describe different things, can be applied infancy and to adolescence). Barbara Rogoff and her students, in contrast, contributed a session on "Learning by Observing and Pitching In" (LOPI), which instead stressed play as a form of legitimate peripheral participation. In good ISCAR fashion, both strands strove to make the other's case plausible and to include it as a working part of their own strand, and the result was--at least to my mind--a completely workable synthesis. But then I work with the idea that verbal art and verbal science, which I take to be the future of these two respective visions of play, are linked by their verbality. Last Saturday, we worked on Chapter Three of Vygotsky's "Pedology of the Adolescent". You can be as sententious as you want about translating words exactly when you are working with poetry, but when you are translating many books (this is our ninth volume) what you really need is consistency--focusing on the relationships between words like "play" and "development" and not losing their development through random variations. So Vygotsky first discusses whether age periods are characterizable by a single activity: embryonic life by vegetative activity, infancy by animal activity, early childhood by walking/talking, preschool by play, school age by study, adolescence by fantasy, etc. He notes that if we consider "pure play" as something opposed to study or to labor, then it is absolutely wrong to consider preschool as an age of play, but if we take play to be a complex activity which includes the grandcestors of study and of labor as well, it has a certain truth. And then he lays bare what I think must be one of the hidden sources of the Zoped, and also what I think must be the real answer to the compatibility of CHACDOC and LOP in Quebec. Groos is presenting play as a form of legitimate peripheral participation (rather than as exploration), but Groos does remark that it has the effect of "raising" rudimentary and undeveloped instincts (e.g. the hunting instinct in kittens) to the level where they can compete with complete and developed ones (e.g. fear of injury). Vygotsky has just presented the idea that play is a kind of ???????????? ???????????, ???????????? ?????? ??? ???????????????, that is, "a natural annex", "a natural school", or a "natural auto-didactics". So play does for the human child what it does for the kitten, only in the human child what needs to be raised is not instincts, but habits. And that is what makes it possible for peripheral participation to become mastery and conscious awareness and for the simple act of looking for something to open out onto the sea of exploration. David Kellogg From helenaworthen@gmail.com Sat Sep 9 20:18:58 2017 From: helenaworthen@gmail.com (Helena Worthen) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 10:18:58 +0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9E5104A6-8CD3-4319-B50B-F87C62FECA50@gmail.com> This sequence of recollections and interpretations of ISCAR activity is incredibly rich. I am very sorry to have missed it. However, we are back in Viet Nam teaching, with some new assignments that are very interesting (to us). As usual, the discussion on XMCA forms the thinking/background to looking at challenges here as they come along. H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 9470 Phone VN 0168 4628562 Blog US/ Viet Nam: skype: helena.worthen1 helenaworthen.wordpress.com > On Sep 10, 2017, at 9:55 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > One of the most interesting "moments" (that is, instances) of the > conference in Quebec happened the day before the conference, at the CHACDOC > session of the preconference institute. Mariane Hedegaard presented the > case for the ZPD as an age specific proximal zone of development, using the > rather algebraic slogan "children as explorers" (which, since "exploration" > can describe different things, can be applied infancy and to adolescence). > Barbara Rogoff and her students, in contrast, contributed a session on > "Learning by Observing and Pitching In" (LOPI), which instead stressed play > as a form of legitimate peripheral participation. > > In good ISCAR fashion, both strands strove to make the other's case > plausible and to include it as a working part of their own strand, and the > result was--at least to my mind--a completely workable synthesis. But then > I work with the idea that verbal art and verbal science, which I take to be > the future of these two respective visions of play, are linked by their > verbality. > > Last Saturday, we worked on Chapter Three of Vygotsky's "Pedology of the > Adolescent". You can be as sententious as you want about translating words > exactly when you are working with poetry, but when you are translating many > books (this is our ninth volume) what you really need is > consistency--focusing on the relationships between words like "play" and > "development" and not losing their development through random variations. > > So Vygotsky first discusses whether age periods are characterizable by a > single activity: embryonic life by vegetative activity, infancy by animal > activity, early childhood by walking/talking, preschool by play, school age > by study, adolescence by fantasy, etc. He notes that if we consider "pure > play" as something opposed to study or to labor, then it is absolutely > wrong to consider preschool as an age of play, but if we take play to be a > complex activity which includes the grandcestors of study and of labor as > well, it has a certain truth. > > And then he lays bare what I think must be one of the hidden sources of the > Zoped, and also what I think must be the real answer to the compatibility > of CHACDOC and LOP in Quebec. Groos is presenting play as a form of > legitimate peripheral participation (rather than as exploration), but Groos > does remark that it has the effect of "raising" rudimentary and undeveloped > instincts (e.g. the hunting instinct in kittens) to the level where they > can compete with complete and developed ones (e.g. fear of injury). > > Vygotsky has just presented the idea that play is a kind of ???????????? > ???????????, ???????????? ?????? ??? ???????????????, that is, "a natural > annex", "a natural school", or a "natural auto-didactics". So play does for > the human child what it does for the kitten, only in the human child what > needs to be raised is not instincts, but habits. And that is what makes it > possible for peripheral participation to become mastery and conscious > awareness and for the simple act of looking for something to open out onto > the sea of exploration. > > David Kellogg From lpscholar2@gmail.com Sat Sep 9 21:12:59 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Lplarry) Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2017 21:12:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? In-Reply-To: <9E5104A6-8CD3-4319-B50B-F87C62FECA50@gmail.com> References: <9E5104A6-8CD3-4319-B50B-F87C62FECA50@gmail.com> Message-ID: <59b4bbf6.c15e620a.dbf3c.89d1@mx.google.com> Helena & David Right this moment PBS is showing the show (inside the mind of Leonardo da Vinci). To watch the opening introduction Leonardo is drawing a hexical single thread Please go and access this site Fascinating in the spirit that David is here outlining Larry Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Helena Worthen Sent: September 9, 2017 8:22 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? This sequence of recollections and interpretations of ISCAR activity is incredibly rich. I am very sorry to have missed it. However, we are back in Viet Nam teaching, with some new assignments that are very interesting (to us). As usual, the discussion on XMCA forms the thinking/background to looking at challenges here as they come along. H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 9470 Phone VN 0168 4628562 Blog US/ Viet Nam: skype: helena.worthen1 helenaworthen.wordpress.com > On Sep 10, 2017, at 9:55 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > One of the most interesting "moments" (that is, instances) of the > conference in Quebec happened the day before the conference, at the CHACDOC > session of the preconference institute. Mariane Hedegaard presented the > case for the ZPD as an age specific proximal zone of development, using the > rather algebraic slogan "children as explorers" (which, since "exploration" > can describe different things, can be applied infancy and to adolescence). > Barbara Rogoff and her students, in contrast, contributed a session on > "Learning by Observing and Pitching In" (LOPI), which instead stressed play > as a form of legitimate peripheral participation. > > In good ISCAR fashion, both strands strove to make the other's case > plausible and to include it as a working part of their own strand, and the > result was--at least to my mind--a completely workable synthesis. But then > I work with the idea that verbal art and verbal science, which I take to be > the future of these two respective visions of play, are linked by their > verbality. > > Last Saturday, we worked on Chapter Three of Vygotsky's "Pedology of the > Adolescent". You can be as sententious as you want about translating words > exactly when you are working with poetry, but when you are translating many > books (this is our ninth volume) what you really need is > consistency--focusing on the relationships between words like "play" and > "development" and not losing their development through random variations. > > So Vygotsky first discusses whether age periods are characterizable by a > single activity: embryonic life by vegetative activity, infancy by animal > activity, early childhood by walking/talking, preschool by play, school age > by study, adolescence by fantasy, etc. He notes that if we consider "pure > play" as something opposed to study or to labor, then it is absolutely > wrong to consider preschool as an age of play, but if we take play to be a > complex activity which includes the grandcestors of study and of labor as > well, it has a certain truth. > > And then he lays bare what I think must be one of the hidden sources of the > Zoped, and also what I think must be the real answer to the compatibility > of CHACDOC and LOP in Quebec. Groos is presenting play as a form of > legitimate peripheral participation (rather than as exploration), but Groos > does remark that it has the effect of "raising" rudimentary and undeveloped > instincts (e.g. the hunting instinct in kittens) to the level where they > can compete with complete and developed ones (e.g. fear of injury). > > Vygotsky has just presented the idea that play is a kind of ???????????? > ???????????, ???????????? ?????? ??? ???????????????, that is, "a natural > annex", "a natural school", or a "natural auto-didactics". So play does for > the human child what it does for the kitten, only in the human child what > needs to be raised is not instincts, but habits. And that is what makes it > possible for peripheral participation to become mastery and conscious > awareness and for the simple act of looking for something to open out onto > the sea of exploration. > > David Kellogg From lpscholar2@gmail.com Sat Sep 9 21:16:48 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Lplarry) Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2017 21:16:48 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? In-Reply-To: <59b4bbf6.c15e620a.dbf3c.89d1@mx.google.com> References: <9E5104A6-8CD3-4319-B50B-F87C62FECA50@gmail.com> <59b4bbf6.c15e620a.dbf3c.89d1@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <59b4bcdb.9b9b620a.138a4.0137@mx.google.com> Correction NOT PBS channel (I am on JOY tv channel ntetesting Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Lplarry Sent: September 9, 2017 9:13 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? Helena & David Right this moment PBS is showing the show (inside the mind of Leonardo da Vinci). To watch the opening introduction ?Leonardo is drawing a hexical single thread Please go and access this site Fascinating in the spirit that David is here outlining Larry Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Helena Worthen Sent: September 9, 2017 8:22 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? This sequence of recollections and interpretations of ISCAR activity is incredibly rich. I am very sorry to have missed it. However, we are back in Viet Nam teaching, with some new assignments that are very interesting (to us). As usual, the discussion on XMCA forms the thinking/background to looking at challenges here as they come along. H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 9470 Phone VN 0168 4628562 Blog US/ Viet Nam: skype: helena.worthen1 helenaworthen.wordpress.com > On Sep 10, 2017, at 9:55 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > One of the most interesting "moments" (that is, instances) of the > conference in Quebec happened the day before the conference, at the CHACDOC > session of the preconference institute. Mariane Hedegaard presented the > case for the ZPD as an age specific proximal zone of development, using the > rather algebraic slogan "children as explorers" (which, since "exploration" > can describe different things, can be applied infancy and to adolescence). > Barbara Rogoff and her students, in contrast, contributed a session on > "Learning by Observing and Pitching In" (LOPI), which instead stressed play > as a form of legitimate peripheral participation. > > In good ISCAR fashion, both strands strove to make the other's case > plausible and to include it as a working part of their own strand, and the > result was--at least to my mind--a completely workable synthesis. But then > I work with the idea that verbal art and verbal science, which I take to be > the future of these two respective visions of play, are linked by their > verbality. > > Last Saturday, we worked on Chapter Three of Vygotsky's "Pedology of the > Adolescent". You can be as sententious as you want about translating words > exactly when you are working with poetry, but when you are translating many > books (this is our ninth volume) what you really need is > consistency--focusing on the relationships between words like "play" and > "development" and not losing their development through random variations. > > So Vygotsky first discusses whether age periods are characterizable by a > single activity: embryonic life by vegetative activity, infancy by animal > activity, early childhood by walking/talking, preschool by play, school age > by study, adolescence by fantasy, etc. He notes that if we consider "pure > play" as something opposed to study or to labor, then it is absolutely > wrong to consider preschool as an age of play, but if we take play to be a > complex activity which includes the grandcestors of study and of labor as > well, it has a certain truth. > > And then he lays bare what I think must be one of the hidden sources of the > Zoped, and also what I think must be the real answer to the compatibility > of CHACDOC and LOP in Quebec. Groos is presenting play as a form of > legitimate peripheral participation (rather than as exploration), but Groos > does remark that it has the effect of "raising" rudimentary and undeveloped > instincts (e.g. the hunting instinct in kittens) to the level where they > can compete with complete and developed ones (e.g. fear of injury). > > Vygotsky has just presented the idea that play is a kind of ???????????? > ???????????, ???????????? ?????? ??? ???????????????, that is, "a natural > annex", "a natural school", or a "natural auto-didactics". So play does for > the human child what it does for the kitten, only in the human child what > needs to be raised is not instincts, but habits. And that is what makes it > possible for peripheral participation to become mastery and conscious > awareness and for the simple act of looking for something to open out onto > the sea of exploration. > > David Kellogg From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sun Sep 10 11:41:47 2017 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (greg.a.thompson@gmail.com) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 12:41:47 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4EFD08A6-EBD4-4A45-B6F7-46B4A00B3266@gmail.com> David, I think this notion of play also works for the most important of skills that the child will learn: the ability to treat the world as other than it simply is. Whether you prefer to speak of this as mediation or in the more heideggerian language of disclosure (or unconcealment), the ability to see a group of people together and recognize that group as a "protest" or a Republican convention or whatever and, more importantly, to understand all of the meaningfulness that might be attached to that grouping and/or to that event (not to mention how one properly behaves at such an event and what kinds of roles are available and how one effectively carries out any of those roles)... all of this is the kind of irrealis for which the child must develop a capacity if they hope to get along in the adult world. What better way to accomplish that then through play (and here I particularly have in mind that peculiar form of play known as "make-believe" - in all its many variations!). Fine preparation for the make-believe of the adult world... Cheers, Greg Sent from my iPhone > On Sep 9, 2017, at 8:55 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > animal From pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu Sun Sep 10 14:47:53 2017 From: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu (Peter Feigenbaum [Staff]) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 17:47:53 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Mike, and *XMCA readers around the world*, Due to travel and work, this is the first opportunity I have had in the past three weeks to respond to the request for a draft of my chapter (and the last opportunity I'll have for about six weeks, insofar as I am about to undergo cardiac surgery tomorrow morning to prevent a potential heart attack). Because of the brief window of opportunity and the ease of execution, I'm simply attaching a copy of the final manuscript I submitted. (My inner speech: There! Another task accomplished!) I look forward to catching up on the discussion topics that were generated by my email, as well as the comments and reflections following the ISCAR conference. It was a delight to participate and to meet many of you face to face in Quebec! Best wishes, Peter On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 8:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > Peter, Alfredo Et al - > > It seems that the readers of MCA would appreciate a good overview review of > the LSV and Marx book, but so far as I know, no one has proposed the idea > to Beth, the book review editor. (You seem to have a jump on the task, > Alfredo!). > > Also, given the cost of the book, it would be nice if authors could follow > Andy's lead and make a draft available. Andy's article on units of analysis > is on Academia, a click away. That way the many readers of XMCA around the > world would not be excluded from the discussion. > > Mike > Happy travels summer readers. :-) > -- Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. Director, Office of Institutional Research Fordham University Thebaud Hall-202 Bronx, NY 10458 Phone: (718) 817-2243 Fax: (718) 817-3817 email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: What Makes Vygotsky's Theory Marxist_Peter Feigenbaum_POLISHED & FINAL_26May2016.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 78361 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170910/57fb339a/attachment.bin From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Sep 10 15:06:59 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 15:06:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: May you come through the procedure in fitter fashion, Peter. You can be sure our thoughts are with you. XMCA should have a special recognition mechanism, maybe a special guild for those of use who are heart operation survivors. Nothing like aging for giving you a proper perspective on disabilities studies. Give us time to read, but get home to your computer soon! And thanks for thinking of us. mike On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] < pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu> wrote: > Mike, and *XMCA readers around the world*, > > Due to travel and work, this is the first opportunity I have had in the > past three weeks to respond to the request for a draft of my chapter (and > the last opportunity I'll have for about six weeks, insofar as I am about > to undergo cardiac surgery tomorrow morning to prevent a potential heart > attack). Because of the brief window of opportunity and the ease of > execution, I'm simply attaching a copy of the final manuscript I submitted. > (My inner speech: There! Another task accomplished!) > > I look forward to catching up on the discussion topics that were generated > by my email, as well as the comments and reflections following the ISCAR > conference. It was a delight to participate and to meet many of you face to > face in Quebec! > > Best wishes, > Peter > > > > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 8:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Peter, Alfredo Et al - > > > > It seems that the readers of MCA would appreciate a good overview review > of > > the LSV and Marx book, but so far as I know, no one has proposed the idea > > to Beth, the book review editor. (You seem to have a jump on the task, > > Alfredo!). > > > > Also, given the cost of the book, it would be nice if authors could > follow > > Andy's lead and make a draft available. Andy's article on units of > analysis > > is on Academia, a click away. That way the many readers of XMCA around > the > > world would not be excluded from the discussion. > > > > Mike > > Happy travels summer readers. :-) > > > > > > -- > Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. > Director, > Office of Institutional Research > > Fordham University > Thebaud Hall-202 > Bronx, NY 10458 > > Phone: (718) 817-2243 > Fax: (718) 817-3817 > email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sun Sep 10 22:38:28 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 14:38:28 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: So Why Play? In-Reply-To: <4EFD08A6-EBD4-4A45-B6F7-46B4A00B3266@gmail.com> References: <4EFD08A6-EBD4-4A45-B6F7-46B4A00B3266@gmail.com> Message-ID: Social movements came on the third day, Greg, with a plenary session by Yrj? Engestr?m. Curiously, though, Engestr?m emphasized exactly the opposite point: not that social movements can be seen as other than what it is, but that social movements that last (unlike, say, "Occupy Wall Street") are those that leave behind modest but material contributions to the well-being of their participants. Such social movements have a kind of "ratchet", which prevents the movement from melting away when people's momentary burst of social consciousness is subsumed by the toil and struggle of their everyday lives: in these social movements (Engestr?m mentioned a food co-op in Helsinki, the movement "La PAH" against mortgage foreclosures in Barcelona, and the Community Land Trust initiative NYCCLY in New York City). Tomasello uses this term in a rather special way that Engestr?m didn't quite grasp--Engestr?m seemed to be thinking of a ratchet wrench, but Tomasello was referring to the kind of ratchet trains I remember from the portion of my childhood spent in India. Hill stations in India (including the hill station of Ootecamunde, where my stepfather would take me during the summers) were served by trains that occasionally broke down. To keep the train from sliding to the bottom of the hill when this happened, the trains had a huge slab of steel that would poke itself between the railroad ties and prevent backsliding. Tomasello's idea was that literacy is a kind of cultural ratchet, because without it, every generation has to reconstruct the wisdom of the ancestors anew. Anyway, I had some trouble squaring this with the old Engestr?m, the Engestr?m of breaking away, learning by expanding, and crisis. That Engestr?m seemed to stress the historical necessity of creative destruction, but of a revolutionary rather than a Schumpeterian sort. This Engestr?m preferred the idea of construction in the middle of devastation, gardening in a landslide. It was almost, but not quite, the kind of opposition we had experienced two days earlier between play as (expansive) exploration and play as Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI). Not quite because there was no time to attempt any kind of synthesis. David Kellogg On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 3:41 AM, wrote: > David, > I think this notion of play also works for the most important of skills > that the child will learn: the ability to treat the world as other than it > simply is. > > Whether you prefer to speak of this as mediation or in the more > heideggerian language of disclosure (or unconcealment), the ability to see > a group of people together and recognize that group as a "protest" or a > Republican convention or whatever and, more importantly, to understand all > of the meaningfulness that might be attached to that grouping and/or to > that event (not to mention how one properly behaves at such an event and > what kinds of roles are available and how one effectively carries out any > of those roles)... all of this is the kind of irrealis for which the child > must develop a capacity if they hope to get along in the adult world. > > What better way to accomplish that then through play (and here I > particularly have in mind that peculiar form of play known as > "make-believe" - in all its many variations!). > > Fine preparation for the make-believe of the adult world... > > Cheers, > Greg > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Sep 9, 2017, at 8:55 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > > > animal > > From s.franklin08@btinternet.com Mon Sep 11 01:36:10 2017 From: s.franklin08@btinternet.com (Shirley Franklin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 09:36:10 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Stalin and Vygotsky Message-ID: We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason for the ban? Shirley Franklin From ivan@llaisdy.com Mon Sep 11 01:50:07 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 09:50:07 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Stalin and Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> Dear Shirley I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. There's a pdf in the list archives: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf Best wishes Ivan -- festina lente > On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin wrote: > > We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason for the ban? > > Shirley Franklin From s.franklin08@btinternet.com Mon Sep 11 01:58:17 2017 From: s.franklin08@btinternet.com (Shirley Franklin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 09:58:17 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Stalin and Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. Shirley > On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > > Dear Shirley > > I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. There's a pdf in the list archives: > > http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf > > Best wishes > > Ivan > > > -- > festina lente > > >> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin wrote: >> >> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason for the ban? >> >> Shirley Franklin From leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com Mon Sep 11 02:50:38 2017 From: leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com (Leif Strandberg) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:50:38 +0200 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Stalin and Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. Leif Sweden 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin : > Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. > Shirley >> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >> >> Dear Shirley >> >> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. There's a pdf in the list archives: >> >> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >> >> Best wishes >> >> Ivan >> >> >> -- >> festina lente >> >> >>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin wrote: >>> >>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason for the ban? >>> >>> Shirley Franklin > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Sep 11 04:28:51 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:28:51 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1505129333779.1428@iped.uio.no> Yes Peter, thanks for sharing your work and best wishes for you, we look forward to having you back around here soon, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 00:06 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading May you come through the procedure in fitter fashion, Peter. You can be sure our thoughts are with you. XMCA should have a special recognition mechanism, maybe a special guild for those of use who are heart operation survivors. Nothing like aging for giving you a proper perspective on disabilities studies. Give us time to read, but get home to your computer soon! And thanks for thinking of us. mike On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] < pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu> wrote: > Mike, and *XMCA readers around the world*, > > Due to travel and work, this is the first opportunity I have had in the > past three weeks to respond to the request for a draft of my chapter (and > the last opportunity I'll have for about six weeks, insofar as I am about > to undergo cardiac surgery tomorrow morning to prevent a potential heart > attack). Because of the brief window of opportunity and the ease of > execution, I'm simply attaching a copy of the final manuscript I submitted. > (My inner speech: There! Another task accomplished!) > > I look forward to catching up on the discussion topics that were generated > by my email, as well as the comments and reflections following the ISCAR > conference. It was a delight to participate and to meet many of you face to > face in Quebec! > > Best wishes, > Peter > > > > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 8:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Peter, Alfredo Et al - > > > > It seems that the readers of MCA would appreciate a good overview review > of > > the LSV and Marx book, but so far as I know, no one has proposed the idea > > to Beth, the book review editor. (You seem to have a jump on the task, > > Alfredo!). > > > > Also, given the cost of the book, it would be nice if authors could > follow > > Andy's lead and make a draft available. Andy's article on units of > analysis > > is on Academia, a click away. That way the many readers of XMCA around > the > > world would not be excluded from the discussion. > > > > Mike > > Happy travels summer readers. :-) > > > > > > -- > Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. > Director, > Office of Institutional Research > > Fordham University > Thebaud Hall-202 > Bronx, NY 10458 > > Phone: (718) 817-2243 > Fax: (718) 817-3817 > email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Sep 11 08:01:17 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:01:17 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no>, <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> Message-ID: <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could grasp from the previous e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its connections to its production and satisfaction. A ________________________________ From: Andy Blunden Sent: 09 September 2017 03:30 To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural processes (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) but has no content other than its expression. People got by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is something quite different from the kind of empiricism which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some formula with a moment's reflection. Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois society as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, though this was a side benefit of the discovery. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study is, it is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean precisely this, I am not sure). I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or environment and hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter that are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation that you mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as the most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the production of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as consciousness in and through each and every single one of our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but some production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; historical events, which happen to have some individual people having them as inherent part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or totally unconscious event would not be historical). I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. Alfredo ________________________________ From: Andy Blunden Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping what their unit of analysis is. In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people to be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or are we engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom from different perspectives. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I missed his meaning). We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. David On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? just wondering Martin On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the essential features of the whole". Here is their longer explanation: "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural language use also involves social action in a context that includes other actors and socially significant regularities." (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct ion_to_Discourse_and_Education ) ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about unit of analysis.? ?-greg? -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From ablunden@mira.net Mon Sep 11 08:05:09 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 01:05:09 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in connection with needs and their development in connection with activity. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > grasp from the previous e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your > elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > connections to its production and satisfaction. > > A > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* Andy Blunden > *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > issues you raise are treated in > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > is an example of something which is not visceral or > sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > but has no content other than its expression. People got > by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > something quite different from the kind of empiricism > which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > for intellect. And both these characters studied their > field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > through prolonged study, not something which is generated > by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > > Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > without having first identified the real substance of > value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. >> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> >> >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a >> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> know what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some >> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> psychology for precisely this reason. >> >> >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> >> >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> would do so without implying an opposition between >> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> not so much about experience as it is about human >> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> >> >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> >> >> Alfredo >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> from different perspectives. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>> >>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam >>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>> >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >>> missed his meaning). >>> >>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>> >>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>> >>> David >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> >>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>> >>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>>>> >>>>> just wondering >>>>> >>>>> Martin >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>>>>> to >>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>>>>> is >>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>> >>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>> >>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>>>>> that >>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>>>>> the >>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>>>> requires >>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>>>>> and >>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>>>>> natural >>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>> >>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>> ) >>>>>> >>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>>>>> about >>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>> >>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>> >>> > >> > From avramus@gmail.com Mon Sep 11 10:05:08 2017 From: avramus@gmail.com (Alexandre Sourmava) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 17:05:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5hbHlzaXM=?= In-Reply-To: <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> Message-ID: <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Ivan. To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from Spinoza :-). Sasha ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden ?????(?): Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in connection with needs and their development in connection with activity. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > grasp from the previous e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your > elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > connections to its production and satisfaction. > > A > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* Andy Blunden > *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > issues you raise are treated in > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > is an example of something which is not visceral or > sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > but has no content other than its expression. People got > by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > something quite different from the kind of empiricism > which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > for intellect. And both these characters studied their > field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > through prolonged study, not something which is generated > by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > > Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > without having first identified the real substance of > value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. >> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> >> >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a >> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> know what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some >> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the? >> opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> psychology for precisely this reason. >> >> >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> >> >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> would do so without implying an opposition between >> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> not so much about experience as it is about human >> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> >> >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> >> >> Alfredo >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> from different perspectives. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>> >>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu? ? on behalf of David Dirlam >>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>> >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >>> missed his meaning). >>> >>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>> >>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>> >>> David >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden? wrote: >>> >>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> >>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>> >>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>>>> >>>>> just wondering >>>>> >>>>> Martin >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>>>>> to >>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>>>>> is >>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>> >>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>> >>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>>>>> that >>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>>>>> the >>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>>>> requires >>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>>>>> and >>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>>>>> natural >>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>> >>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>> ) >>>>>> >>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>>>>> about >>>>>> unit of analysis.? >>>>>> >>>>>> ?-greg? >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>> >>> > >> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Sep 11 10:35:04 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 10:35:04 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Instead of starting to write about (think) from the neonate, begin with the relation. In the relation of the neonate with another person (human), both change. Both are living, thus active (though not necessarily "intentional" when the adjective is meant to denote present in consciousness" Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:05 AM, Alexandre Sourmava wrote: > Dear Ivan. > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and that > therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo nate is > not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am not sure > that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from Spinoza :-). > > Sasha > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden > ?????(?): > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > connection with needs and their development in connection > with activity. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > > Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > > in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > > grasp from the previous e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your > > elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > > thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > > elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > > of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > > was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > > 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > > which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > > the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > > activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > > connections to its production and satisfaction. > > > > A > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > *From:* Andy Blunden > > *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > > *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > > issues you raise are treated in > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > > > > I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > > and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > > for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > > successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > > is an example of something which is not visceral or > > sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > > The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > > effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > > needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > > but has no content other than its expression. People got > > by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > > not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > > abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > > framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > > starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > > force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > > movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > > Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > > something quite different from the kind of empiricism > > which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > > discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > > these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > > > > If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > > the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > > determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > > from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > > for intellect. And both these characters studied their > > field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > > insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > > unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > > the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > > through prolonged study, not something which is generated > > by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > > > > > Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > > Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > > but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > > capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > > makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > > without having first identified the real substance of > > value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > > on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > > capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > > society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > > equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > > to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > > does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > > "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > > an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > > artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > > biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > > not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > > though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. > >> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > >> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > >> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > >> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > >> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > >> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > >> something else that, by implication, may have been said > >> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > >> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > >> > >> > >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > >> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > >> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > >> in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact is a > >> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > >> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > >> know what the unit for ?studying of hurricanes is (some > >> concrete relation between climate or environment and > >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > >> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > >> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > >> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > >> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > >> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > >> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > >> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > >> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > >> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > >> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > >> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > >> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > >> opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > >> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > >> vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > >> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > >> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > >> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > >> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > >> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > >> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > >> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > >> psychology for precisely this reason. > >> > >> > >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > >> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > >> the question is the production of awareness, of the > >> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > >> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > >> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > >> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > >> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > >> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > >> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > >> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > >> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > >> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > >> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > >> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > >> > >> > >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > >> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > >> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > >> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > >> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > >> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > >> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > >> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > >> would do so without implying an opposition between > >> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > >> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > >> not so much about experience as it is about human > >> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > >> individual people having them as inherent part of their > >> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > >> > >> > >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > >> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > >> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > >> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > >> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> > >> > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > >> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > >> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > >> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > >> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > >> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > >> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > >> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > >> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > >> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > >> > >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > >> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > >> > >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > >> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > >> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > >> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > >> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > >> we training people to be productive workers or are we > >> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > >> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > >> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > >> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > >> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > >> from different perspectives. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > >>> > >>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > conflict and the system that sustains it). > >>> > >>> Alfredo > >>> ________________________________________ > >>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Dirlam > >>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > >>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>> > >>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception > of > >>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > >>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have > some > >>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need > >>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded > like > >>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me > if I > >>> missed his meaning). > >>> > >>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > classifiability > >>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > element, > >>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > bonds > >>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > (how > >>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > point. > >>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > actions > >>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > activity > >>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If > we > >>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity > >>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just > >>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > >>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > constituents all > >>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > constituents > >>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > >>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, > and > >>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > >>> > >>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > characterizing > >>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >>> > >>> David > >>> > >>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > >>> > >>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire > to > >>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are > utterly > >>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > example, > >>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > >>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > >>>> > >>>> Andy > >>>> > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>> Andy Blunden > >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>>> > >>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one > might > >>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon > that is > >>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course > of > >>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > >>>>> > >>>>> just wondering > >>>>> > >>>>> Martin > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > >>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit > of > >>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > Introduction > >>>>>> to > >>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short > of it > >>>>>> is > >>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > >>>>>> essential features of the whole". > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit > of > >>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an > adequate > >>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - > one > >>>>>> that > >>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study > water, a > >>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > >>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen > and > >>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > illuminate > >>>>>> the > >>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > >>>>>> requires > >>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > >>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > linguistic > >>>>>> and > >>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > >>>>>> natural > >>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes > other > >>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > >>>>>> > >>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > >>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >>>>>> ) > >>>>>> > >>>>>> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > >>>>>> about > >>>>>> unit of analysis.? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> ?-greg? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> -- > >>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >>>>>> Assistant Professor > >>>>>> Department of Anthropology > >>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >>>>>> Brigham Young University > >>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > >>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >>>>>> > >>> > > >> > > > > > > > From ivan@llaisdy.com Mon Sep 11 10:37:37 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:37:37 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?gb2312?b?p7Cn5KfTOiAgUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5hbHlzaXM=?= In-Reply-To: <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Dear Sasha Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would characterise animals and infants? Ivan -- festina lente > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava wrote: > > Dear Ivan. > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from Spinoza :-). > > Sasha > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden ?????(?): > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > connection with needs and their development in connection > with activity. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> >> A >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> issues you raise are treated in >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> >> >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> >> >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> >> >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> without having first identified the real substance of >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>> >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>> >>> >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>> >>> >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>> >>> >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>> >>> >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>> >>> >>> Alfredo >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>> >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>> >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>> >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>> from different perspectives. >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>> >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>> >>>> Alfredo >>>> ________________________________________ >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Dirlam >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>> >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >>>> missed his meaning). >>>> >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>> >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>> >>>> David >>>> >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>> >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >>>>>> >>>>>> just wondering >>>>>> >>>>>> Martin >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >>>>>>> to >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >>>>>>> is >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >>>>>>> that >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>>>>> requires >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >>>>>>> and >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >>>>>>> natural >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>> >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>> ) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >>>>>>> about >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>> >>>>> >>> >> > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Sep 11 10:49:40 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 10:49:40 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > Dear Sasha > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > characterise animals and infants? > > Ivan > > -- > festina lente > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava wrote: > > > > Dear Ivan. > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from > Spinoza :-). > > > > Sasha > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden > ?????(?): > > > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > > connection with needs and their development in connection > > with activity. > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. > >> > >> A > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > >> issues you raise are treated in > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > >> > >> > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > >> > >> > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > >> > >> > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > >> without having first identified the real substance of > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > >> > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>> > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > >>> > >>> > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. > >>> > >>> > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > >>> > >>> > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > >>> > >>> > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > >>> > >>> > >>> Alfredo > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>> > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > >>> > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > >>> > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > >>> from different perspectives. > >>> > >>> Andy > >>> > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> Andy Blunden > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > >>>> > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > conflict and the system that sustains it). > >>>> > >>>> Alfredo > >>>> ________________________________________ > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>>> > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception > of > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have > some > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit > (worded like > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me > if I > >>>> missed his meaning). > >>>> > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > classifiability > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > element, > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > bonds > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > (how > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > point. > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > actions > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > activity > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. > If we > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not > just > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > constituents all > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > constituents > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > activities, and > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > >>>> > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > characterizing > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >>>> > >>>> David > >>>> > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to > aspire to > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are > utterly > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > example, > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not > the > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > >>>>> > >>>>> Andy > >>>>> > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>>>> > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one > might > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon > that is > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the > course of > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> just wondering > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Martin > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > > >>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of > unit of > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > Introduction > >>>>>>> to > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short > of it > >>>>>>> is > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit > of > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an > adequate > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - > one > >>>>>>> that > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study > water, a > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen > and > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > illuminate > >>>>>>> the > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > >>>>>>> requires > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > linguistic > >>>>>>> and > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > >>>>>>> natural > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > includes other > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >>>>>>> ) > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > >>>>>>> about > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> -greg > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> -- > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >>>>>>> > >>>>> > >>> > >> > > > > > > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Sep 11 11:18:51 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:18:51 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for suffering or sensation. 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its meaning significantly. Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the term passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by Vasiliuk. mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). > > Michael > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > > > Dear Sasha > > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > > characterise animals and infants? > > > > Ivan > > > > -- > > festina lente > > > > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava > wrote: > > > > > > Dear Ivan. > > > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from > > Spinoza :-). > > > > > > Sasha > > > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden > > > ?????(?): > > > > > > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > > > connection with needs and their development in connection > > > with activity. > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > >> > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. > > >> > > >> A > > >> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >> > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > > >> issues you raise are treated in > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > >> > > >> > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > >> > > >> > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > >> > > >> > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > > >> without having first identified the real substance of > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > >> > > >> > > >> Andy > > >> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >> Andy Blunden > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > >>> > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Alfredo > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >>> > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > > >>> > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > > >>> > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > > >>> from different perspectives. > > >>> > > >>> Andy > > >>> > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>> Andy Blunden > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > >>>> > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of > a > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars > ways > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > > conflict and the system that sustains it). > > >>>> > > >>>> Alfredo > > >>>> ________________________________________ > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >>>> > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > conception > > of > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have > > some > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > > need > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit > > (worded like > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me > > if I > > >>>> missed his meaning). > > >>>> > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > > classifiability > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > > element, > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > > bonds > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > > (how > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > > point. > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > > actions > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > > activity > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. > > If we > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > > complexity > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not > > just > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > > constituents all > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > > constituents > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate > that. > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > > activities, and > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > >>>> > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > > characterizing > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > >>>> > > >>>> David > > >>>> > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to > > aspire to > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are > > utterly > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > > example, > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not > > the > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Andy > > >>>>> > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>>>> Andy Blunden > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > >>>>> > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one > > might > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon > > that is > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the > > course of > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific > concept? > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> just wondering > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> Martin > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson gmail.com > > > > > >>>>>>> wrote: > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of > > unit of > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > > Introduction > > >>>>>>> to > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short > > of it > > >>>>>>> is > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept > "unit > > of > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an > > adequate > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - > > one > > >>>>>>> that > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study > > water, a > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen > > and > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > > illuminate > > >>>>>>> the > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > > >>>>>>> requires > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > > linguistic > > >>>>>>> and > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, > but > > >>>>>>> natural > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > > includes other > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > > >>>>>>> ) > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for > thinking > > >>>>>>> about > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> -greg > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> -- > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>> > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Sep 11 11:38:06 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:38:06 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Stalin and Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> Message-ID: Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the subject by the authors. I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. But that's just my opinion. mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned > in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. > > Leif > Sweden > > 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >: > > > Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also > thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. > > Shirley > >> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > >> > >> Dear Shirley > >> > >> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper > "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. > There's a pdf in the list archives: > >> > >> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf > >> > >> Best wishes > >> > >> Ivan > >> > >> > >> -- > >> festina lente > >> > >> > >>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason > for the ban? > >>> > >>> Shirley Franklin > > > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Sep 11 11:40:31 2017 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:40:31 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Mike, if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical possibilities for affect (emotion). I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt (insulted etc). Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that you would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of person and environment. Michael Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A567 University of Victoria Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics * On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. > > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: > > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for suffering > or sensation. > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its meaning > significantly. > > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the term > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by > Vasiliuk. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). > > > > Michael > > > > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------------------- > > Applied Cognitive Science > > MacLaurin Building A567 > > University of Victoria > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin > wrote: > > > > > Dear Sasha > > > > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > > > characterise animals and infants? > > > > > > Ivan > > > > > > -- > > > festina lente > > > > > > > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Dear Ivan. > > > > > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that > neo > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I > am > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows > from > > > Spinoza :-). > > > > > > > > Sasha > > > > > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < > ablunden@mira.net > > > > > > ?????(?): > > > > > > > > > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection > > > > with activity. > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. > > > >> > > > >> A > > > >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > > > >> issues you raise are treated in > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Andy > > > >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >> Andy Blunden > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> Alfredo > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > >>> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > > > >>> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > > > >>> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > > > >>> from different perspectives. > > > >>> > > > >>> Andy > > > >>> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >>> Andy Blunden > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions > of > > a > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars > > ways > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be > like > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate > system > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Alfredo > > > >>>> ________________________________________ > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > >>>> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > > conception > > > of > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress > the > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should > have > > > some > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that > experts > > > need > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit > > > (worded like > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct > me > > > if I > > > >>>> missed his meaning). > > > >>>> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > > > classifiability > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > > > element, > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the > chemical > > > bonds > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of > water > > > (how > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David > Kellogg's > > > point. > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > > > actions > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > > > activity > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between > them. > > > If we > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > > > complexity > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not > > > just > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The > identifiability, > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > > > constituents all > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > > > constituents > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate > > that. > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > > > activities, and > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > > > characterizing > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> David > > > >>>> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > > > wrote: > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to > > > aspire to > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which > are > > > utterly > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > > > example, > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is > not > > > the > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> Andy > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, > one > > > might > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the > phenomenon > > > that is > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the > > > course of > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific > > concept? > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> just wondering > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> Martin > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > gmail.com > > > > > > > >>>>>>> wrote: > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of > > > unit of > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > > > Introduction > > > >>>>>>> to > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The > short > > > of it > > > >>>>>>> is > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept > > "unit > > > of > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an > > > adequate > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of > analysis - > > > one > > > >>>>>>> that > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to > study > > > water, a > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of > an > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but > hydrogen > > > and > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > > > illuminate > > > >>>>>>> the > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language > use > > > >>>>>>> requires > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > > > linguistic > > > >>>>>>> and > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, > > but > > > >>>>>>> natural > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > > > includes other > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > > > >>>>>>> ) > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for > > thinking > > > >>>>>>> about > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> -greg > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> -- > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>> > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From s.franklin08@btinternet.com Mon Sep 11 11:55:51 2017 From: s.franklin08@btinternet.com (Shirley Franklin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 19:55:51 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Stalin and Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> Message-ID: <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. See http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf Shirley > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > subject by the authors. > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > But that's just my opinion. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >> >> Leif >> Sweden >> >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >> : >> >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>> Shirley >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>> >>>> Dear Shirley >>>> >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>> >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>> >>>> Best wishes >>>> >>>> Ivan >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> festina lente >>>> >>>> >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >> for the ban? >>>>> >>>>> Shirley Franklin >>> >>> >> >> >> From ivan@llaisdy.com Mon Sep 11 11:57:00 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 19:57:00 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?gb2312?b?p7Cn5KfTOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Dear All Re "passive" I think I am just following standard interpretation of Spinoza. Here from the Ethics, part 3 definition 2: ... I say that we are passive as regards something when that something takes place within us, or follows from our nature externally, we being only the partial cause. ... nos pati dico cum in nobis aliquid fit vel ex nostra natura aliquid sequitur cujus nos non nisi partialis sumus causa. Of course for Spinoza the only entity that is fully active (ie is its own adequate cause) is Substance as a whole, so everything is relative. Ivan -- festina lente > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:18, mike cole wrote: > > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. > > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: > > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for suffering > or sensation. > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its meaning > significantly. > > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the term > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by > Vasiliuk. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>> >>> Dear Sasha >>> >>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>> characterise animals and infants? >>> >>> Ivan >>> >>> -- >>> festina lente >>> >>> >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> wrote: >>>> >>>> Dear Ivan. >>>> >>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and >>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo >>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am >>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from >>> Spinoza :-). >>>> >>>> Sasha >>>> >>>> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden >> >>> ?????(?): >>>> >>>> >>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>> with activity. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>> >>>>> A >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>> >>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>> >>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>> >>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>> >>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is >>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of >> a >>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars >> ways >>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like >>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system >>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> conception >>> of >>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have >>> some >>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts >>> need >>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>> (worded like >>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me >>> if I >>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>> classifiability >>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an >>> element, >>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical >>> bonds >>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water >>> (how >>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's >>> point. >>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while >>> actions >>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the >>> activity >>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. >>> If we >>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the >>> complexity >>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not >>> just >>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>> constituents all >>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>> constituents >>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate >> that. >>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>> activities, and >>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>> characterizing >>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden >>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>> aspire to >>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are >>> utterly >>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For >>> example, >>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not >>> the >>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one >>> might >>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon >>> that is >>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>> course of >>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> concept? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> gmail.com >>>> >>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of >>> unit of >>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short >>> of it >>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> "unit >>> of >>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an >>> adequate >>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - >>> one >>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study >>> water, a >>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen >>> and >>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, >> but >>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>> includes other >>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> thinking >>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >> From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Sep 11 12:08:51 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:08:51 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in English would accomplish the job. But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Mike, > if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical > possibilities for affect (emotion). > > I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but > transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) > actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already > know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not > know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt > (insulted etc). > > Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are > two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and > afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that you > would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of > person and environment. > > Michael > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------- > Applied Cognitive Science > MacLaurin Building A567 > University of Victoria > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. > > > > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries > > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: > > > > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for suffering > > or sensation. > > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. > > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its > meaning > > significantly. > > > > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the > term > > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a > > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by > > Vasiliuk. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term > > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of > > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > -------------------- > > > Applied Cognitive Science > > > MacLaurin Building A567 > > > University of Victoria > > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > > > > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin > > wrote: > > > > > > > Dear Sasha > > > > > > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > > > > characterise animals and infants? > > > > > > > > Ivan > > > > > > > > -- > > > > festina lente > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Dear Ivan. > > > > > > > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, > and > > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that > > neo > > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And > I > > am > > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows > > from > > > > Spinoza :-). > > > > > > > > > > Sasha > > > > > > > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < > > ablunden@mira.net > > > > > > > > ?????(?): > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection > > > > > with activity. > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > > >> > > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. > > > > >> > > > > >> A > > > > >> > > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > >> > > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > > > > >> issues you raise are treated in > > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or > > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got > > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of > > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> Andy > > > > >> > > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >> Andy Blunden > > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between > > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human > > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Alfredo > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden > > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > > > > >>> from different perspectives. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Andy > > > > >>> > > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >>> Andy Blunden > > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. > is > > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions > > of > > > a > > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars > > > ways > > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be > > like > > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate > > system > > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> Alfredo > > > > >>>> ________________________________________ > > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > > > conception > > > > of > > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress > > the > > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should > > have > > > > some > > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that > > experts > > > > need > > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit > > > > (worded like > > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will > correct > > me > > > > if I > > > > >>>> missed his meaning). > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > > > > classifiability > > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > > > > element, > > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the > > chemical > > > > bonds > > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of > > water > > > > (how > > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David > > Kellogg's > > > > point. > > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, > while > > > > actions > > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that > the > > > > activity > > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between > > them. > > > > If we > > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > > > > complexity > > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm > not > > > > just > > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The > > identifiability, > > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > > > > constituents all > > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > > > > constituents > > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate > > > that. > > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > > > > activities, and > > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > > > > characterizing > > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> David > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< > ablunden@mira.net> > > > > wrote: > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to > > > > aspire to > > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which > > are > > > > utterly > > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. > For > > > > example, > > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is > > not > > > > the > > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> Andy > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden > > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, > > one > > > > might > > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the > > phenomenon > > > > that is > > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the > > > > course of > > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific > > > concept? > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> just wondering > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> Martin > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson > > gmail.com > > > > > > > > > >>>>>>> wrote: > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification > of > > > > unit of > > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > > > > Introduction > > > > >>>>>>> to > > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The > > short > > > > of it > > > > >>>>>>> is > > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept > > > "unit > > > > of > > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an > > > > adequate > > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of > > analysis - > > > > one > > > > >>>>>>> that > > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to > > study > > > > water, a > > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level > of > > an > > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but > > hydrogen > > > > and > > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > > > > illuminate > > > > >>>>>>> the > > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language > > use > > > > >>>>>>> requires > > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > > > > linguistic > > > > >>>>>>> and > > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic > communication, > > > but > > > > >>>>>>> natural > > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > > > > includes other > > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > > > > >>>>>>> ) > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for > > > thinking > > > > >>>>>>> about > > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> -greg > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> -- > > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor > > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University > > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Sep 11 12:14:16 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:14:16 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> Message-ID: Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Sep 11 13:34:52 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 20:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?gb2312?b?p7Cn5KfTOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFseXNpcw==?= In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> , Message-ID: <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ??????: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > > ???????????????^??????, 11 ???????????????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ??????????(??): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos??, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos??, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn??t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Mon Sep 11 17:27:01 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 00:27:01 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5hbHlz?= =?utf-8?q?is?= In-Reply-To: <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> Some reflections on the category of activity Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity.?Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. ?(In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect.?According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ? ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 12 02:14:43 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 09:14:43 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5h?= =?utf-8?q?lysis?= In-Reply-To: <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no>, <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> Alexander, the topic is interesting, so feel welcome to continue. The topic is most interesting if, at some point along the thread, we can begin to mobilise this thinking in such a way that its practical implications become apparent and obvious to most xmca readers interested in seeing how all this can be relevant to research and practice. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava Sent: 12 September 2017 02:27 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Some reflections on the category of activity Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From ablunden@mira.net Tue Sep 12 02:35:48 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 19:35:48 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFs?= =?utf-8?q?ysis?= In-Reply-To: <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> References: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I enthusiastically agree with you on this one, Alfredo. I all the discussions I have had with CHATters about Vygotsky's idea of "unit of analysis" and in all the discussions I have had with Marxists about the "method of Capital" or in any of the discussions I have had with Activity Theorists (ANL variety) about the Units of Activity, I have never come across anyone who on even a single occasion has suggested or referred to the application to other domains of the method of analysis by units, other than by way of passing off-hand references (such as your example of analysis of hurricanes). Surely the whole idea of a "method" is that it is portable, so to speak? And yet Vygotsky himself identified as many as 4 different units in various domains of research. Is there anyone on this list who can tell of research they have done using a unit of analysis which was a product of their own research? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/09/2017 7:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Alexander, the topic is interesting, so feel welcome to continue. The topic is most interesting if, at some point along the thread, we can begin to mobilise this thinking in such a way that its practical implications become apparent and obvious to most xmca readers interested in seeing how all this can be relevant to research and practice. > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava > Sent: 12 September 2017 02:27 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical autom > aton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present > day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and f > rom real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): > > > Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in >> English would accomplish the job. >> >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Mike, >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). >>> >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >>> (insulted etc). >>> >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >>> you >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >>> person and environment. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >>>> >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >>>> >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >>> suffering >>>> or sensation. >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >>> meaning >>>> significantly. >>>> >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >>> term >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >>>> Vasiliuk. >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Dear Sasha >>>>>> >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >>> and >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >>>> neo >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >>> And I >>>> am >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >>>> from >>>>>> Spinoza :-). >>>>>>> Sasha >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >>>> ablunden@mira.net >>>>>> ?????(?): >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>>>>> with activity. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >>> is >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >>> expressions >>>> of >>>>> a >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >>> particulars >>>>> ways >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >>>> like >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >>>> system >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>> edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >>>>> conception >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >>> stress >>>> the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >>>> have >>>>>> some >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >>>> experts >>>>>> need >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>>>>> (worded like >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >>> correct >>>> me >>>>>> if I >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>>>>> classifiability >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >>> an >>>>>> element, >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >>>> chemical >>>>>> bonds >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water >>>>>> (how >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >>>> Kellogg's >>>>>> point. >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >>> while >>>>>> actions >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >>> the >>>>>> activity >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >>>> them. >>>>>> If we >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >>> the >>>>>> complexity >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >>> not >>>>>> just >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>>>>> constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >>> illustrate >>>>> that. >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>>>>> activities, and >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>>>>> characterizing >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >>> ablunden@mira.net> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>>>>> aspire to >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >>> which >>>> are >>>>>> utterly >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >>> For >>>>>> example, >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >>>> not >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >>>> one >>>>>> might >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>>>>> course of >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson>>>> gmail.com >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >>> of >>>>>> unit of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>>>>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >>>> short >>>>>> of it >>>>>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >>>>> "unit >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >>> an >>>>>> adequate >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >>>> analysis - >>>>>> one >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >>>> study >>>>>> water, a >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >>> of >>>> an >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >>>> hydrogen >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>>>>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >>> language >>>> use >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >>> communication, >>>>> but >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>>>>> includes other >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >>>>> thinking >>>>>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > > > > > From boblake@georgiasouthern.edu Tue Sep 12 04:47:18 2017 From: boblake@georgiasouthern.edu (Robert Lake) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 07:47:18 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFs?= =?utf-8?q?ysis?= In-Reply-To: References: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Yes Sasha Please do continue! This is helping so far! Robert On Sep 12, 2017 5:38 AM, "Andy Blunden" wrote: > I enthusiastically agree with you on this one, Alfredo. > > I all the discussions I have had with CHATters about > Vygotsky's idea of "unit of analysis" and in all the > discussions I have had with Marxists about the "method of > Capital" or in any of the discussions I have had with > Activity Theorists (ANL variety) about the Units of > Activity, I have never come across anyone who on even a > single occasion has suggested or referred to the application > to other domains of the method of analysis by units, other > than by way of passing off-hand references (such as your > example of analysis of hurricanes). Surely the whole idea of > a "method" is that it is portable, so to speak? > > And yet Vygotsky himself identified as many as 4 different > units in various domains of research. Is there anyone on > this list who can tell of research they have done using a > unit of analysis which was a product of their own research? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 12/09/2017 7:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Alexander, the topic is interesting, so feel welcome to continue. The > topic is most interesting if, at some point along the thread, we can begin > to mobilise this thinking in such a way that its practical implications > become apparent and obvious to most xmca readers interested in seeing how > all this can be relevant to research and practice. > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Alexander Surmava > > Sent: 12 September 2017 02:27 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in > the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause > of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts > (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according > to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one > whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external > influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as > it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object > oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The > Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the > reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the > mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer > responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program > is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical autom > > aton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our > subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the > primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy > (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The > question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a > subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of > the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a > purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. > Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' > solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply > has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we > will never come to free subject. (In parentheses, recall that > stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology > and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present > > day.) > > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the > Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line > of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like > existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social > contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is > achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over > a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to > make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their > teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a > person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which > he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains > freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the > so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally > far from both the real culture, and f > > rom real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that > Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant > are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the > topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil < > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> ?????(?): > > > > > > Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view > more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, > when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and > undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his > approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey > and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', > in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and > speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything > which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* > experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* > beforehand". > > > > Alfredo > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of mike cole > > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > > > Ivan-- > > > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from > Spinoza > > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration > similar > > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > > topic at hand. > > > > thanks > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be > transactions > >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which > in > >> English would accomplish the job. > >> > >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > >> > >> mike > >> > >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >>> Mike, > >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical > >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). > >>> > >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but > >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) > >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not > already > >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do > not > >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt > >>> (insulted etc). > >>> > >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there > are > >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent > and > >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that > >>> you > >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of > >>> person and environment. > >>> > >>> Michael > >>> > >>> > >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > >>> > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> -------------------- > >>> Applied Cognitive Science > >>> MacLaurin Building A567 > >>> University of Victoria > >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > >>> > >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > >>> >>> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics > >>> -of-mathematics/>* > >>> > >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: > >>> > >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. > >>>> > >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries > >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: > >>>> > >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for > >>> suffering > >>>> or sensation. > >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. > >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its > >>> meaning > >>>> significantly. > >>>> > >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the > >>> term > >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a > >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by > >>>> Vasiliuk. > >>>> > >>>> mike > >>>> > >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term > >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of > >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). > >>>>> > >>>>> Michael > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > >>>>> > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>> -------------------- > >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science > >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 > >>>>> University of Victoria > >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > >>>>> > >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > >>>>> >>>>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > >>>>> > >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin > >>>> wrote: > >>>>>> Dear Sasha > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Ivan > >>>>>> > >>>>>> -- > >>>>>> festina lente > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava > >>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, > >>> and > >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that > >>>> neo > >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. > >>> And I > >>>> am > >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows > >>>> from > >>>>>> Spinoza :-). > >>>>>>> Sasha > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < > >>>> ablunden@mira.net > >>>>>> ?????(?): > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection > >>>>>>> with activity. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> A > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in > >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or > >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got > >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of > >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between > >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human > >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> Alfredo > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. > >>> is > >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the > >>> expressions > >>>> of > >>>>> a > >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* > >>> particulars > >>>>> ways > >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be > >>>> like > >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate > >>>> system > >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). > >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo > >>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________ > >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>> >>>>>> edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > >>>>> conception > >>>>>> of > >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin > >>> stress > >>>> the > >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should > >>>> have > >>>>>> some > >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that > >>>> experts > >>>>>> need > >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit > >>>>>> (worded like > >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will > >>> correct > >>>> me > >>>>>> if I > >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > >>>>>> classifiability > >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not > >>> an > >>>>>> element, > >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the > >>>> chemical > >>>>>> bonds > >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of > >>>> water > >>>>>> (how > >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David > >>>> Kellogg's > >>>>>> point. > >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, > >>> while > >>>>>> actions > >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that > >>> the > >>>>>> activity > >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between > >>>> them. > >>>>>> If we > >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in > >>> the > >>>>>> complexity > >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm > >>> not > >>>>>> just > >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The > >>>> identifiability, > >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > >>>>>> constituents all > >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > >>>>>> constituents > >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles > >>> illustrate > >>>>> that. > >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > >>>>>> activities, and > >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > >>>>>> characterizing > >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> David > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< > >>> ablunden@mira.net> > >>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to > >>>>>> aspire to > >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts > >>> which > >>>> are > >>>>>> utterly > >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. > >>> For > >>>>>> example, > >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is > >>>> not > >>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, > >>>> one > >>>>>> might > >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the > >>>> phenomenon > >>>>>> that is > >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the > >>>>>> course of > >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific > >>>>> concept? > >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >>>>> gmail.com > >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification > >>> of > >>>>>> unit of > >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > >>>>>> Introduction > >>>>>>>>>>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The > >>>> short > >>>>>> of it > >>>>>>>>>>>>> is > >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept > >>>>> "unit > >>>>>> of > >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, > >>> an > >>>>>> adequate > >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of > >>>> analysis - > >>>>>> one > >>>>>>>>>>>>> that > >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to > >>>> study > >>>>>> water, a > >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level > >>> of > >>>> an > >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but > >>>> hydrogen > >>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > >>>>>> illuminate > >>>>>>>>>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful > >>> language > >>>> use > >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires > >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > >>>>>> linguistic > >>>>>>>>>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic > >>> communication, > >>>>> but > >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural > >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > >>>>>> includes other > >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct > >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for > >>>>> thinking > >>>>>>>>>>>>> about > >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > From lpscholar2@gmail.com Tue Sep 12 05:22:00 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Lplarry) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 05:22:00 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?IFJFOiAgUmU60J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBv?= =?utf-8?q?f_Analysis?= In-Reply-To: References: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <59b7d194.894c650a.63b01.82de@mx.google.com> Andy & Alfredo A key phrase: Passibility of BOTH (in the world) & (personhood) in the transaction spirit Wolff Michael Roth mentions through BOTH (passibility) & (carrying over). We can imagine this as a (walking) theme with the symbol of (a staff) that carries over to consider Vital life as being a shepard. I recommend this moment tuning in Charlie Rose today who *opens* in conversation with Bannon. Bannon?s (key turning) word is *resonating* which is expressing the extraordinary awakening occurring within Bannon?s *ordinary* common wording. The application of (passibility) opens up (possibility) through addressing ways of BOTH (hearing) & (hearing). (extraordinary) & (ordinary) (walking) & (talking). The staff as symbol ??? Larry Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Andy Blunden Sent: September 12, 2017 2:38 AM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re:???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis I enthusiastically agree with you on this one, Alfredo. I all the discussions I have had with CHATters about Vygotsky's idea of "unit of analysis" and in all the discussions I have had with Marxists about the "method of Capital" or in any of the discussions I have had with Activity Theorists (ANL variety) about the Units of Activity, I have never come across anyone who on even a single occasion has suggested or referred to the application to other domains of the method of analysis by units, other than by way of passing off-hand references (such as your example of analysis of hurricanes). Surely the whole idea of a "method" is that it is portable, so to speak? And yet Vygotsky himself identified as many as 4 different units in various domains of research. Is there anyone on this list who can tell of research they have done using a unit of analysis which was a product of their own research? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/09/2017 7:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Alexander, the topic is interesting, so feel welcome to continue. The topic is most interesting if, at some point along the thread, we can begin to mobilise this thinking in such a way that its practical implications become apparent and obvious to most xmca readers interested in seeing how all this can be relevant to research and practice. > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava > Sent: 12 September 2017 02:27 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical autom > aton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present > day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and f > rom real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): > > > Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in >> English would accomplish the job. >> >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Mike, >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). >>> >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >>> (insulted etc). >>> >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >>> you >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >>> person and environment. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >>>> >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >>>> >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >>> suffering >>>> or sensation. >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >>> meaning >>>> significantly. >>>> >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >>> term >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >>>> Vasiliuk. >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Dear Sasha >>>>>> >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >>> and >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >>>> neo >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >>> And I >>>> am >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >>>> from >>>>>> Spinoza :-). >>>>>>> Sasha >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >>>> ablunden@mira.net >>>>>> ?????(?): >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>>>>> with activity. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >>> is >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >>> expressions >>>> of >>>>> a >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >>> particulars >>>>> ways >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >>>> like >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >>>> system >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>> edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >>>>> conception >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >>> stress >>>> the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >>>> have >>>>>> some >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >>>> experts >>>>>> need >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>>>>> (worded like >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >>> correct >>>> me >>>>>> if I >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>>>>> classifiability >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >>> an >>>>>> element, >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >>>> chemical >>>>>> bonds >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water >>>>>> (how >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >>>> Kellogg's >>>>>> point. >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >>> while >>>>>> actions >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >>> the >>>>>> activity >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >>>> them. >>>>>> If we >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >>> the >>>>>> complexity >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >>> not >>>>>> just >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>>>>> constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >>> illustrate >>>>> that. >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>>>>> activities, and >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>>>>> characterizing >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >>> ablunden@mira.net> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>>>>> aspire to >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >>> which >>>> are >>>>>> utterly >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >>> For >>>>>> example, >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >>>> not >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >>>> one >>>>>> might >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>>>>> course of >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson>>>> gmail.com >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >>> of >>>>>> unit of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>>>>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >>>> short >>>>>> of it >>>>>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >>>>> "unit >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >>> an >>>>>> adequate >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >>>> analysis - >>>>>> one >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >>>> study >>>>>> water, a >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >>> of >>>> an >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >>>> hydrogen >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>>>>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >>> language >>>> use >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >>> communication, >>>>> but >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>>>>> includes other >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >>>>> thinking >>>>>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Tue Sep 12 05:46:33 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 12:46:33 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5hbHlz?= =?utf-8?q?is?= In-Reply-To: <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <2011999826.625080.1505220393087@mail.yahoo.com> So, I will continue.In order not to delay, I will put the text on XMCA discussion in small portions as soon as they are ready.By the way, it is characteristic that the evaluation of Vygotsky as a theorist who managed to successfully implement the Marxist methodology in psychology is usually limited to an analys of the "Historical meaning of the psychological crisis." I know of no work that dissecting not this really wonderful manuscript, but directly the theoretical researches of the author. For example, a large study of Sergey Mareev's - philosopher who considers himself a disciple of E. V. Ilyenkov - "luk?cs-Vygotsky-Ilyenkov" is based solely on this principle. The same is true for Western scholars of L. S. Vygotsky.Meanwhile, we must understand that "the historical sense..." is only a Declaration of Marxist intents, not the study itself.?I have often said, and I repeat again, I do not doubt the sincerity of the intentions of L. S. Vygotsky to create a Marxist psychology. But as you know, the road to hell may be paved with even the most sincere intentions :-) ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ? ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From lpscholar2@gmail.com Tue Sep 12 06:20:59 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Lplarry) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 06:20:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?IFJFOiAgUmU60J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBv?= =?utf-8?q?f_Analysis?= In-Reply-To: <59b7d194.894c650a.63b01.82de@mx.google.com> References: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> <1505207684662.95786@iped.uio.no> <59b7d194.894c650a.63b01.82de@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <59b7df66.8d48620a.26c56.3575@mx.google.com> Sent from my Windows 10 phone Both (here) & (hear) as a doubling transaction that IS BOTH (carries over) that is ALSO (passibility) THIS: BEING ... IN RELATION IS REQUIRED IN ORDER TO BE FALLING, DESCENDING, LAYERING, *OPENING* BOTH (PLACES) & (SPACES) AS AN APPLICATION Enigma From: Lplarry Sent: September 12, 2017 5:22 AM To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re:???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Andy & Alfredo A key phrase: Passibility of BOTH (in the world) & (personhood) in the transaction ?spirit Wolff Michael Roth mentions through BOTH (passibility) & (carrying over).? We can imagine this as a ?(walking) theme with the symbol of (a staff) that carries over to consider Vital life as being a shepard. I recommend this moment tuning in Charlie Rose today who *opens* in conversation with Bannon. Bannon?s (key turning) word is *resonating* which is expressing the extraordinary awakening occurring within Bannon?s *ordinary* common wording. The application of (passibility) opens up (possibility) through addressing ?ways of BOTH (hearing) & (hearing). (extraordinary) & (ordinary) (walking) & (talking). The staff as symbol ??? Larry Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Andy Blunden Sent: September 12, 2017 2:38 AM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re:???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis I enthusiastically agree with you on this one, Alfredo. I all the discussions I have had with CHATters about Vygotsky's idea of "unit of analysis" and in all the discussions I have had with Marxists about the "method of Capital" or in any of the discussions I have had with Activity Theorists (ANL variety) about the Units of Activity, I have never come across anyone who on even a single occasion has suggested or referred to the application to other domains of the method of analysis by units, other than by way of passing off-hand references (such as your example of analysis of hurricanes). Surely the whole idea of a "method" is that it is portable, so to speak? And yet Vygotsky himself identified as many as 4 different units in various domains of research. Is there anyone on this list who can tell of research they have done using a unit of analysis which was a product of their own research? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/09/2017 7:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Alexander, the topic is interesting, so feel welcome to continue. The topic is most interesting if, at some point along the thread, we can begin to mobilise this thinking in such a way that its practical implications become apparent and obvious to most xmca readers interested in seeing how all this can be relevant to research and practice. > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava > Sent: 12 September 2017 02:27 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???:? Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical autom >? aton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject.? (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present >?? day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and f >? rom real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > >???? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): > > >? Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in >> English would accomplish the job. >> >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Mike, >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). >>> >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >>> (insulted etc). >>> >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >>> you >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >>> person and environment. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >>>> >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >>>> >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >>> suffering >>>> or sensation. >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >>> meaning >>>> significantly. >>>> >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >>> term >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >>>> Vasiliuk. >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Dear Sasha >>>>>> >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >>> and >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >>>> neo >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >>> And I >>>> am >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >>>> from >>>>>> Spinoza :-). >>>>>>> Sasha >>>>>>> >>>>>>>???? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >>>> ablunden@mira.net >>>>>> ?????(?): >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>>>>> with activity. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >>> is >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >>> expressions >>>> of >>>>> a >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >>> particulars >>>>> ways >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >>>> like >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >>>> system >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>> edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >>>>> conception >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >>> stress >>>> the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >>>> have >>>>>> some >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >>>> experts >>>>>> need >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>>>>> (worded like >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >>> correct >>>> me >>>>>> if I >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>>>>> classifiability >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >>> an >>>>>> element, >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >>>> chemical >>>>>> bonds >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water >>>>>> (how >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >>>> Kellogg's >>>>>> point. >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >>> while >>>>>> actions >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >>> the >>>>>> activity >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >>>> them. >>>>>> If we >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >>> the >>>>>> complexity >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >>> not >>>>>> just >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>>>>> constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >>> illustrate >>>>> that. >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>>>>> activities, and >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>>>>> characterizing >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >>> ablunden@mira.net> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>>>>> aspire to >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >>> which >>>> are >>>>>> utterly >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >>> For >>>>>> example, >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >>>> not >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >>>> one >>>>>> might >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>>>>> course of >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson>>>> gmail.com >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >>> of >>>>>> unit of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>>>>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >>>> short >>>>>> of it >>>>>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >>>>> "unit >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >>> an >>>>>> adequate >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >>>> analysis - >>>>>> one >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >>>> study >>>>>> water, a >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >>> of >>>> an >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >>>> hydrogen >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>>>>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >>> language >>>> use >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >>> communication, >>>>> but >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>>>>> includes other >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >>>>> thinking >>>>>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > > > > > From modesofpractice@gmail.com Tue Sep 12 09:16:45 2017 From: modesofpractice@gmail.com (David Dirlam) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 12:16:45 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I've been on vacation in a spot with no internet or cell phone service -- cut off from civilization, perhaps, but that's not as bad as being cut off from this fascinating discussion :-) An idea from each of Alfredo's and Andy's posts generated visceral reactions in me. Out in the mountains, I spent many hours with a former student of mine, who has been a licensed clinical social worker in the western Virginia coalfields for 20 years. We're proposing a book on "Taming Intelligence" to address the human side of dealing with AI changes in work. I did a long developmental interview of her (a way of helping people organize their professional experience) and the 9 needs of Manfred Max-Neef turned out to be most of the dimensions for organizing her expertise. They happen to be the topic of one of the 7 chapters we have planned for the book, but I didn't expect to find them so deeply embedded in the therapeutic process (my ignorance, probably). Where they fit into modes of practice are that one of the parameters for describing changes in the frequency of a practice over time is resources and the 9 needs spell out the internal effects of resource availability (off the top of my head they are health-safety, sustenance, leisure, creativity, understanding, liberty, love, identity, and belonging). About the usefulness of a complex nested hierarchy, like biology's, it is essential to the taming intelligence argument. Repetitive practices (up to procedures and recipes) are those most vulnerable to automation. We toured a former coal mine that exhibited what happened to the miners when the "continuous miner" machine was introduced. Two men could accomplish in an hour what it took a dozen to achieve in a day before it was introduced. The devastating effect on miners and their families in the mid-20th century was similar to the effect that the flying shuttle had on weavers two centuries earlier. Adaptive practices require ongoing changes like the sort of learning that my voice recognition software does, but also like transformative learning and the development of expertise. They are more resistant to change, but call-centers, customer-service personnel, and even journalists are being affected by them. Finally, collaborative and institutional practices are most resistant. We don't collaborate well until we begin to understand what others know and can do that we do not. Group and institution formation begins to work when, I believe, the division of labor occurs. But that is a topic that others on this list have more expertise than me (of course I'd love to read more on how they relate to units of practice from contributors). In any case, machine discovery of these are farther away than for the simpler practices that actually occur within them. Another aspect of the usefulness of multiple levels of units came up during my interview of my colleague. She is a very versatile counselor, used to many populations and therapeutic approaches, She mentioned the usefulness of some behavior therapy approaches derived from animal behavior research and memory research for helping patients with PTSD begin to fell secure in public. The examples she used work best at the repetitive behavior level. When we discussed transformative learning or belonging, the approach changed to more cognitive and social methods. I have found network theory's concept of the giant component extremely useful for thinking about nested units. It starts with random nodes (envision dots on a paper) and adds links one at a time (lines between the dots). Little twig compnents appear all over the paper when this is done. However, when the number of links begins to get close to the number of dots, there is a sudden change in the size of the linked components that results in a "giant component" that links nearly all nodes. This giant component is a model of the next level of unit. All for now. Thanks much for your thoughts. David D On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced in your text, > yes, and quite different from what one could grasp from the previous > e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much > better, so thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the elaboration > would lead to some acknowledgement of the role of needs, real needs, as key > to what the word 'visceral' was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather > than a 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, which is > how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about the significance of > 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' activity, the fundamental fact of a > need and its connections to its production and satisfaction. > > A > > ________________________________ > From: Andy Blunden > Sent: 09 September 2017 03:30 > To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you > raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > > I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin by > *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural processes > (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an > example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not > discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be > visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an > invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) but has > no content other than its expression. People got by without it for > millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in material > reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point or > foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an > abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two > bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > something quite different from the kind of empiricism which uncritically > accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these perceptions > and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > > If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of > analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of analysis > for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of > analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field > obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit of > analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, something > which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some formula > with a moment's reflection. > > > Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's Capital > and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the real > phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But capital > (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without > having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. The > rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a > unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois society > as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total fiction. > Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and development of > concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate of > actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of > introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of > *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > > Andy > > ________________________________ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you > describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know you > do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. In > any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study is, it > is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' > and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be > 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean precisely > this, I am not sure). > > > I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when discussing > hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are > expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact > is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was thinking > that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for ?studying > of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or environment and > hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, only > some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding of > human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as > 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, are we > 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, is it > the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter that > are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too > complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your > object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of > 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it > being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That is, > if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just implied > (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing > in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation that you > mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated > definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already > mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, Vygotsky > was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as the > most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. > > > I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your > e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the production > of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one micro > and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all the > problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a > particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about Michael's > mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a > society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > consciousness in and through each and every single one of our > consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one denoting > the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a > micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > > > If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with that > of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are not > intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral and > sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can then > ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, > as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so > without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but some > production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, > is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; historical > events, which happen to have some individual people having them as inherent > part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > totally unconscious event would not be historical). > > > I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts > like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some > elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep into > questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > > Alfredo > > > > ________________________________ > From: Andy Blunden > Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 > To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > > Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your > immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this sense I > am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did > when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the > action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most > fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > > I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping what > their unit of analysis is. > > In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an > artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is > the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? > What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people to > be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or are we > engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are we > part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The > action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might analyse > the classroom from different perspectives. > > Andy > > ________________________________ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > conflict and the system that sustains it). > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu mailman.ucsd.edu> mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Dirlam < > mailto:modesofpractice@gmail.com> > Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of > what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some > sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need > basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like > the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I > missed his meaning). > > We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability > and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, > but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds > between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how > fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. > So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions > are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity > must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we > move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity > of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just > referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all > help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents > of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and > discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing > the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > David > > On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden ablunden@mira.net> wrote: > > > > Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to > is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly > abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, > Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > > > Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might > say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is > to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of > investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > > just wondering > > Martin > > > On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson < > mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> > > > wrote: > > Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction > to > the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it > is > that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > essential features of the whole". > > Here is their longer explanation: > > "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one > that > preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a > scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate > the > essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > requires > a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic > and > psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > natural > language use also involves social action in a context that includes other > actors and socially significant regularities." > > (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > ) > > ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > about > unit of analysis.? > > ?-greg? > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > > > > > > From ablunden@mira.net Tue Sep 12 09:22:59 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 02:22:59 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: What do you mean by "unit" David? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 13/09/2017 2:16 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > I've been on vacation in a spot with no internet or cell phone service -- > cut off from civilization, perhaps, but that's not as bad as being cut off > from this fascinating discussion :-) > > An idea from each of Alfredo's and Andy's posts generated visceral > reactions in me. Out in the mountains, I spent many hours with a former > student of mine, who has been a licensed clinical social worker in the > western Virginia coalfields for 20 years. We're proposing a book on "Taming > Intelligence" to address the human side of dealing with AI changes in work. > I did a long developmental interview of her (a way of helping people > organize their professional experience) and the 9 needs of Manfred Max-Neef > turned out to be most of the dimensions for organizing her expertise. They > happen to be the topic of one of the 7 chapters we have planned for the > book, but I didn't expect to find them so deeply embedded in the > therapeutic process (my ignorance, probably). Where they fit into modes of > practice are that one of the parameters for describing changes in the > frequency of a practice over time is resources and the 9 needs spell out > the internal effects of resource availability (off the top of my head they > are health-safety, sustenance, leisure, creativity, understanding, liberty, > love, identity, and belonging). > > About the usefulness of a complex nested hierarchy, like biology's, it is > essential to the taming intelligence argument. Repetitive practices (up to > procedures and recipes) are those most vulnerable to automation. We toured > a former coal mine that exhibited what happened to the miners when the > "continuous miner" machine was introduced. Two men could accomplish in an > hour what it took a dozen to achieve in a day before it was introduced. The > devastating effect on miners and their families in the mid-20th century was > similar to the effect that the flying shuttle had on weavers two centuries > earlier. > > Adaptive practices require ongoing changes like the sort of learning that > my voice recognition software does, but also like transformative learning > and the development of expertise. They are more resistant to change, but > call-centers, customer-service personnel, and even journalists are being > affected by them. > > Finally, collaborative and institutional practices are most resistant. We > don't collaborate well until we begin to understand what others know and > can do that we do not. Group and institution formation begins to work when, > I believe, the division of labor occurs. But that is a topic that others on > this list have more expertise than me (of course I'd love to read more on > how they relate to units of practice from contributors). In any case, > machine discovery of these are farther away than for the simpler practices > that actually occur within them. > > Another aspect of the usefulness of multiple levels of units came up during > my interview of my colleague. She is a very versatile counselor, used to > many populations and therapeutic approaches, She mentioned the usefulness > of some behavior therapy approaches derived from animal behavior research > and memory research for helping patients with PTSD begin to fell secure in > public. The examples she used work best at the repetitive behavior level. > When we discussed transformative learning or belonging, the approach > changed to more cognitive and social methods. > > I have found network theory's concept of the giant component extremely > useful for thinking about nested units. It starts with random nodes > (envision dots on a paper) and adds links one at a time (lines between the > dots). Little twig compnents appear all over the paper when this is done. > However, when the number of links begins to get close to the number of > dots, there is a sudden change in the size of the linked components that > results in a "giant component" that links nearly all nodes. This giant > component is a model of the next level of unit. > > All for now. Thanks much for your thoughts. > > > David D > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced in your text, >> yes, and quite different from what one could grasp from the previous >> e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much >> better, so thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the elaboration >> would lead to some acknowledgement of the role of needs, real needs, as key >> to what the word 'visceral' was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather >> than a 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, which is >> how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about the significance of >> 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' activity, the fundamental fact of a >> need and its connections to its production and satisfaction. >> >> A >> >> ________________________________ >> From: Andy Blunden >> Sent: 09 September 2017 03:30 >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you >> raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> >> >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin by >> *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural processes >> (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an >> example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not >> discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be >> visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an >> invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) but has >> no content other than its expression. People got by without it for >> millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in material >> reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point or >> foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an >> abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two >> bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism which uncritically >> accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these perceptions >> and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> >> >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of >> analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of analysis >> for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of >> analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field >> obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit of >> analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, something >> which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some formula >> with a moment's reflection. >> >> >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's Capital >> and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the real >> phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But capital >> (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without >> having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. The >> rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a >> unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois society >> as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total fiction. >> Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and development of >> concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate of >> actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of >> introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of >> *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> >> >> Andy >> >> ________________________________ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you >> describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know you >> do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. In >> any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study is, it >> is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' >> and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean precisely >> this, I am not sure). >> >> >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when discussing >> hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are >> expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological fact >> is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was thinking >> that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for ?studying >> of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or environment and >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, only >> some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding of >> human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, are we >> 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, is it >> the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter that >> are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too >> complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your >> object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it >> being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That is, >> if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just implied >> (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing >> in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation that you >> mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated >> definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already >> mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, Vygotsky >> was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as the >> most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. >> >> >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your >> e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the production >> of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one micro >> and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all the >> problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a >> particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about Michael's >> mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a >> society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of our >> consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one denoting >> the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a >> micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> >> >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with that >> of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are not >> intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral and >> sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can then >> ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, >> as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so >> without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but some >> production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, >> is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; historical >> events, which happen to have some individual people having them as inherent >> part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> >> >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts >> like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some >> elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep into >> questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> >> >> Alfredo >> >> >> >> ________________________________ >> From: Andy Blunden >> Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your >> immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this sense I >> am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did >> when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the >> action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most >> fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping what >> their unit of analysis is. >> >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an >> artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is >> the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't it? >> What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people to >> be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or are we >> engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are we >> part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The >> action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might analyse >> the classroom from different perspectives. >> >> Andy >> >> ________________________________ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> >> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is >> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> >> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a >> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars ways >> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like >> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system >> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> conflict and the system that sustains it). >> >> Alfredo >> ________________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> mailman.ucsd.edu> > mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Dirlam < >> mailto:modesofpractice@gmail.com> >> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of >> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some >> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts need >> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded like >> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if I >> missed his meaning). >> >> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their classifiability >> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an element, >> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical bonds >> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water (how >> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's point. >> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while actions >> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the activity >> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If we >> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the complexity >> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just >> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, >> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents all >> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the constituents >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. >> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, and >> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> >> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of characterizing >> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> >> David >> >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > ablunden@mira.net> wrote: >> >> >> >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to >> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are utterly >> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For example, >> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the >> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> >> >> >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might >> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is >> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of >> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? >> >> just wondering >> >> Martin >> >> >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson < >> mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> >> >> >> wrote: >> >> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of >> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction >> to >> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it >> is >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> essential features of the whole". >> >> Here is their longer explanation: >> >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of >> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate >> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one >> that >> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a >> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate >> the >> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use >> requires >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic >> and >> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but >> natural >> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other >> actors and socially significant regularities." >> >> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct >> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> ) >> >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking >> about >> unit of analysis.? >> >> ?-greg? >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> >> >> >> >> > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 12 13:05:10 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 13:05:10 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Is there a computer simulation/ ?visualization of the network producing a giant component you wrote about available, David? Good luck taming the human capacity you call intelligence! mike On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 9:24 AM Andy Blunden wrote: > What do you mean by "unit" David? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 13/09/2017 2:16 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > > I've been on vacation in a spot with no internet or cell phone service -- > > cut off from civilization, perhaps, but that's not as bad as being cut > off > > from this fascinating discussion :-) > > > > An idea from each of Alfredo's and Andy's posts generated visceral > > reactions in me. Out in the mountains, I spent many hours with a former > > student of mine, who has been a licensed clinical social worker in the > > western Virginia coalfields for 20 years. We're proposing a book on > "Taming > > Intelligence" to address the human side of dealing with AI changes in > work. > > I did a long developmental interview of her (a way of helping people > > organize their professional experience) and the 9 needs of Manfred > Max-Neef > > turned out to be most of the dimensions for organizing her expertise. > They > > happen to be the topic of one of the 7 chapters we have planned for the > > book, but I didn't expect to find them so deeply embedded in the > > therapeutic process (my ignorance, probably). Where they fit into modes > of > > practice are that one of the parameters for describing changes in the > > frequency of a practice over time is resources and the 9 needs spell out > > the internal effects of resource availability (off the top of my head > they > > are health-safety, sustenance, leisure, creativity, understanding, > liberty, > > love, identity, and belonging). > > > > About the usefulness of a complex nested hierarchy, like biology's, it is > > essential to the taming intelligence argument. Repetitive practices (up > to > > procedures and recipes) are those most vulnerable to automation. We > toured > > a former coal mine that exhibited what happened to the miners when the > > "continuous miner" machine was introduced. Two men could accomplish in an > > hour what it took a dozen to achieve in a day before it was introduced. > The > > devastating effect on miners and their families in the mid-20th century > was > > similar to the effect that the flying shuttle had on weavers two > centuries > > earlier. > > > > Adaptive practices require ongoing changes like the sort of learning that > > my voice recognition software does, but also like transformative learning > > and the development of expertise. They are more resistant to change, but > > call-centers, customer-service personnel, and even journalists are being > > affected by them. > > > > Finally, collaborative and institutional practices are most resistant. We > > don't collaborate well until we begin to understand what others know and > > can do that we do not. Group and institution formation begins to work > when, > > I believe, the division of labor occurs. But that is a topic that others > on > > this list have more expertise than me (of course I'd love to read more on > > how they relate to units of practice from contributors). In any case, > > machine discovery of these are farther away than for the simpler > practices > > that actually occur within them. > > > > Another aspect of the usefulness of multiple levels of units came up > during > > my interview of my colleague. She is a very versatile counselor, used to > > many populations and therapeutic approaches, She mentioned the usefulness > > of some behavior therapy approaches derived from animal behavior research > > and memory research for helping patients with PTSD begin to fell secure > in > > public. The examples she used work best at the repetitive behavior level. > > When we discussed transformative learning or belonging, the approach > > changed to more cognitive and social methods. > > > > I have found network theory's concept of the giant component extremely > > useful for thinking about nested units. It starts with random nodes > > (envision dots on a paper) and adds links one at a time (lines between > the > > dots). Little twig compnents appear all over the paper when this is done. > > However, when the number of links begins to get close to the number of > > dots, there is a sudden change in the size of the linked components that > > results in a "giant component" that links nearly all nodes. This giant > > component is a model of the next level of unit. > > > > All for now. Thanks much for your thoughts. > > > > > > David D > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> > > wrote: > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced in your text, > >> yes, and quite different from what one could grasp from the previous > >> e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your elaboration on micro- and macro-unit > much > >> better, so thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the elaboration > >> would lead to some acknowledgement of the role of needs, real needs, as > key > >> to what the word 'visceral' was suggesting here. I was thinking that > rather > >> than a 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, which > is > >> how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about the significance of > >> 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' activity, the fundamental fact of > a > >> need and its connections to its production and satisfaction. > >> > >> A > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> From: Andy Blunden > >> Sent: 09 September 2017 03:30 > >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > >> > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you > >> raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics. > org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > >> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > >> > >> > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin by > >> *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural > processes > >> (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an > >> example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not > >> discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be > >> visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an > >> invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) but > has > >> no content other than its expression. People got by without it for > >> millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in material > >> reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point or > >> foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an > >> abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two > >> bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism which uncritically > >> accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these > perceptions > >> and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > >> > >> > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of > >> analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of > analysis > >> for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a > unit of > >> analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field > >> obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit of > >> analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, > something > >> which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some > formula > >> with a moment's reflection. > >> > >> > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's > Capital > >> and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the real > >> phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But capital > >> (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without > >> having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. > The > >> rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital > (i.e., a > >> unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > society > >> as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total > fiction. > >> Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and > development of > >> concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate of > >> actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of > >> introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of > >> *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > >> > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you > >> describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know > you > >> do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the > correct > >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. In > >> any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study > is, it > >> is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' > >> and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be > >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean precisely > >> this, I am not sure). > >> > >> > >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when > discussing > >> hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are > >> expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological > fact > >> is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was > thinking > >> that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for > ?studying > >> of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or environment > and > >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, > only > >> some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding of > >> human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as > >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, are > we > >> 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, > is it > >> the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter > that > >> are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too > >> complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your > >> object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of > >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it > >> being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That > is, > >> if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just > implied > >> (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am > arguing > >> in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation that > you > >> mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated > >> definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already > >> mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > Vygotsky > >> was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as > the > >> most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. > >> > >> > >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your > >> e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the > production > >> of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are > discussing > >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one micro > >> and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all the > >> problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea > of > >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a > >> particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about Michael's > >> mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a > >> society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of our > >> consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one denoting > >> the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a > >> micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > >> > >> > >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with > that > >> of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are > not > >> intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral > and > >> sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can then > >> ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for > example, > >> as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so > >> without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but > some > >> production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my > view, > >> is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; > historical > >> events, which happen to have some individual people having them as > inherent > >> part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > >> > >> > >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts > >> like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some > >> elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep > into > >> questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> > >> > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> From: Andy Blunden > >> Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 > >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > >> > >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your > >> immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this > sense I > >> am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see > guns > >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx did > >> when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from the > >> action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form > of > >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most > >> fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > >> > >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping > what > >> their unit of analysis is. > >> > >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is an > >> artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That is > >> the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > it? > >> What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people > to > >> be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or > are we > >> engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or are > we > >> part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? The > >> action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might > analyse > >> the classroom from different perspectives. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > >> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > >> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > >> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > >> > >> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a > >> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars > ways > >> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like > >> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system > >> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > >> conflict and the system that sustains it). > >> > >> Alfredo > >> ________________________________________ > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@ > >> mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Dirlam >< > >> mailto:modesofpractice@gmail.com> > >> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > >> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception of > >> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have some > >> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > need > >> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded > like > >> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me if > I > >> missed his meaning). > >> > >> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > classifiability > >> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > element, > >> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > bonds > >> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > (how > >> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > point. > >> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > actions > >> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > activity > >> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If > we > >> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > complexity > >> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not just > >> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > >> classification, and interrelations between cells and their constituents > all > >> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > constituents > >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > >> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, > and > >> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > >> > >> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > characterizing > >> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >> > >> David > >> > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > >> ablunden@mira.net> wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire to > >> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are > utterly > >> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > example, > >> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > >> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> > >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might > >> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that > is > >> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of > >> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > >> > >> just wondering > >> > >> Martin > >> > >> > >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson < > >> mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> > >> > >> > >> wrote: > >> > >> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > >> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction > >> to > >> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it > >> is > >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > >> essential features of the whole". > >> > >> Here is their longer explanation: > >> > >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > >> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > >> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one > >> that > >> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, > a > >> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate > >> the > >> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > >> requires > >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > >> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic > >> and > >> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > >> natural > >> language use also involves social action in a context that includes > other > >> actors and socially significant regularities." > >> > >> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > >> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >> ) > >> > >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > >> about > >> unit of analysis.? > >> > >> ?-greg? > >> > >> -- > >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >> Assistant Professor > >> Department of Anthropology > >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >> Brigham Young University > >> Provo, UT 84602 > >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Tue Sep 12 18:03:21 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 01:03:21 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5hbHlz?= =?utf-8?q?is?= References: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> For those XMCA-ers who read Russian?-??I put into the FB?s group of Cultural and Historical Psychology a Russian copy (sometimes the original,sometimes my translation into Russian from English). https://www.facebook.com/groups/564569043580624/permalink/1437218002982386/So Icontinue: It seems tome that the completely sincere attempt of Vygotsky to bring Marxism intopsychology, ended in total failure, unless, of course, the fact that he leftus a scientific school, or probably better to say scientific collective withinthe framework of which the task of elaboration of true scientific (=?arxist) materialistic psychology wascontinued by A.N.Leontiev and indirectly by E.V.Ilyenkov, who advanced insolving this problem much further. As forVygotsky, he left us with many profound methodological speculations and ... failedin realization of the most of them. Thus, he seduced us with the absolutelycorrect reasoning about the need to ascend from the abstract to the concrete,from the germ cell to the developed organic whole, but at the same time he failedin the search of such germ cell. With enthusiasmhe tried to talk about the so-called higher mental functions, about the sensesand perezhivaniyah, and at the same time he did not notice that he forgot togive a theoretical definition of the most abstract level of his theory - thedefinition of lower or elementary mental functions. For a person who put psychologists to thetask of creating their own psychological ?Das Kapital?, this was a mistake of acosmic scale. To admit it is like trying to determine the nature of surplusvalue and profit, forgetting to first give the definition and detailed analysisof goods and value as such, or accidentally forget to write the first volume of?Das Kapital? and start research right from the second and the third one. Suchforgetfulness can give as its inevitable result only a vulgar theory. Let'ssay, as Proudhon's "theory", which explained the capitalistexploitation ... by theft. Indiscussions about the "germ" of the human psyche, tons of paper werewritten (or many PC keyboards were broken :-) ) and many theorists call this orthat psychological phenomenon as such an embryo. Meanwhile, to point out thisor that phenomenon as a germ cell of human consciousness, means to do less thana half of the matter. It is necessary to analyze it in its contradictorydefinitions and show how all higher forms of human activity are born out of themovement of these contradictions. In other words, it is not enough to point outthe most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to thelevel of the most developed, concrete. Andbesides, if we want to build a Marxist psychology and not the next ideologicalfake, candidature for the role of "germ cells" must be real,practical relation, not something only subjectively experienced, not somethingjust imaginary. Thus so called perezhivanie is obviously not suited for thisrole just for this reason. It is obvious that the perezhivanie as apsychological phenomenon is something much more developed, much more concretethan what can be seen as the most abstract, the most elementary brick in thebuilding of psychological ?Das Kapital?. The huge step in the right direction with his attemptto identify and analyze the elementary psychological relation was made byAlexey Leontiev in his "Problems of development of psyche". In fact, he tried tocorrect Vygotsky's gross error - his attempt to start from the end, from the analysis not of the most abstract, but of the most concrete, directly fromhigher mental functions. And on this I will again stop today, for on the clock is already 4 o'clock inthe morning :-) ???????, 12 ???????? 2017 3:27 Alexander Surmava ?????(?): Some reflections on the category of activity Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity.?Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. ?(In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect.?According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ? ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From ivan@llaisdy.com Wed Sep 13 04:00:23 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 12:00:23 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFs?= =?utf-8?q?ysis?= In-Reply-To: <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> <41c3d962-130f-2fac-2821-eb918e4a91ab@mira.net> <1668729296.12202614.1505149508601@mail.yahoo.com> <9294F5AB-D705-4EA4-911E-BAD3D3A89914@llaisdy.com> <1505162095842.48041@iped.uio.no> <454598364.12569807.1505176021181@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3c2008ba-1db1-ec70-1008-8cfd96831a10@llaisdy.com> Dear Sasha I like this summary ... until the bit where you link Vygotsky with Rousseau and Kant. To my eye, Vygotsky's writing has the influence of Spinoza stamped all over it.? The development of the child is a story of the smaller, relatively passive body (i.e. the child) becoming aligned with, sharing in the life of, the larger, relatively active body (i.e. the social environment). This is not a story of pre-existing entities coming to an agreement or a social contract. Do you think Kant's influence on Vygotsky is stronger than Spinoza's? Best wishes Ivan On 12/09/2017 01:27, Alexander Surmava wrote: > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity.?Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. ?(In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect.?According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): > > > Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in >> English would accomplish the job. >> >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Mike, >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). >>> >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >>> (insulted etc). >>> >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >>> you >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >>> person and environment. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >>>> >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >>>> >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >>> suffering >>>> or sensation. >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >>> meaning >>>> significantly. >>>> >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >>> term >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >>>> Vasiliuk. >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Dear Sasha >>>>>> >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >>> and >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >>>> neo >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >>> And I >>>> am >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >>>> from >>>>>> Spinoza :-). >>>>>>> Sasha >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >>>> ablunden@mira.net >>>>>> ?????(?): >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>>>>> with activity. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >>> is >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >>> expressions >>>> of >>>>> a >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >>> particulars >>>>> ways >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >>>> like >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >>>> system >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>> edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >>>>> conception >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >>> stress >>>> the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >>>> have >>>>>> some >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >>>> experts >>>>>> need >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>>>>> (worded like >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >>> correct >>>> me >>>>>> if I >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>>>>> classifiability >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >>> an >>>>>> element, >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >>>> chemical >>>>>> bonds >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water >>>>>> (how >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >>>> Kellogg's >>>>>> point. >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >>> while >>>>>> actions >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >>> the >>>>>> activity >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >>>> them. >>>>>> If we >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >>> the >>>>>> complexity >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >>> not >>>>>> just >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>>>>> constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >>> illustrate >>>>> that. >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>>>>> activities, and >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>>>>> characterizing >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >>> ablunden@mira.net> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>>>>> aspire to >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >>> which >>>> are >>>>>> utterly >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >>> For >>>>>> example, >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >>>> not >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >>>> one >>>>>> might >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>>>>> course of >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson>>>> gmail.com >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >>> of >>>>>> unit of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>>>>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >>>> short >>>>>> of it >>>>>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >>>>> "unit >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >>> an >>>>>> adequate >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >>>> analysis - >>>>>> one >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >>>> study >>>>>> water, a >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >>> of >>>> an >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >>>> hydrogen >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>>>>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >>> language >>>> use >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >>> communication, >>>>> but >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>>>>> includes other >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >>>>> thinking >>>>>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > > > -- ============================================================ Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD Llaisdy Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd Speech Technology Research and Development ivan@llaisdy.com @llaisdy llaisdy.wordpress.com github.com/llaisdy www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin festina lente ============================================================ From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Wed Sep 13 04:31:25 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 11:31:25 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6IFN0YWxpbiBhbmQgVnlnb3Rza3k=?= In-Reply-To: <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> Message-ID: <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works.?. Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin ?????(?): Thanks everyone. Mike,? your experience and knowledge are really helpful. I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky.? But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. See http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf Shirley > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > subject by the authors. > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > But that's just my opinion. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >> >> Leif >> Sweden >> >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >> : >> >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>> Shirley >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>> >>>> Dear Shirley >>>> >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>> >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>> >>>> Best wishes >>>> >>>> Ivan >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> festina lente >>>> >>>> >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> We read? how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >> for the ban? >>>>> >>>>> Shirley Franklin >>> >>> >> >> >> From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Wed Sep 13 05:32:47 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 15:32:47 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogU3RhbGluIGFuZCBWeWdvdHNreQ==?= In-Reply-To: <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava < alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely > that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, > the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of > some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The > formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his > works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for > Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should > rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not > withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, > attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's > books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely > ineffective. > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com> ?????(?): > > > Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. > I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, > who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory > has been revised. > See http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf > pdf> > > Shirley > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There > was > > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles > denouncing > > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > Vygotsky-Studies-State/dp/1138887307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books& > ie=UTF8&qid=1505154601&sr=1-1&keywords=Vygotsky+revolution> > > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > > subject by the authors. > > > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out > and > > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the > 1960's. > > > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > > > But that's just my opinion. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > > > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned > >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. > >> > >> Leif > >> Sweden > >> > >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com > >>> : > >> > >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also > >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. > >>> Shirley > >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Dear Shirley > >>>> > >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper > >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. > >> There's a pdf in the list archives: > >>>> > >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf > >>>> > >>>> Best wishes > >>>> > >>>> Ivan > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> festina lente > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < > >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason > >> for the ban? > >>>>> > >>>>> Shirley Franklin > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 13 05:53:33 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 12:53:33 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogU3RhbGluIGFuZCBWeWdvdHNreQ==?= In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com>, Message-ID: <1505307212994.68990@iped.uio.no> Yes, hopefully Helena can contribute, thanks Ulvi, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Ulvi ??il Sent: 13 September 2017 14:32 To: Alexander Surmava; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; Helena Sheehan Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Stalin and Vygotsky I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava < alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely > that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, > the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of > some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The > formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his > works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for > Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should > rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not > withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, > attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's > books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely > ineffective. > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com> ?????(?): > > > Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. > I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, > who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory > has been revised. > See http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf > pdf> > > Shirley > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There > was > > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles > denouncing > > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > Vygotsky-Studies-State/dp/1138887307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books& > ie=UTF8&qid=1505154601&sr=1-1&keywords=Vygotsky+revolution> > > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > > subject by the authors. > > > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out > and > > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the > 1960's. > > > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > > > But that's just my opinion. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > > > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned > >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. > >> > >> Leif > >> Sweden > >> > >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com > >>> : > >> > >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also > >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. > >>> Shirley > >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Dear Shirley > >>>> > >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper > >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. > >> There's a pdf in the list archives: > >>>> > >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_06.dir/pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf > >>>> > >>>> Best wishes > >>>> > >>>> Ivan > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> festina lente > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < > >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason > >> for the ban? > >>>>> > >>>>> Shirley Franklin > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Wed Sep 13 06:39:48 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 13:39:48 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAg0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogU3RhbGluIGFuZCBWeWdvdHNr?= =?utf-8?q?y?= In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Ulvi, I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They were the executioners of the Bolsheviks.There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan__Jan_Ennestovich.Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And sad for Marxist philosophy, too.So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. Best wishes, Sasha ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava wrote: Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works.?. Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. ? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin ?????(?): ?Thanks everyone. Mike,? your experience and knowledge are really helpful. I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky.? But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf Shirley > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > subject by the authors. > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > But that's just my opinion. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >> >> Leif >> Sweden >> >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >> : >> >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>> Shirley >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>> >>>> Dear Shirley >>>> >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>> >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>> >>>> Best wishes >>>> >>>> Ivan >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> festina lente >>>> >>>> >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> We read? how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >> for the ban? >>>>> >>>>> Shirley Franklin >>> >>> >> >> >> From ivan@llaisdy.com Wed Sep 13 06:51:20 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 14:51:20 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiBTdGFsaW4gYW5kIFZ5Z290?= =?utf-8?q?sky?= In-Reply-To: <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <51a9aa93-5ab4-4275-a6a6-2b379b7fbc23@llaisdy.com> Here's a bit of Sten's story: http://www.executedtoday.com/2011/06/19/1937-jan-sten-stalin-philosophy/ Ivan On 13/09/2017 14:39, Alexander Surmava wrote: > Dear Ulvi, > I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They were the executioners of the Bolsheviks.There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan__Jan_Ennestovich.Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And sad for Marxist philosophy, too.So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. > Best wishes, > Sasha > > ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): > > > I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. > Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. > I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. > > > > > On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava wrote: > > Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works.?. Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. > > ? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin ?????(?): > > > ?Thanks everyone. Mike,? your experience and knowledge are really helpful. > I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky.? But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. > See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf > > Shirley > >> On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: >> >> Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- >> >> The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR >> from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was >> a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I >> forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing >> Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in >> Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art >> >> >> you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the >> subject by the authors. >> >> I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and >> I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. >> >> His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But >> that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world >> that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. >> >> But that's just my opinion. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < >> leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: >> >>> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >>> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >>> >>> Leif >>> Sweden >>> >>> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >>> : >>>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >>> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>>> Shirley >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Dear Shirley >>>>> >>>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >>> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >>> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>>> >>>>> Best wishes >>>>> >>>>> Ivan >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> festina lente >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >>> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>>> We read? how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >>> for the ban? >>>>>> Shirley Franklin >>>> >>> >>> > > > > > > > -- ============================================================ Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD Llaisdy Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd Speech Technology Research and Development ivan@llaisdy.com @llaisdy llaisdy.wordpress.com github.com/llaisdy www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin festina lente ============================================================ From ivan@llaisdy.com Wed Sep 13 06:54:05 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 14:54:05 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiBTdGFsaW4gYW5kIFZ5Z290?= =?utf-8?q?sky?= In-Reply-To: <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No English Wikipedia page, this is the Russian: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%8D%D0%BD,_%D0%AF%D0%BD_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 Ivan On 13/09/2017 14:39, Alexander Surmava wrote: > Dear Ulvi, > I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They were the executioners of the Bolsheviks.There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan__Jan_Ennestovich.Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And sad for Marxist philosophy, too.So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. > Best wishes, > Sasha > > ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): > > > I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. > Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. > I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. > > > > > On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava wrote: > > Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works.?. Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. > > ? ? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin ?????(?): > > > ?Thanks everyone. Mike,? your experience and knowledge are really helpful. > I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky.? But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. > See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf > > Shirley > >> On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: >> >> Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- >> >> The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR >> from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was >> a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I >> forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing >> Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in >> Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art >> >> >> you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the >> subject by the authors. >> >> I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and >> I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. >> >> His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But >> that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world >> that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. >> >> But that's just my opinion. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < >> leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: >> >>> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >>> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >>> >>> Leif >>> Sweden >>> >>> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >>> : >>>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >>> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>>> Shirley >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Dear Shirley >>>>> >>>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >>> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >>> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>>> >>>>> Best wishes >>>>> >>>>> Ivan >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> festina lente >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >>> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>>> We read? how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >>> for the ban? >>>>>> Shirley Franklin >>>> >>> >>> > > > > > > > -- ============================================================ Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD Llaisdy Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd Speech Technology Research and Development ivan@llaisdy.com @llaisdy llaisdy.wordpress.com github.com/llaisdy www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin festina lente ============================================================ From leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com Wed Sep 13 08:58:57 2017 From: leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com (Leif Strandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 17:58:57 +0200 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiBTdGFsaW4gYW5kIFZ5Z290?= =?utf-8?q?sky?= In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <022E3F65-1C93-4510-892D-57C53A7FEC19@telia.com> Andrei Sergeyevich Bubnov (1883 ?1938) People's Commissar for Enlightment In 1929, he replaced Lunacharsky as People's Commissar for Education. As Commissar for Education, he ended the period of progressive, experimental educational practices and switched the emphasis to training in practical industrial skills. Bubnov walks around and explains the Central Committee's pedology decree, and explicitly marks Vygotsky. Stalin probably heard of the name Vygotsky mentioned. In 1938 Bubnov was executed. Leif Sweden 13 sep 2017 kl. 15:54 skrev Ivan Uemlianin : > No English Wikipedia page, this is the Russian: > > https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%8D%D0%BD,_%D0%AF%D0%BD_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 > > Ivan > > > On 13/09/2017 14:39, Alexander Surmava wrote: >> Dear Ulvi, >> I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They were the executioners of the Bolsheviks.There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan__Jan_Ennestovich.Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And sad for Marxist philosophy, too.So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. >> Best wishes, >> Sasha >> >> ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): >> >> I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of Science. >> Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. >> I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. >> >> >> >> >> On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava wrote: >> >> Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely ineffective. >> >> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin ?????(?): >> >> >> Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. >> I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory has been revised. >> See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf >> >> Shirley >> >>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: >>> >>> Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- >>> >>> The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR >>> from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There was >>> a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I >>> forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles denouncing >>> Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in >>> Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art >>> >>> >>> you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the >>> subject by the authors. >>> >>> I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out and >>> I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the 1960's. >>> >>> His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But >>> that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world >>> that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. >>> >>> But that's just my opinion. >>> >>> mike >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < >>> leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: >>> >>>> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned >>>> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >>>> >>>> Leif >>>> Sweden >>>> >>>> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin >>>> : >>>>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >>>> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >>>>> Shirley >>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Shirley >>>>>> >>>>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper >>>> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >>>> There's a pdf in the list archives: >>>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>> Best wishes >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >>>> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >>>> for the ban? >>>>>>> Shirley Franklin >>>>> >>>> >>>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > -- > ============================================================ > Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD > Llaisdy > > Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd > Speech Technology Research and Development > > ivan@llaisdy.com > @llaisdy > llaisdy.wordpress.com > github.com/llaisdy > www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin > > festina lente > ============================================================ > From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Wed Sep 13 11:41:12 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 21:41:12 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Helena Sheehan Date: 13 September 2017 at 18:31 Subject: Stalin & Vygotsky To: Ulvi ??il Hi there. I tried to reply to your list, but it got rejected, so perhaps you could post it. Best to you, Helena Hi to you all. It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area. All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the approaches cast aside. In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. Regards, Helena Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ *S?anadh R?omhphoist/Email DisclaimerT? an r?omhphost seo agus aon chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi r?n agus is lena ?s?id ag an seola? agus sin amh?in ?. Is f?idir tuilleadh a l?amh anseo. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Read more here. * From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Wed Sep 13 11:40:41 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 21:40:41 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?RndkOiDQntGC0LI6ICDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiBTdGFsaW4gYW5kIFZ5?= =?utf-8?q?gotsky?= In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Helena Sheehan Date: 13 September 2017 at 18:27 Subject: Re: ???: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: Stalin and Vygotsky To: Alexander Surmava Cc: Ulvi ??il , "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" < xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> Hi to you all. It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area. All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the approaches cast aside. In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. Regards, Helena Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ On 13 September 2017 at 14:39, Alexander Surmava < alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: > Dear Ulvi, > I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any > serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They > were the executioners of the Bolsheviks. > There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical > education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on > the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Stan__Jan_Ennestovich. > Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And > sad for Marxist philosophy, too. > So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the > nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the > theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. > Best wishes, > Sasha > > > ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): > > > I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be quite > useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and Philosophy of > Science. > > Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, > isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is > difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. > > I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public > affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a > distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. > > > > > > On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava < > alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely > that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, > the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of > some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The > formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his > works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for > Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should > rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not > withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, > attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's > books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely > ineffective. > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com> ?????(?): > > > Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. > I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, > who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory > has been revised. > See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ > presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf ca/yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016. pdf> > > Shirley > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: > > > > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- > > > > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the USSR > > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There > was > > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I > > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles > denouncing > > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in > > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art > > Vygotsky-Studies-State/dp/ 1138887307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books& > ie=UTF8&qid=1505154601&sr=1-1& keywords=Vygotsky+revolution> > > > > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the > > subject by the authors. > > > > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out > and > > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the > 1960's. > > > > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But > > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world > > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. > > > > But that's just my opinion. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < > > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: > > > >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was mentioned > >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. > >> > >> Leif > >> Sweden > >> > >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin < > s.franklin08@btinternet.com > >>> : > >> > >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also > >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. > >>> Shirley > >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Dear Shirley > >>>> > >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 paper > >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. > >> There's a pdf in the list archives: > >>>> > >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ > pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf > >>>> > >>>> Best wishes > >>>> > >>>> Ivan > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> festina lente > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < > >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason > >> for the ban? > >>>>> > >>>>> Shirley Franklin > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > > *S?anadh R?omhphoist/Email DisclaimerT? an r?omhphost seo agus aon chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi r?n agus is lena ?s?id ag an seola? agus sin amh?in ?. Is f?idir tuilleadh a l?amh anseo. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Read more here. * From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Wed Sep 13 12:11:32 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 22:11:32 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAg0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogU3RhbGluIGFuZCBWeWdv?= =?utf-8?q?tsky?= In-Reply-To: References: <40791B1E-E4AA-472E-8721-4CB35D8E55C2@llaisdy.com> <90BD4569-74E4-4CF0-ABE1-DBABF22AE710@telia.com> <41E9A3A2-1267-40F4-BC69-34AB17F5AE09@btinternet.com> <1967344099.1861160.1505302285706@mail.yahoo.com> <158895005.2051266.1505309988033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Then, bringing together Mike's and Helena's comments, let me say this: If such experts in the field can not confirm the ban, I would say, without aiming in any way to discharge Stalin and CPSU, that, if the expression that "Vygotsky was banned in USSR" is so spread in he West, in the capitalist world, hen I would question this as an ani-propaganda against Stalin, USSR and CPSU. And I would add: Thus, so widespread crimes and faults of these three seem to be so inadequate that, imperialism feels itself obliged to add to these crimes and faults. I am not in anyway an ardent advocate of this mad violence in USSR under Stalin (I believe it has objective and subjective causes) but I think tha I would call this situation as an anti-communist inflation which needs a deflation. For instance, the Nazi lie that Katyn massacre belongs to Soviets was disproved precisely by Grover Furr. * As to theoretical deficiencies of Stalin, I agree completely. Uneven development. Both the great evil and the advantage of humanity for bounds. Uneven because, neither Trotsky nor Stalin nor Buharin could replace Lenin in terms of theoretical leadership. In fact, if the leadership of communist movement is not a theoretician, there we have a disaster, I firmly believe. Trostky, as Lenin said, was the most theoretical one, but he was a disaster politically. I firmly believe that huge problems of communism are due to the fact that, leadership could not be reproduced either individually or collectively, as met by Vladimir ?lyich. It is a disaster that a party like CPSU could not find the best person to take over in neither in 1924 nor in 1953. This is not excusable. Only Cubans managed this but not theoretically but politically. On 13 September 2017 at 18:27, Helena Sheehan wrote: > Hi to you all. > > It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area. > > All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates > about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under > considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would > be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the > approaches cast aside. > > In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was > criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing > schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist > construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. > > Regards, > Helena > > Professor Helena Sheehan > Dublin City University > Dublin 9 Ireland > http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ > > On 13 September 2017 at 14:39, Alexander Surmava < > alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Dear Ulvi, >> I rathe think that Stalin and his henchmen were infinitely far from any >> serious theoretical culture. And the Stalinists were not Bolsheviks. They >> were the executioners of the Bolsheviks. >> There is a history of how Stalin, who guessed that his philosophical >> education is very limping, asked Stan to read him a course of lectures on >> the philosophy of Hegel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ >> Stan__Jan_Ennestovich. >> Alas ... These lectures ended sadly. For Stan. He was shot in 1937. And >> sad for Marxist philosophy, too. >> So even with a very great desire, Stalin could hardly have understood the >> nuances that distinguished Vygotsky's theoretical views from the >> theoretical views of Leontyev or Rubinstein. >> Best wishes, >> Sasha >> >> >> ?????, 13 ???????? 2017 15:32 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): >> >> >> I think Dr. Helena Sheehan's participation in this discussion can be >> quite useful. She wrote on this issue in her excellent Marxism and >> Philosophy of Science. >> >> Even if Stalin did not hear Vygotsky's name, there is he CPSU decree, >> isn't it and Vytgotsky was the leading figure in this respect. So, it is >> difficult that Stalin did not hear his name. >> >> I think Bolshevik leaders and statesmen were involved in such public >> affairs and followed in detail, in art, in science even though from a >> distance. This is bolshevik manner I believe. >> >> >> >> >> >> On 13 September 2017 at 14:31, Alexander Surmava < >> alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> wrote: >> >> Hardly had Stalin ever heard Vygotsky's name. And it is even less likely >> that he could have any substantive claims to his theorizing. Most likely, >> the secret cause of all the campaign directed against him was the desire of >> some of the academic circles to curry favor with the authorities. The >> formal reason for the campaign was that Vygotsky quoted Trotsky in his >> works. . Trotsky's name was completely demonized by 1935. Trotsky for >> Soviet propaganda was a kind of Devil in persona. Therefore, we should >> rather be surprised if books with such virulent references were not >> withdrawn from libraries, and their author was not banned.Accordingly, >> attempts to look for genuine reasons for the persecution of Vygotsky's >> books and ideas in the content part of his texts seem to me completely >> ineffective. >> >> ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 21:59 Shirley Franklin < >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> ?????(?): >> >> >> Thanks everyone. Mike, your experience and knowledge are really helpful. >> I thought I had read at some point that his works were banned by Stalin, >> who had a minder put onto Vygostky. But I now see that the banning theory >> has been revised. >> See http://individual.utoronto.ca/ yasnitsky/texts/ >> presentationBarcelona-2016.pdf > ca/yasnitsky/texts/ presentationBarcelona-2016. pdf> >> >> Shirley >> >> > On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:38, mike cole wrote: >> > >> > Ivan, Shirely, Leif et al ---- >> > >> > The question of the ways in which Vygotsky's work was treated in the >> USSR >> > from the mid-1930's to the mid 1950's is the subject of dispute. There >> was >> > a special issue of the journal, Russian and East European Psychology (I >> > forget the year, sorry) that translates a whole set of articles >> denouncing >> > Vygotksy and his followers. A recent book, Revisionist Revolution in >> > Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art >> > > Vygotsky-Studies-State/dp/ 1138887307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books& >> ie=UTF8&qid=1505154601&sr=1-1& keywords=Vygotsky+revolution> >> > >> > you can find on Amazon and there are several published articles on the >> > subject by the authors. >> > >> > I personally saw copies of Vyotsky's books with the front piece cut out >> and >> > I listened to the stories told in Moscow and (the Leningrad) in the >> 1960's. >> > >> > His works were not banned in the sense that word is ordinarily used. But >> > that his followers felt in an unusually vulnerable situation in a world >> > that was horrendously dangerous to live in any, I have no doubt. >> > >> > But that's just my opinion. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 2:50 AM, Leif Strandberg < >> > leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: >> > >> >> A friend of mine who speaks Russian tells me that Vygotsky was >> mentioned >> >> in the Russian encyclopedia from the1940's. >> >> >> >> Leif >> >> Sweden >> >> >> >> 11 sep 2017 kl. 10:58 skrev Shirley Franklin < >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com >> >>> : >> >> >> >>> Thanks for the ref, Ivan. I thought his books were banned. I also >> >> thought that Stalin put a minder onto V. >> >>> Shirley >> >>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:50, Ivan Uemlianin wrote: >> >>>> >> >>>> Dear Shirley >> >>>> >> >>>> I don't know if his work was actually banned, but Rudneva's 1936 >> paper >> >> "Vygotsky?s Pedological Distortions" was part of the move against him. >> >> There's a pdf in the list archives: >> >>>> >> >>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/ xmcamail.2011_06.dir/ >> pdfm7B5o5wrKB.pdf >> >>>> >> >>>> Best wishes >> >>>> >> >>>> Ivan >> >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> -- >> >>>> festina lente >> >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 09:36, Shirley Franklin < >> >> s.franklin08@btinternet.com> wrote: >> >>>>> >> >>>>> We read how Stalin banned Vygotsky?s books, etc. What is the reason >> >> for the ban? >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Shirley Franklin >> >>> >> >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > *S?anadh R?omhphoist/Email DisclaimerT? an r?omhphost seo agus aon chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi r?n agus is lena ?s?id ag an seola? agus sin amh?in ?. Is f?idir tuilleadh a l?amh anseo. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Read more here. * > > > > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 13 12:12:45 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 19:12:45 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1505329965570.27473@iped.uio.no> Thanks Ulvi, but Helena's message had made it through the list as well; I am not sure why she got that message. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Ulvi ??il Sent: 13 September 2017 20:41 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Helena Sheehan Date: 13 September 2017 at 18:31 Subject: Stalin & Vygotsky To: Ulvi ??il Hi there. I tried to reply to your list, but it got rejected, so perhaps you could post it. Best to you, Helena Hi to you all. It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area. All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the approaches cast aside. In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. Regards, Helena Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ *S?anadh R?omhphoist/Email DisclaimerT? an r?omhphost seo agus aon chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi r?n agus is lena ?s?id ag an seola? agus sin amh?in ?. Is f?idir tuilleadh a l?amh anseo. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Read more here. * From lpscholar2@gmail.com Wed Sep 13 16:32:48 2017 From: lpscholar2@gmail.com (Larry Purss) Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 16:32:48 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <1505329965570.27473@iped.uio.no> References: , <1505329965570.27473@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <59b9c01f.8c82620a.5cf5d.7598@mx.google.com> I am re-posting the following two paragraphs that Helena?s message expressed .... Listening to Helena?s *ordinary phrase * such as when she says [approaches cast aside] I am within a place where we hear the particular specific word *approaches* is an *extraordinary* awakening moment indicating *movement* & *opening*. Listening carefully to Helena?s word [approaches] I hear also [passibility] & [carrying over] in Helena?s personal word using [approaches].... Here is the context of 2 paragraphs All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the approaches cast aside. In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: September 13, 2017 12:15 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky Thanks Ulvi, but Helena's message had made it through the list as well; I am not sure why she got that message. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Ulvi ??il Sent: 13 September 2017 20:41 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Stalin & Vygotsky ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Helena Sheehan Date: 13 September 2017 at 18:31 Subject: Stalin & Vygotsky To: Ulvi ??il Hi there. I tried to reply to your list, but it got rejected, so perhaps you could post it. Best to you, Helena Hi to you all. It's a long time since I conducted my research in this area. All academic disciplines in the USSR were characterised by lively debates about their theoretical foundations in the 1920s, but came under considerable pressure in the 1930s to come up with one position that would be the orthodox marxist position with sometimes dire consequences for the approaches cast aside. In the case of psychology, it spent the decade in disarray. Vygotsky was criticised at an official congress in 1930, which found all existing schools of soviet psychology inadequate to the tasks of socialist construction. I don't know if Vygotsky was actually banned though. Regards, Helena Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ Professor Helena Sheehan Dublin City University Dublin 9 Ireland http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/ *S?anadh R?omhphoist/Email DisclaimerT? an r?omhphost seo agus aon chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi r?n agus is lena ?s?id ag an seola? agus sin amh?in ?. Is f?idir tuilleadh a l?amh anseo. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Read more here. * From peterefranks@gmail.com Thu Sep 14 00:56:37 2017 From: peterefranks@gmail.com (Peter Franks) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 09:56:37 +0200 Subject: [Xmca-l] Crisis of Social Psychology Message-ID: The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the understanding of that crisis. https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 I would be interested in comments. *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 Cell: 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Sep 14 04:05:32 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 11:05:32 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Crisis of Social Psychology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing, Peter. Two questions having just seen the front cover and downloaded the file. First, the front cover picture is quite dramatic and intriguing, Is there something about it in the book or that you could tell us here (artist, why)? Second, which crisis you refer to in particular and is it over now? Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Peter Franks Sent: 14 September 2017 09:56 To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Crisis of Social Psychology The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the understanding of that crisis. https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 I would be interested in comments. *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 Cell: 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za From peterefranks@gmail.com Thu Sep 14 05:02:45 2017 From: peterefranks@gmail.com (Peter Franks) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:02:45 +0200 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Crisis of Social Psychology In-Reply-To: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no> References: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi Alfredo, Thanks for the query and interest. The cover is a painting by Oroszco the Mexican painter from the 1930's. It comes from a series of Freezes he painted on the walls of Dartmouth University's library, now the Hoodmuseum that I used to visit while working on the dissertation during the 70's. It does represent the basic impotence of liberal science, The series is called The Epic of American Civilization and is an extensive mural cycle created by Mexican artist Jos? Clemente Orozco between 1932 and 1934.The crisis I am particularly referring to was the one in American Social Psychology which led to the calling of a conference at Carleton University under the auspices of Nato to discuss the way forward. At the time I ,was a member of the PsychAgitator based at the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Social Psychology Department which objected to the idea that NATO and the elite group of social psychologists could determine the way forward for Social Psychology. This situation has recently received some attention largely as the crisis of Social Psychology was never really resolved and it becomes urgent as neo liberalism collapses. Jos? Clemente *Orozco* (November 23, 1883 ? September 7, 1949) was a Mexican painter, who specialized in political *murals* that established the Mexican *Mural* Renaissance together with *murals* by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. The following analysis sums it up. The cycle is crucial in illustrating out a fundamental difference between Orozco and his contemporary Mexican muralists. For instance, Rivera represented the same general theme but infused it with optimism; his cycle characterizes white European colonialism as progress rather than deterioration. Orozco, on the other hand, made the later panels of this cycle grotesquely mirror the beginning ones: *Ancient Human Sacrifice* becomes *Modern Human Sacrifice* in such a way that there's no progress at all, but merely the exchanging of one barbaric behavior for another much like it. Thus Orozco brought introspection, criticism, and ambiguity to Mexican muralism as none of his contemporaries had done. So. Yes it does reflect my views of Social Psychology at the time..... Kind regards Peter *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 Cell: 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for sharing, Peter. Two questions having just seen the front cover > and downloaded the file. First, the front cover picture is quite dramatic > and intriguing, Is there something about it in the book or that you could > tell us here (artist, why)? Second, which crisis you refer to in particular > and is it over now? > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Peter Franks > Sent: 14 September 2017 09:56 > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Crisis of Social Psychology > > The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received > scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the > understanding of that crisis. > > https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_ > American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 > > I would be interested in comments. > > > > *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* > > Professor Extraordinary, > School of Public Leadership > University of Stellenbosch > Former Deputy Vice Chancellor > University of Limpopo > > 44 Firmount Road > Somerset West > 7130 > Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 > Cell: 082 200 5977 > peterefranks@gmail.com > https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks > > For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest > visit bookhuntersden.co.za > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Sep 14 07:43:45 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:43:45 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVuaXQgb2YgQW5h?= =?utf-8?q?lysis?= In-Reply-To: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319.ref@mail.yahoo.com>, <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1505400225233.89594@iped.uio.no> Alexander, we do not want you to sleep less than required, but we (at least myself) are expectant to get the third volume of the series. This (the delivery by chapters) is an interesting genre within xmca :) I think many of us will in a better position to comment, add or respond when you mark some conclusion point. I am sure many have already felt they had more than one thing to add or respond so far. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava Sent: 13 September 2017 03:03 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis For those XMCA-ers who read Russian - I put into the FB?s group of Cultural and Historical Psychology a Russian copy (sometimes the original,sometimes my translation into Russian from English). https://www.facebook.com/groups/564569043580624/permalink/1437218002982386/So Icontinue: It seems tome that the completely sincere attempt of Vygotsky to bring Marxism intopsychology, ended in total failure, unless, of course, the fact that he leftus a scientific school, or probably better to say scientific collective withinthe framework of which the task of elaboration of true scientific (=?arxist) materialistic psychology wascontinued by A.N.Leontiev and indirectly by E.V.Ilyenkov, who advanced insolving this problem much further. As forVygotsky, he left us with many profound methodological speculations and ... failedin realization of the most of them. Thus, he seduced us with the absolutelycorrect reasoning about the need to ascend from the abstract to the concrete,from the germ cell to the developed organic whole, but at the same time he failedin the search of such germ cell. With enthusiasmhe tried to talk about the so-called higher mental functions, about the sensesand perezhivaniyah, and at the same time he did not notice that he forgot togive a theoretical definition of the most abstract level of his theory - thedefinition of lower or elementary mental functions. For a person who put psychologists to thetask of creating their own psychological ?Das Kapital?, this was a mistake of acosmic scale. To admit it is like trying to determine the nature of surplusvalue and profit, forgetting to first give the definition and detailed analysisof goods and value as such, or accidentally forget to write the first volume of?Das Kapital? and start research right from the second and the third one. Suchforgetfulness can give as its inevitable result only a vulgar theory. Let'ssay, as Proudhon's "theory", which explained the capitalistexploitation ... by theft. Indiscussions about the "germ" of the human psyche, tons of paper werewritten (or many PC keyboards were broken :-) ) and many theorists call this orthat psychological phenomenon as such an embryo. Meanwhile, to point out thisor that phenomenon as a germ cell of human consciousness, means to do less thana half of the matter. It is necessary to analyze it in its contradictorydefinitions and show how all higher forms of human activity are born out of themovement of these contradictions. In other words, it is not enough to point outthe most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to thelevel of the most developed, concrete. Andbesides, if we want to build a Marxist psychology and not the next ideologicalfake, candidature for the role of "germ cells" must be real,practical relation, not something only subjectively experienced, not somethingjust imaginary. Thus so called perezhivanie is obviously not suited for thisrole just for this reason. It is obvious that the perezhivanie as apsychological phenomenon is something much more developed, much more concretethan what can be seen as the most abstract, the most elementary brick in thebuilding of psychological ?Das Kapital?. The huge step in the right direction with his attemptto identify and analyze the elementary psychological relation was made byAlexey Leontiev in his "Problems of development of psyche". In fact, he tried tocorrect Vygotsky's gross error - his attempt to start from the end, from the analysis not of the most abstract, but of the most concrete, directly fromhigher mental functions. And on this I will again stop today, for on the clock is already 4 o'clock inthe morning :-) ???????, 12 ???????? 2017 3:27 Alexander Surmava ?????(?): Some reflections on the category of activity Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >? ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Sep 14 07:58:52 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:58:52 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Crisis of Social Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no>, Message-ID: <1505401132788.5437@iped.uio.no> Thanks Peter! Very interesting, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Peter Franks Sent: 14 September 2017 14:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Crisis of Social Psychology Hi Alfredo, Thanks for the query and interest. The cover is a painting by Oroszco the Mexican painter from the 1930's. It comes from a series of Freezes he painted on the walls of Dartmouth University's library, now the Hoodmuseum that I used to visit while working on the dissertation during the 70's. It does represent the basic impotence of liberal science, The series is called The Epic of American Civilization and is an extensive mural cycle created by Mexican artist Jos? Clemente Orozco between 1932 and 1934.The crisis I am particularly referring to was the one in American Social Psychology which led to the calling of a conference at Carleton University under the auspices of Nato to discuss the way forward. At the time I ,was a member of the PsychAgitator based at the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Social Psychology Department which objected to the idea that NATO and the elite group of social psychologists could determine the way forward for Social Psychology. This situation has recently received some attention largely as the crisis of Social Psychology was never really resolved and it becomes urgent as neo liberalism collapses. Jos? Clemente *Orozco* (November 23, 1883 ? September 7, 1949) was a Mexican painter, who specialized in political *murals* that established the Mexican *Mural* Renaissance together with *murals* by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. The following analysis sums it up. The cycle is crucial in illustrating out a fundamental difference between Orozco and his contemporary Mexican muralists. For instance, Rivera represented the same general theme but infused it with optimism; his cycle characterizes white European colonialism as progress rather than deterioration. Orozco, on the other hand, made the later panels of this cycle grotesquely mirror the beginning ones: *Ancient Human Sacrifice* becomes *Modern Human Sacrifice* in such a way that there's no progress at all, but merely the exchanging of one barbaric behavior for another much like it. Thus Orozco brought introspection, criticism, and ambiguity to Mexican muralism as none of his contemporaries had done. So. Yes it does reflect my views of Social Psychology at the time..... Kind regards Peter *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 Cell: 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for sharing, Peter. Two questions having just seen the front cover > and downloaded the file. First, the front cover picture is quite dramatic > and intriguing, Is there something about it in the book or that you could > tell us here (artist, why)? Second, which crisis you refer to in particular > and is it over now? > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Peter Franks > Sent: 14 September 2017 09:56 > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Crisis of Social Psychology > > The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received > scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the > understanding of that crisis. > > https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_ > American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 > > I would be interested in comments. > > > > *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* > > Professor Extraordinary, > School of Public Leadership > University of Stellenbosch > Former Deputy Vice Chancellor > University of Limpopo > > 44 Firmount Road > Somerset West > 7130 > Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 > Cell: 082 200 5977 > peterefranks@gmail.com > https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks > > For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest > visit bookhuntersden.co.za > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Sep 14 10:16:45 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 10:16:45 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTogVW5pdCBvZiBBbmFs?= =?utf-8?q?ysis?= In-Reply-To: <1505400225233.89594@iped.uio.no> References: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> <1505400225233.89594@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: There is a great deal packed into your messages, Sasha. I believe you need to make a set of files of them and collect them into a book of some sort. It would be an interesting use of XMCA as a medium of collective activity. I had a thought on one of the many things you wrote: *In other words, it is not enough to point out the most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to the level of the most developed, concrete.* I believe that the methodological value of the formative experiments that in the US are called "Designed Experiments" are an example of what you write. They are "putting theory into practice" so that practice becomes the ongoing testing/theorizing about what's next. In this sense, Davydov's work seems to be a positive example. Or are you criticizing it for something it leaves out? mike On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Alexander, we do not want you to sleep less than required, but we (at > least myself) are expectant to get the third volume of the series. This > (the delivery by chapters) is an interesting genre within xmca :) I think > many of us will in a better position to comment, add or respond when you > mark some conclusion point. I am sure many have already felt they had more > than one thing to add or respond so far. > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Alexander Surmava > Sent: 13 September 2017 03:03 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > For those XMCA-ers who read Russian - I put into the FB?s group of > Cultural and Historical Psychology a Russian copy (sometimes the > original,sometimes my translation into Russian from English). > https://www.facebook.com/groups/564569043580624/ > permalink/1437218002982386/So Icontinue: It seems tome that the > completely sincere attempt of Vygotsky to bring Marxism intopsychology, > ended in total failure, unless, of course, the fact that he leftus a > scientific school, or probably better to say scientific collective > withinthe framework of which the task of elaboration of true scientific > (=?arxist) materialistic psychology wascontinued by A.N.Leontiev and > indirectly by E.V.Ilyenkov, who advanced insolving this problem much > further. As forVygotsky, he left us with many profound methodological > speculations and ... failedin realization of the most of them. Thus, he > seduced us with the absolutelycorrect reasoning about the need to ascend > from the abstract to the concrete,from the germ cell to the developed > organic whole, but at the same time he failedin the search of such germ > cell. With enthusiasmhe tried to talk about the so-called higher mental > functions, about the sensesand perezhivaniyah, and at the same time he did > not notice that he forgot togive a theoretical definition of the most > abstract level of his theory - thedefinition of lower or elementary mental > functions. For a person who put psychologists to thetask of creating their > own psychological ?Das Kapital?, this was a mistake of acosmic scale. To > admit it is like trying to determine the nature of surplusvalue and profit, > forgetting to first give the definition and detailed analysisof goods and > value as such, or accidentally forget to write the first volume of?Das > Kapital? and start research right from the second and the third one. > Suchforgetfulness can give as its inevitable result only a vulgar theory. > Let'ssay, as Proudhon's "theory", which explained the > capitalistexploitation ... by theft. Indiscussions about the "germ" of the > human psyche, tons of > paper werewritten (or many PC keyboards were broken :-) ) and many > theorists call this orthat psychological phenomenon as such an embryo. > Meanwhile, to point out thisor that phenomenon as a germ cell of human > consciousness, means to do less thana half of the matter. It is necessary > to analyze it in its contradictorydefinitions and show how all higher forms > of human activity are born out of themovement of these contradictions. In > other words, it is not enough to point outthe most abstract category, it is > necessary to show how to move from it to thelevel of the most developed, > concrete. Andbesides, if we want to build a Marxist psychology and not the > next ideologicalfake, candidature for the role of "germ cells" must be > real,practical relation, not something only subjectively experienced, not > somethingjust imaginary. Thus so called perezhivanie is obviously not > suited for thisrole just for this reason. It is obvious that the > perezhivanie as apsychological phenomenon is something much more developed, > much more concretethan what can be seen as the most abstract, the most > elementary brick in thebuilding of psychological ?Das Kapital?. The huge > step in the right direction with his attemptto identify and analyze the > elementary psychological relation was made byAlexey Leontiev in his > "Problems of development of psyche". In fact, he tried tocorrect Vygotsky's > gross error - his attempt to start from the end, from the analysis not of > the most abstract, but of the most concrete, directly fromhigher mental > functions. > > And on this I will again stop today, for on the clock is already 4 o'clock > inthe morning :-) > > > ???????, 12 ???????? 2017 3:27 Alexander Surmava < > alexander.surmava@yahoo.com> ?????(?): > > > > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in > the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause > of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts > (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according > to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one > whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external > influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as > it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object > oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The > Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the > reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the > mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer > responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program > is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient > to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said > about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the > representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and > paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the > old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. > Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. > Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical > stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, > scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, > in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from > passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject. (In > parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific > understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up > to the present day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the > Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line > of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like > existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social > contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is > achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over > a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to > make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their > teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a > person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which > he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains > freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the > so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally > far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from > Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical > grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the > history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the > topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil < > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> ?????(?): > > > Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more > or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he > formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, > in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as > *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and > Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', > in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and > speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything > which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* > experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* > beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > > English would accomplish the job. > > > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Mike, > >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical > >> possibilities for affect (emotion). > >> > >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but > >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) > >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not > already > >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do > not > >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt > >> (insulted etc). > >> > >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there > are > >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent > and > >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that > >> you > >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of > >> person and environment. > >> > >> Michael > >> > >> > >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> -------------------- > >> Applied Cognitive Science > >> MacLaurin Building A567 > >> University of Victoria > >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > >> > >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > >> >> ections-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics > >> -of-mathematics/>* > >> > >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: > >> > >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. > >> > > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries > >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: > >> > > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for > >> suffering > >> > or sensation. > >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. > >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its > >> meaning > >> > significantly. > >> > > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the > >> term > >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a > >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by > >> > Vasiliuk. > >> > > >> > mike > >> > > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term > >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of > >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). > >> > > > >> > > Michael > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor > >> > > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > -------------------- > >> > > Applied Cognitive Science > >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 > >> > > University of Victoria > >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 > >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth > > >> > > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics > >> > > >> > > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the- > >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* > >> > > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin > >> > wrote: > >> > > > >> > > > Dear Sasha > >> > > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would > >> > > > characterise animals and infants? > >> > > > > >> > > > Ivan > >> > > > > >> > > > -- > >> > > > festina lente > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava > > >> > > wrote: > >> > > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. > >> > > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but > passive, > >> and > >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say > that > >> > neo > >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. > >> And I > >> > am > >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate > fallows > >> > from > >> > > > Spinoza :-). > >> > > > > > >> > > > > Sasha > >> > > > > > >> > > > > ???????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < > >> > ablunden@mira.net > >> > > > > >> > > > ?????(?): > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead > >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in > >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection > >> > > > > with activity. > >> > > > > > >> > > > > Andy > >> > > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > > > Andy Blunden > >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced > >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could > >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your > >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so > >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role > >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' > >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a > >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about > >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' > >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its > >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> A > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden > >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 > >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the > >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in > >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, > >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast > >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very > >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force > >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or > >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). > >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the > >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention > >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got > >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does > >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is > >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the > >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a > >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a > >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of > >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). > >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism > >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, > >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies > >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess > >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to > >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took > >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis > >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their > >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I > >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* > >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to > >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated > >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both > >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit > >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - > >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which > >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood > >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of > >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds > >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of > >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among > >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it > >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He > >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but > >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), > >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other > >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into > >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, > >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> Andy > >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > > >> Andy Blunden > >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. > >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an > >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; > >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct > >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk > >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that > >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between > >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and > >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said > >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as > >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis > >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that > >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system > >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a > >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I > >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we > >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some > >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and > >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of > >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance > >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you > >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, > >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our > >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many > >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are > >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too > >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures > >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', > >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and > >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the > >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. > >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the > >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate > >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in > >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral > >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require > >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than > >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow > >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of > >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for > >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you > >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If > >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the > >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing > >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not > >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not > >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can > >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of > >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of > >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about > >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds > >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would > >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of > >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was > >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and > >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that > >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must > >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree > >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one > >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion > >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' > >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the > >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as > >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we > >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between > >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process > >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is > >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human > >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some > >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their > >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with > >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is > >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is > >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions > >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> Alfredo > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden > >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 > >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know > >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction > >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and > >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns > >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider > >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract > >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging > >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of > >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most > >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows > >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent > >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the > >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the > >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT > >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are > >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we > >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in > >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and > >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one > >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom > >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> Andy > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden > >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), > and > >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David > D. > >> is > >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the > >> expressions > >> > of > >> > > a > >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* > >> particulars > >> > > ways > >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may > be > >> > like > >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate > >> > system > >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a > classroom > >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> Alfredo > >> > > > >>>> ________________________________________ > >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> > >> > > > edu> on behalf of David Dirlam > >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the > >> > > conception > >> > > > of > >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin > >> stress > >> > the > >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience > should > >> > have > >> > > > some > >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that > >> > experts > >> > > > need > >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the > unit > >> > > > (worded like > >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will > >> correct > >> > me > >> > > > if I > >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > >> > > > classifiability > >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not > >> an > >> > > > element, > >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the > >> > chemical > >> > > > bonds > >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules > of > >> > water > >> > > > (how > >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David > >> > Kellogg's > >> > > > point. > >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, > >> while > >> > > > actions > >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that > >> the > >> > > > activity > >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between > >> > them. > >> > > > If we > >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in > >> the > >> > > > complexity > >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and > I'm > >> not > >> > > > just > >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The > >> > identifiability, > >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > >> > > > constituents all > >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, > the > >> > > > constituents > >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles > >> illustrate > >> > > that. > >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify > >> > > > activities, and > >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their > constituents. > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > >> > > > characterizing > >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>> David > >> > > > >>>> > >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< > >> ablunden@mira.net> > >> > > > wrote: > >> > > > >>>>> > >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need > to > >> > > > aspire to > >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts > >> which > >> > are > >> > > > utterly > >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. > >> For > >> > > > example, > >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which > is > >> > not > >> > > > the > >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > >> > > > >>>>> > >> > > > >>>>> Andy > >> > > > >>>>> > >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------ > ------------------------------ > >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden > >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > >> > > > >>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > >> > > > >>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary > concept, > >> > one > >> > > > might > >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the > >> > phenomenon > >> > > > that is > >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in > the > >> > > > course of > >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific > >> > > concept? > >> > > > >>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering > >> > > > >>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> Martin > >> > > > >>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >> > > gmail.com > >> > > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an > oversimplification > >> of > >> > > > unit of > >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > >> > > > Introduction > >> > > > >>>>>>> to > >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. > The > >> > short > >> > > > of it > >> > > > >>>>>>> is > >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the > concept > >> > > "unit > >> > > > of > >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, > >> an > >> > > > adequate > >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of > >> > analysis - > >> > > > one > >> > > > >>>>>>> that > >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to > >> > study > >> > > > water, a > >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the > level > >> of > >> > an > >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but > >> > hydrogen > >> > > > and > >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will > not > >> > > > illuminate > >> > > > >>>>>>> the > >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful > >> language > >> > use > >> > > > >>>>>>> requires > >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of > these > >> > > > linguistic > >> > > > >>>>>>> and > >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic > >> communication, > >> > > but > >> > > > >>>>>>> natural > >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that > >> > > > includes other > >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >> ublication/319322253_Introduct > >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > >> > > > >>>>>>> ) > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for > >> > > thinking > >> > > > >>>>>>> about > >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>>>> -- > >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor > >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology > >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University > >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 > >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >> > > > >>>>>>> > >> > > > >>>>> > >> > > > >>> > >> > > > >> > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > > > > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Sep 14 14:13:00 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 21:13:00 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Tenure track social psychology position at Boston College In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Colleagues *Assistant Professor in Social Psychology*The Department of Psychology of Boston College invites applications for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in Social Psychology to begin July 1, 2018. For an outstanding candidate, appointment at the Associate or Full Professor level is possible. Areas of interest include but are not limited to social neuroscience, social cognition, computational modeling, and cultural psychology. Applicants will be evaluated on their potential to establish a prominent, externally funded research program and to excel in teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Applicants should apply at http://apply.interfolio.com/44047 and provide PDFs of a cover letter, CV, research statement, and teaching statement outlining teaching experience and philosophy. Applicants should also arrange to have three letters of reference submitted directly by their letter writers, using the "request recommendations" link on Interfolio. These letter writers should be named in the cover letter. All materials must be submitted on or before October 1, 2017 for full consideration. Review of applications will continue until the position is filled. For inquiries about the position please contact Liane Young (liane.young@bc.edu). For assistance with submitting your application please email psychoffice@bc.edu. Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university that strives to integrate research excellence with a foundational commitment to formative liberal arts education. We encourage applications from candidates who are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive academic community.Boston College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, nation origin, disability, protected veteran status, or other legally protected status. To learn more about how BC supports diversity and inclusion throughout the university, please visit the Office for Institutional Diversity at http://www.bc.edu/offices/diversity. Sincerely Ellen Winner ********************************** Professor and Chair Department of Psychology Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Tel: 617-552-4118 Fax: 815-346-5395 www.ellenwinner.com _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Thu Sep 14 16:06:19 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 23:06:19 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6INCe0YLQsjogUmU6IFVu?= =?utf-8?q?it_of_Analysis?= In-Reply-To: References: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> <1505400225233.89594@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <2146825494.3979277.1505430379738@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Sasha I like this summary ... until the bit where you linkVygotsky with Rousseau and Kant. To my eye, Vygotsky's writing has the influence ofSpinoza stamped all over it.??The development of the child is a storyof the smaller, relatively passive body (i.e. the child) becoming aligned with,sharing in the life of, the larger, relatively active body (i.e. the socialenvironment). This is not a story of pre-existing entities coming toan agreement or a social contract. Do you think Kant's influence on Vygotsky is strongerthan Spinoza's? Best wishes Ivan | ??????? ????! | Dear Ivan! | | ? ???, ??? ??? ?????????? ??? ????? :-) . | I'm glad You liked my text :-) . | | ??, ?????? ???????, ??? ????? ? ???? ????????? ??????????? ? ????????????? ?????????? ???????? ??? ???? ???????? ??????. ???????, ???? ?? ?? ???????? ?????? ? ???, ?? ?? ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????????,?en bloc?:-) . | But I must emphasize that the idea of the role of philosophy of the Enlightenment in Vygotsky?s worldview is the most important for me. Therefore, if You do not agree with it, you don't agree with my text text?as a?whole, en bloc :-) . | | ??????? ??????? ???? ? ??????? ????????????? ?????????? ? ??????? ?????????? ????? ????????????. | So let's leave aside academic courtesy and discuss the content of my statements. | | ?, ?????? ???, ???????????, ??? ??? ????? ?????? ?????????????, ???????? ? ????? ?????, ?????????? ???????????? ???? ??????????. ?? ??? ?????? ? ???????? ????? ????? ?????, ??? ????? ??????? ???????????? ?????? ?????. | I guess that my text sounds paradoxical, especially in the circle of researchers who are fans of Vygotsky. But any new idea usually looks as something strange and paradoxica, because any novelty contradicts old ideas. | | ? ????, ??? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ???????????. ?? ? ?????? ??? ???????? ?????????. ???? ??????? ?? ????????????? ??????? ???? ??????????? ??? ?????????? ?? ??????????? ??? ?????????? ??? ???????. ??? ? ???????? ????? ???? ???????? ????????. ??, ??, ??? ?????, ??? ? ?????? ??????? ??????? ????? ? ??????? :-) . | I know that Vygotsky considered to be spinozist. But I believe this judgment is erroneous. Unless, of course, you identify the desire to be a Spinozist or Marxist with Spinozism or Marxism as such. So I passionately want to be a ballet dancer. But, those who see how I dance politely look away :-). | | ??????? ??? ? XVII ???? - ??????? ? ??? ????, ? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ??????????????. ??????? ? ??? ???????, ?????? ? ???????? ??????????? ? ?????????? ????????? ????? ????? ????????? ?????????? ?????????. ??????, ??????? ?? ??????????? ? ??? ??????????????? ?????? ?????????. ???????, ?????? ?????? ???????, ? ????????? ?? ????????, ????????? ? ??? ???????????? ????????????? ???? ? ?????????? ???????? ? ?????? ?? ???? ? ?? ??. | Spinoza lived in the seventeenth century - and therefore his ideas, and his language cannot fail to bear the stamp of this circumstance. Therefore, in his texts, along with great insights and discoveries, one can surely find many obsolete ideas. Lying on the surface example is his so called "geometrical method" of presentation. Therefore, to love Spinoza?s texts, and understand them adequately, to discern an ?????? immortal theoretical kernel from the perishable shell are far not one and the same. | | ? ??? ???????? ?????????? ? ????? ?????? ??????? ? ??? ???????, ? ???, ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ???????????????? ????? ????? ???? ? ?????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ??????? ? ????? ???????????? ? ??????? ???????????? ???? ??????. ??? ? ????????????? ??????? ???? ?????????? ?????, ??? ??????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ? ??????? ??????????. ??????, ???????? ? ????????? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ???, ??? ?? ?? ?????? ??????, ?? ??????-???????????. ???????? ???????, ??????, ??????????? ???? ??? ??????????? ???????? ???????????? ???????. ??? ?? ???????? ???????? (??????????), ?? ???????? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ??????? ???????????? ??????, ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ??????, ??????????, ???????????????? ?????????? ???????-???????, ?? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ????? ??????? ????????? ????? ???????????? ???????, ???????? ????????, ???????? ?????????, ???????????? ???. | What is the essence of the Spinozism from the point of view of Hegel? In its monism, in the fact that Spinoza?s world is not composed of an infinite number of isolated "atomic facts" in the style of Wittgenstein and of the Legion of positivists of of every stripe and color. The world in the representation of Spinoza is a concrete whole, all of whose phenomena are the modes of a single universal basis - the world substance. Besides Marx, Engels and Ilyenkov appreciate Spinoza primarily for the fact that he's not just the monist, but monist-materialist. Spinoza's substance is a material substance, Nature in General. As for thinking (ideal), according to Spinoza, it is not externally opposed to inert, dead matter as the second, magic, the intelligible substance of Plato-Descartes, but is inherent to the Nature, is a property of the very material Nature, is a way of motion, of action of ?natural, material bodies. | | ???? ?? ? ??? ???? ?? ???????? ????????? ????????, ??? ?????????? ??????? ??????????? ???????? ????????? ??????? ? ?????????? ?? ? ????????????????? ??????????? ? ?????????? ?????????????? ???????? ? ?????????????????? ????????????? ???????, ?? ? ????? ??????????? ??????????????? ??????? | Do we have even the slightest reason to believe that Vygotsky managed to realize such an understanding of Spinoza and Spinozism not in general theoretical declarations about the harmfulness of Cartesian dualism and the preference of Spinoza's monism, but in his own psychological theory? | | ?? ????????, ??? ???? ??? ????????? ?? ?????????? ???? ?????? ?? ?????????-??????????? ???????????? ????????????? ????????, ??? ?????? ??? ?? ???????? ????????? ?????????, ????????????? ????, ??? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??????????? ???????? ????????????? ????????, ??????????? ???????????? ????????, ??? ?????????. ????? ??????, ????????? ? ????? ?????? (? ????????????????? ????? ????????? ?????????? ? ???????????) ????????? ?? ??? ??????????? (????????), ? ??? ???????? ????????. | We believe that no... For Vygotsky did not deduce a "sign" from the object oriented sensual activities of the material entity, as would have to try to do Spinozist, but comes from the fact that the sign in all its ideality is able to convert real, sensuous activity of the subject, its behavior. In other words, Vygotsky in his theory (contrary to his sincere intentions and declarations) appears not as a materialist (Marxist), but like the typical idealist. | | (????? ????, ??? ?? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ? ????, ??? ??? ????? ?? ???????? ???? ?? ??? ??????????? ??????????? ? ?????-?? ???????????. :-) ). | ( Thank God that we are not conducting this discussion in the USSR, so that no one will dare to reproach me for this objective statement of the theoretical facts that I am doing something indecent. :-) ) | | ? ??????? ????????? ?????????? ??? ??????????????? ???????? ? ????????? ????, ??? ????????? (??????????) ???????, ?, ??????, ??? ????????? ???????. | There are two opposing traditions in understanding how an active subject arises, and, hence, how freedom arises in the history of philosophy. | | ?????? ???????? ???????? ? ???????, ????????? ??????????? ? ?????. | The first tradition arises to Descartes, philosophers of the Enlightenment and Kant. | | ?????? ? ? ???????, ??????, ?????? ? ? ???????? ????, ???? ? ?? ??? ????????????, ? ?????????. | The second ? to Spinoza, Hegel, Marx and in enormous extent, although not without controversy, to Ilienkov. | | ??? ??????? ? ???????? ???, ??????? ????????, ???????? ? ????? ???????????? ????, ?? ?????????, ? ?????? ?? ????????. ??? ????? ????????, ?? ???????? ? ???????? (? ???????? ??? ???????????? ??????????? ??? ????? ??????? ????????????? ???????), ???? ?? ????????? ????????, ?? ??????????? ?? ??????? ??????????? ???????????? ????????. ???? ? ??? ???????????? ? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????? ??????????? ???? ?????????? ????????????? ???? ? ??????????? ?????. ??????????????? ?????????? ?????? ?????????? ????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????. | For Descartes - the corporeal world, including plants, animals and living human bodies, is not subjective, and therefore not free. All living beings, not excluding man (within his elementary mental or better to say behavioral functions), are not free subjects, but not free from external causality mechanical automata. Entrance to the world of subjectness and freedom is carried out by means of a magical act of uniting a mechanical body with an incorporeal soul. The notorious pineal gland plays a role of mediator of this magical act. | | ??????? ???????????? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ?????????, ??????????????? ?????????? ???????? (???????) ??? ????????????. ?? ????????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ?????????????, ????????? ?????????? ????????? ???? ?????, ??? ??? ??????? ???? ??? ? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ??? ??????????????, ?? ?????????? ???????????.??????? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ??????? ????????? ????????, ? ?????? ????? ???? ? ?????? ???????????? ? ?????????? ???????? ???? ???????, ?? ??-?????????? ???? ??????? ?????????????? ????????????? ???? ????????? ??????? ???? ???????????? ????????????? ??????. ???????, ???? ???????????? ?????, ?????? ??? ? ??????????? ????????? ????????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??? ????????????? ?????? ??? ?????? ??????, ??? ??? ???? ???????? ?????? ????????????? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ?.?.????????? ? ?.?. ?????????.??????? ?????, ??? 300 ? 100 ??? ????? ?? ???? ??????? ? ????????? ????????????. | Spinoza brilliantly solved this problem by proposing a philosophy which consistently understands the thinking (psyche) as an object oriented activity. But the philosophy of Spinoza has been so revolutionary, so infinitely ahead of his time, that his main idea was not understood neither by his contemporaries nor by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. More than a century after the death of Spinoza, a number of philosophers, especially Hegel and Goethe knew about the great significance of Spinozism, but really the ideas of the Old ?Dutch grinder of lenses were mastered only by a Marxist theoretical thought. However, the idea of activities again, now in the Marxian narrative turned out to be too hard nut for the contemporaries now of Marx himself, so the idea had to be re-reinvent a hundred years later by E. V. Ilyenkov and A. N. Leontiev. To reappear, like 300 and 100 years ago, not to be understood and appreciated by contemporaries. | | ? ??? ???????? ???????????, ?? ????? ???????? ????????????? ?? ??????? ? ???, ??? ??????????? ??? ???????, ?? ?? ???? ??? ???????, ?? ?? ???????????? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ?? ???? ??????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????????, ?? ????????? ??????????? ?????? ???????? ? ????????????? ?????????, ? ???????????? ??? ???????, ? ?????????? ????? ??????. ? ?????-?? ?????? ??? ????????? ?????? ???????, ?? ????????? ????, ???? ????? ? ????????? ????? ?????? ? ??? ??? ??????? ? ???????? ????????, ??? ?????? ?????????? ????????, ??????? ????????? ?????? ? ????? ?????, ????? ?????????? ????? ? ???? ???? ??????????? ?????????, ?? ????????? ??, ?????? ?? ??? ? ????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ?? ????? ???????????? ?????. ????? ??????, ?? ????????? ??????????? ???????? ???????? ? ??????????? ? ???????????? ?? ????? ??????????, ?? ????, ???? ??????????? ???????????? ???????, ?? ????? ???????? , ??????? ?????? ? ???, ??? ????? ?????????? ? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ????????. ? ???? ???? ?? ????, ??? ??? ?????????? ?????????? ? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ?????????????. ?? ? ???? ?? ???? ? ?? ????????, ???, ?? ?????? ?????????, ??? ? ????????? ???????????? ??????? ??????? ???? ?? ???????????? ???????? ? ?? ???? ???????????????? (=?? ????????????? ??????), ?? ???? ??? ??????????? "????????????? ????????". | But the Enlightenment philosophers, did not particularly dwell on the question of how a disembodied spirit of freedom, aka the soul or psyche, aka a human consciousness is able to turn unfree and enslaved to affects and passions animal into free citizen, but saw the possibility of such a transition in the "Social contract", in sociality as such, in the relations between people. In a sense, they did the sensible thing. They did not wait until science and philosophy will solve the question - how freedom is possible in principle. Sharp class battles shook Europe in modern times, placing thinkers face to face with the most difficult and urgency issues, not interested in whether they are ready to give to them is entirely rational answers. In other words, they took the person's ability to understand and act in accordance with his understanding, that is, the fact of the possibility of human freedom, for something real, leaving the question of how such a reality is possible in principle, for the theorists of the future. This was their strength, for they immediately began to reflect on pressing social issues. But this was also their weakness, because, not to get Spinozism, they doomed themselves in the understanding of human history to an arbitrary imagination ? the idea of conventionalism (=semiotic logic), the idea of the so-called "Social contract". | | ???????? ???????????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ??? ? ????, ????? ???????? ??????? ????????????? ???????? ?? ?? ???????????? ?????? ? ??????????, ?? ?? ???????, ????? ??????? ?????????? ???? ???????????? ?????, ?? ??? ??????????-?????????? ????????????. ?? ???????????? ??? ??????????? ????? ???????? ?????, ??????? ????????? ? ?????????? ????????, ?????????? ???????. ? ??????? ?????? ? ???????? ??????? ????? ?????????? ? ??????? ???????? ????????? ???? ????? ????????? ????????? ???????????? ????, ? ?? ????? ????, ?????????? ??????????? ????????, ?????? ??????? ? ?? ??????????-????????????? ???????, ?? ????????? ????????, ???????????? ????????????, ?????. ??????? ???????? ? ????????? ????? ??????? ???????? ??? ??????? ??????? ? ????????? ?????? ???? ????????, ??????? ?? ?????????, ?? ???? ???????????? ?? ????????????? ???? ? ????????? ???????? ???????, ? ????? ????? ???????? ????????? ??????????.? | Classics of political economy have taken the first step to deduce the nature of human society not from the arbitrary signs and agreements, but from the way people produce their material life, from their sensual object-oriented activity. But finally this direction of thought was completed by Marx, combining Spinozism with the understanding of society, understanding of history. In the works of Marx and Engels for the first time since Anaxagoras and Spinoza thinking has ceased to be a kind of magic of a disembodied spirit, being in reality, the social privilege of the ruling, propertied classes and their bureaucratic-professorial staff, but an attribute of the real, practical activities, of labor and laborers. For the first time man in sweaty overalls working was issued a pass into the sterile clean temple of thinking, for the first time, not ideologues, that is, specialists in the fooling of the masses in the interests of the ruling classes but the working people recognized as thinking beings. | End of the third portion :-) To be continued... Sasha ???????, 14 ???????? 2017 20:17 mike cole ?????(?): There is a great deal packed into your messages, Sasha. I believe you need to make a set of files of them and collect them into a book of some sort. It would be an interesting use of XMCA as a medium of collective activity. I had a thought on one of the many things you wrote: In other words, it is not enough to point out the most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to the level of the most developed, concrete. I believe that the methodological value of the formative experiments that in the US are called "Designed Experiments" are an example of what you write. They are "putting theory into practice" so that practice becomes the ongoing testing/theorizing about what's next. In this sense, Davydov's work seems to be a positive example. Or are you criticizing it for something it leaves out? mike On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Alexander, we do not want you to sleep less than required, but we (at least myself) are expectant to get the third volume of the series. This (the delivery by chapters) is an interesting genre within xmca :) I think many of us will in a better position to comment, add or respond when you mark some conclusion point. I am sure many have already felt they had more than one thing to add or respond so far. Alfredo ______________________________ __________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd. edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava Sent: 13 September 2017 03:03 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] ???:? Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis For those XMCA-ers who read Russian -? I put into the FB?s group of Cultural and Historical Psychology a Russian copy (sometimes the original,sometimes my translation into Russian from English). https://www.facebook.com/ groups/564569043580624/ permalink/1437218002982386/So Icontinue: It seems tome that the completely sincere attempt of Vygotsky to bring Marxism intopsychology, ended in total failure, unless, of course, the fact that he leftus a scientific school, or probably better to say scientific collective withinthe framework of which the task of elaboration of true scientific (=?arxist) materialistic psychology wascontinued by A.N.Leontiev and indirectly by E.V.Ilyenkov, who advanced insolving this problem much further. As forVygotsky, he left us with many profound methodological speculations and ... failedin realization of the most of them. Thus, he seduced us with the absolutelycorrect reasoning about the need to ascend from the abstract to the concrete,from the germ cell to the developed organic whole, but at the same time he failedin the search of such germ cell.? With enthusiasmhe tried to talk about the so-called higher mental functions, about the sensesand perezhivaniyah, and at the same time he did not notice that he forgot togive a theoretical definition of the most abstract level of his theory - thedefinition of lower or elementary mental functions. For a person who put psychologists to thetask of creating their own psychological ?Das Kapital?, this was a mistake of acosmic scale. To admit it is like trying to determine the nature of surplusvalue and profit, forgetting to first give the definition and detailed analysisof goods and value as such, or accidentally forget to write the first volume of?Das Kapital? and start research right from the second and the third one. Suchforgetfulness can give as its inevitable result only a vulgar theory. Let'ssay, as Proudhon's "theory", which explained the capitalistexploitation ... by theft. Indiscussions about the "germ" of the human psyche, tons of ?paper werewritten (or many PC keyboards were broken :-) ) and many theorists call this orthat psychological phenomenon as such an embryo. Meanwhile, to point out thisor that phenomenon as a germ cell of human consciousness, means to do less thana half of the matter. It is necessary to analyze it in its contradictorydefinitions and show how all higher forms of human activity are born out of themovement of these contradictions. In other words, it is not enough to point outthe most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to thelevel of the most developed, concrete. Andbesides, if we want to build a Marxist psychology and not the next ideologicalfake, candidature for the role of "germ cells" must be real,practical relation, not something only subjectively experienced, not somethingjust imaginary. Thus so called perezhivanie is obviously not suited for thisrole just for this reason. It is obvious that the perezhivanie as apsychological phenomenon is something much more developed, much more concretethan what can be seen as the most abstract, the most elementary brick in thebuilding of psychological ?Das Kapital?. The huge step in the right direction with his attemptto identify and analyze the elementary psychological relation was made byAlexey Leontiev in his "Problems of development of psyche". In fact, he tried tocorrect Vygotsky's gross error - his attempt to start from the end, from the analysis not of the most abstract, but of the most concrete, directly fromhigher mental functions. And on this I will again stop today, for on the clock is already 4 o'clock inthe morning :-) ? ? ???????, 12 ???????? 2017 3:27 Alexander Surmava ?????(?): Some reflections on the category of activity Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject.? (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha ? ? ? ????????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): ?Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". Alfredo ______________________________ __________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd. edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis Ivan-- your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about conditional reflexes in dogs. Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular topic at hand. thanks mike On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions > and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in > English would accomplish the job. > > But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it > backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. > > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Mike, >> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >> possibilities for affect (emotion). >> >> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >> (insulted etc). >> >> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >> you >> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >> person and environment. >> >> Michael >> >> >> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> >> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> -------------------- >> Applied Cognitive Science >> MacLaurin Building A567 >> University of Victoria >> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> >> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > ections-in-mathematics-and- science-education/the- mathematics >> -of-mathematics/>* >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >> > >> > Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >> > appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >> > >> > 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >> suffering >> > or sensation. >> > 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >> > To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >> meaning >> > significantly. >> > >> > Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >> term >> > passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >> > relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >> > Vasiliuk. >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >> > > passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >> > > affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >> > > >> > > Michael >> > > >> > > >> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >> > > >> > > ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > -------------------- >> > > Applied Cognitive Science >> > > MacLaurin Building A567 >> > > University of Victoria >> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >> > > >> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >> > > > > > directions-in-mathematics-and- science-education/the- >> > > mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >> > > >> > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > > Dear Sasha >> > > > >> > > > Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >> > > > characterise animals and infants? >> > > > >> > > > Ivan >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > festina lente >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >> > > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > Dear Ivan. >> > > > > >> > > > > To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >> and >> > > > that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >> > neo >> > > > nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >> And I >> > am >> > > > not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >> > from >> > > > Spinoza :-). >> > > > > >> > > > > Sasha >> > > > > >> > > > >?? ????????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >> > ablunden@mira.net >> > > > >> > > > ?????(?): >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >> > > > > to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >> > > > > connection with needs and their development in connection >> > > > > with activity. >> > > > > >> > > > > Andy >> > > > > >> > > > > ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > > Andy Blunden >> > > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >> > > > >> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >> > > > >> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >> > > > >> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >> > > > >> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >> > > > >> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >> > > > >> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >> > > > >> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >> > > > >> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >> > > > >> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >> > > > >> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >> > > > >> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >> > > > >> connections to its production and satisfaction. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> A >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > >> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >> > > > >> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >> > > > >> issues you raise are treated in >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >> > > > Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >> > > > >> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >> > > > >> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >> > > > >> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >> > > > >> is an example of something which is not visceral or >> > > > >> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >> > > > >> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >> > > > >> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >> > > > >> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >> > > > >> but has no content other than its expression. People got >> > > > >> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >> > > > >> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >> > > > >> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >> > > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >> > > > >> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >> > > > >> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >> > > > >> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >> > > > >> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >> > > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >> > > > >> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >> > > > >> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >> > > > >> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >> > > > >> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >> > > > >> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >> > > > >> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >> > > > >> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >> > > > >> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >> > > > >> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >> > > > >> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >> > > > >> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >> > > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >> > > > >> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >> > > > >> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >> > > > >> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >> > > > >> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >> > > > >> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >> > > > >> without having first identified the real substance of >> > > > >> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >> > > > >> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >> > > > >> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >> > > > >> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >> > > > >> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >> > > > >> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >> > > > >> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >> > > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >> > > > >> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >> > > > >> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >> > > > >> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >> > > > >> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >> > > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Andy >> > > > >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > >> Andy Blunden >> > > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >> > > > >>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >> > > > >>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >> > > > >>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >> > > > >>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >> > > > >>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >> > > > >>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >> > > > >>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >> > > > >>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >> > > > >>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >> > > > >>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >> > > > >>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >> > > > >>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >> > > > >>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >> > > > >>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >> > > > >>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >> > > > >>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >> > > > >>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >> > > > >>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >> > > > >>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >> > > > >>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >> > > > >>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >> > > > >>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >> > > > >>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >> > > > >>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >> > > > >>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >> > > > >>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >> > > > >>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >> > > > >>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >> > > > >>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >> > > > >>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >> > > > >>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >> > > > >>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >> > > > >>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >> > > > >>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >> > > > >>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >> > > > >>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >> > > > >>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >> > > > >>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >> > > > >>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >> > > > >>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >> > > > >>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >> > > > >>> psychology for precisely this reason. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >> > > > >>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >> > > > >>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >> > > > >>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >> > > > >>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >> > > > >>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >> > > > >>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >> > > > >>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >> > > > >>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >> > > > >>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >> > > > >>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >> > > > >>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >> > > > >>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >> > > > >>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >> > > > >>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >> > > > >>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >> > > > >>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >> > > > >>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >> > > > >>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >> > > > >>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >> > > > >>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >> > > > >>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >> > > > >>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >> > > > >>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >> > > > >>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >> > > > >>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >> > > > >>> would do so without implying an opposition between >> > > > >>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >> > > > >>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >> > > > >>> not so much about experience as it is about human >> > > > >>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >> > > > >>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >> > > > >>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >> > > > >>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >> > > > >>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >> > > > >>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >> > > > >>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >> > > > >>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > >>> *From:* Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >> > > > >>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >> > > > >>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >> > > > >>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >> > > > >>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >> > > > >>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >> > > > >>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >> > > > >>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >> > > > >>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >> > > > >>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >> > > > >>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >> > > > >>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >> > > > >>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >> > > > >>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >> > > > >>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >> > > > >>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >> > > > >>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >> > > > >>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >> > > > >>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >> > > > >>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >> > > > >>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >> > > > >>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >> > > > >>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >> > > > >>> from different perspectives. >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> Andy >> > > > >>> >> > > > >>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > >>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>> https://andyblunden.academia. edu/research >> > > > >>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >> > > > >>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >> > > > particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >> is >> > > > mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >> expressions >> > of >> > > a >> > > > system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >> particulars >> > > ways >> > > > that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >> > like >> > > > when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >> > system >> > > > that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >> > > > conflict and the system that sustains it). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> Alfredo >> > > > >>>> ______________________________ __________ >> > > > >>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman. ucsd.edu >> > > > > > edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >> > > > >>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >> > > > >>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >> > > conception >> > > > of >> > > > >>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >> stress >> > the >> > > > >>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >> > have >> > > > some >> > > > >>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >> > experts >> > > > need >> > > > >>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >> > > > (worded like >> > > > >>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >> correct >> > me >> > > > if I >> > > > >>>> missed his meaning). >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >> > > > classifiability >> > > > >>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >> an >> > > > element, >> > > > >>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >> > chemical >> > > > bonds >> > > > >>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >> > water >> > > > (how >> > > > >>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >> > Kellogg's >> > > > point. >> > > > >>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >> while >> > > > actions >> > > > >>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >> the >> > > > activity >> > > > >>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >> > them. >> > > > If we >> > > > >>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >> the >> > > > complexity >> > > > >>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >> not >> > > > just >> > > > >>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >> > identifiability, >> > > > >>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >> > > > constituents all >> > > > >>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >> > > > constituents >> > > > >>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >> illustrate >> > > that. >> > > > >>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >> > > > activities, and >> > > > >>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >> > > > characterizing >> > > > >>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>> David >> > > > >>>> >> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >> ablunden@mira.net> >> > > > wrote: >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >> > > > aspire to >> > > > >>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >> which >> > are >> > > > utterly >> > > > >>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >> For >> > > > example, >> > > > >>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >> > not >> > > > the >> > > > >>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> Andy >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >> > > > >>>>> Andy Blunden >> > > > >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > >>>>> https://andyblunden.academia. edu/research >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >> > one >> > > > might >> > > > >>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >> > phenomenon >> > > > that is >> > > > >>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >> > > > course of >> > > > >>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >> > > concept? >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> just wondering >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> Martin >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson> > > gmail.com >> > > > > >> > > > >>>>>>> wrote: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >> of >> > > > unit of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >> > > > Introduction >> > > > >>>>>>> to >> > > > >>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >> > short >> > > > of it >> > > > >>>>>>> is >> > > > >>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >> > > "unit >> > > > of >> > > > >>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >> an >> > > > adequate >> > > > >>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >> > analysis - >> > > > one >> > > > >>>>>>> that >> > > > >>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >> > study >> > > > water, a >> > > > >>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >> of >> > an >> > > > >>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >> > hydrogen >> > > > and >> > > > >>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >> > > > illuminate >> > > > >>>>>>> the >> > > > >>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >> language >> > use >> > > > >>>>>>> requires >> > > > >>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >> > > > >>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >> > > > linguistic >> > > > >>>>>>> and >> > > > >>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >> communication, >> > > but >> > > > >>>>>>> natural >> > > > >>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >> > > > includes other >> > > > >>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >> > > > >>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> ublication/319322253_Introduct >> > > > >>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >> > > > >>>>>>> ) >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >> > > thinking >> > > > >>>>>>> about >> > > > >>>>>>> unit of analysis. >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -greg >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>>>> -- >> > > > >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> > > > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor >> > > > >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >> > > > >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> > > > >>>>>>> Brigham Young University >> > > > >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >> > > > >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> > > > >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/ GregoryThompson >> > > > >>>>>>> >> > > > >>>>> >> > > > >>> >> > > > >> >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Sep 14 23:32:18 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 15:32:18 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Garbage and Hope Message-ID: Mike wrote earlier about Benjamin's exegesis of Klee's Angelus Novus. Benjamin wrote: "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." You notice that Benjamin calls it a painting (it's actually a monoprint, that is, a drawing in oils on glass which is then used to produce a single copy, because the original is destroyed in the process). While Klee gives the work a somewhat shifty gaze and calls it "new angel", Benjamin insists that it is staring fixedly and calls it the "angel of history". Benjamin apparently conceives of progress more or less the way that Ulvi thinks of Stalin: an irresistible omelette rather than a heap of smashed eggshells. Or does he? In "One Way Street", Walter Benjamin writes: "Florence, Baptistery. On the portal, the Spes [Hope], by Andrea de Pisano. Sitting, she helplessly extends her arms toward a fruit that remains beyond her reach. And yet she is winged. Nothing is more true." (2016, Harvard Bellknap, pp. 68-69). Before you read on, have a look here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptisterium_San_Giovanni_(Florenz)_01.jpg So nothing could be less true. First of all, Benjamin has the name wrong: it's Andrea Pisano, sometimes called da Pontedera Secondly, it's a crown and not a piece of fruit. Thirdly, the angel is in the process of standing rather than sitting and even if she were not, the crown is within easy reach. Benjamin's friend Bertholt Brecht complained that the Greeks had only one theory about tragedy, and it was wrong at every point: Aristotle thought that tragedy happened to the mighty and not the lowly, that it was about a flaw which was unique to the protagonist, and it was absolutely inevitable. It has taken us only two thousand years to create a tragedy that was true to life: i.e. ordinary, common to everybody, and above all avoidable. Maybe Benjamin's exegesis of Spes (and Angelus Novus) is supposed to work the same way; it's hard to believe that Benjamin could have gotten everything so wrong by accident. David Kellogg From R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk Fri Sep 15 06:21:10 2017 From: R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk (Rod Parker-Rees) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 13:21:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Garbage and Hope In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I love the way you bring so many images into our discussions, David! The examples you give here seem to me to illustrate the degree to which what we see is what we feel - these images of angels work like Rorschach blots, triggering or resurrecting Benjamin's own concerns and providing hooks to hang them on (or Velcro to stick them to!). It is so easy to forget that seeing is a subjective process and to go along with the exaltation of the emperor's new clothes but this also highlights the importance of 'fact-checkers' who take the trouble, as you have, to revisit what Benjamin was looking at and to ask whether what he saw is what others might be expected to see. 'Nothing is more true' hangs here in a delightful ambiguity - who is to say that the 'objective' truth of the baptistery doors is MORE true than the subjective truth of what Benjamin experienced when he looked at the angel? The fit (or not) between the image and the response reveals much more about Benjamin than either alone. This is why we need the painstaking exegesis seen in so many posts in this group. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg Sent: 15 September 2017 07:32 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Garbage and Hope Mike wrote earlier about Benjamin's exegesis of Klee's Angelus Novus. Benjamin wrote: "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." You notice that Benjamin calls it a painting (it's actually a monoprint, that is, a drawing in oils on glass which is then used to produce a single copy, because the original is destroyed in the process). While Klee gives the work a somewhat shifty gaze and calls it "new angel", Benjamin insists that it is staring fixedly and calls it the "angel of history". Benjamin apparently conceives of progress more or less the way that Ulvi thinks of Stalin: an irresistible omelette rather than a heap of smashed eggshells. Or does he? In "One Way Street", Walter Benjamin writes: "Florence, Baptistery. On the portal, the Spes [Hope], by Andrea de Pisano. Sitting, she helplessly extends her arms toward a fruit that remains beyond her reach. And yet she is winged. Nothing is more true." (2016, Harvard Bellknap, pp. 68-69). Before you read on, have a look here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptisterium_San_Giovanni_(Florenz)_01.jpg So nothing could be less true. First of all, Benjamin has the name wrong: it's Andrea Pisano, sometimes called da Pontedera Secondly, it's a crown and not a piece of fruit. Thirdly, the angel is in the process of standing rather than sitting and even if she were not, the crown is within easy reach. Benjamin's friend Bertholt Brecht complained that the Greeks had only one theory about tragedy, and it was wrong at every point: Aristotle thought that tragedy happened to the mighty and not the lowly, that it was about a flaw which was unique to the protagonist, and it was absolutely inevitable. It has taken us only two thousand years to create a tragedy that was true to life: i.e. ordinary, common to everybody, and above all avoidable. Maybe Benjamin's exegesis of Spes (and Angelus Novus) is supposed to work the same way; it's hard to believe that Benjamin could have gotten everything so wrong by accident. David Kellogg ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From mcole@ucsd.edu Fri Sep 15 12:37:18 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 12:37:18 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Garbage and Hope In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As you know David, I love to think with Angelus Novus and the erudition you bring to us with your posts. There is a ton more to be said about Angelus Novus but here, too, the picture is important to accompany the words, so I attach one. I knew the text several years before I first saw the painting. I was really amazed at how hard I would have found it to read Benjamin's text from the picture had I not known about it before. I had a totally different mental image of the painting from having initially intuited aspects of the text. My imagined angel had more conventional wings stretched back to Eden and the wind beating fiercely at its back. I imagined the wind was blowing that way in the late 1930's. Kinda windy around here these days, now that I come to look up from my computer. I'll have to think about whether I interpret de Pisano's angel as sitting to stretching upward in yearning, but either way, its very interesting to have the different paintings and texts to think about how he was caught between garbage and hope. In any event, very appropriate ideas to be thinking about. mike On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 6:21 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > I love the way you bring so many images into our discussions, David! > > The examples you give here seem to me to illustrate the degree to which > what we see is what we feel - these images of angels work like Rorschach > blots, triggering or resurrecting Benjamin's own concerns and providing > hooks to hang them on (or Velcro to stick them to!). It is so easy to > forget that seeing is a subjective process and to go along with the > exaltation of the emperor's new clothes but this also highlights the > importance of 'fact-checkers' who take the trouble, as you have, to revisit > what Benjamin was looking at and to ask whether what he saw is what others > might be expected to see. > > 'Nothing is more true' hangs here in a delightful ambiguity - who is to > say that the 'objective' truth of the baptistery doors is MORE true than > the subjective truth of what Benjamin experienced when he looked at the > angel? The fit (or not) between the image and the response reveals much > more about Benjamin than either alone. > > This is why we need the painstaking exegesis seen in so many posts in this > group. > > All the best, > > Rod > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > Sent: 15 September 2017 07:32 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Garbage and Hope > > Mike wrote earlier about Benjamin's exegesis of Klee's Angelus Novus. > Benjamin wrote: > > "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he > is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes > are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one > pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we > perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps > piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel > would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. > But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with > such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm > irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while > the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call > progress." > > You notice that Benjamin calls it a painting (it's actually a monoprint, > that is, a drawing in oils on glass which is then used to produce a single > copy, because the original is destroyed in the process). While Klee gives > the work a somewhat shifty gaze and calls it "new angel", Benjamin insists > that it is staring fixedly and calls it the "angel of history". Benjamin > apparently conceives of progress more or less the way that Ulvi thinks of > Stalin: an irresistible omelette rather than a heap of smashed eggshells. > > Or does he? In "One Way Street", Walter Benjamin writes: > > "Florence, Baptistery. On the portal, the Spes [Hope], by Andrea de Pisano. > Sitting, she helplessly extends her arms toward a fruit that remains > beyond her reach. And yet she is winged. Nothing is more true." (2016, > Harvard Bellknap, pp. 68-69). > > Before you read on, have a look here: > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptisterium_San_ > Giovanni_(Florenz)_01.jpg > > > So nothing could be less true. First of all, Benjamin has the name wrong: > it's Andrea Pisano, sometimes called da Pontedera Secondly, it's a crown > and not a piece of fruit. Thirdly, the angel is in the process of standing > rather than sitting and even if she were not, the crown is within easy > reach. > > Benjamin's friend Bertholt Brecht complained that the Greeks had only one > theory about tragedy, and it was wrong at every point: Aristotle thought > that tragedy happened to the mighty and not the lowly, that it was about a > flaw which was unique to the protagonist, and it was absolutely inevitable. > It has taken us only two thousand years to create a tragedy that was true > to life: i.e. ordinary, common to everybody, and above all avoidable. > > Maybe Benjamin's exegesis of Spes (and Angelus Novus) is supposed to work > the same way; it's hard to believe that Benjamin could have gotten > everything so wrong by accident. > > David Kellogg > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Klee,_paul,_angelus_novus,_1920.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 32640 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170915/e41ef6a9/attachment.jpg From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Fri Sep 15 13:53:23 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 20:53:23 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Play and performance Article for discussion Message-ID: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> Dear all, Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in personal development and social change. Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest of many. Good read! And good weekend, Alfredo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Lobman 2017 Performing on a Wider Stage Developing Inner City Youth Through Play and Performance.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1322695 bytes Desc: Lobman 2017 Performing on a Wider Stage Developing Inner City Youth Through Play and Performance.pdf Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170915/2982fc04/attachment-0001.pdf From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Fri Sep 15 15:57:42 2017 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2017 01:57:42 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Crisis of Social Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Ultra interesting. Peter can you kindly elaborate a little more on the involvement of nato about the (possible) development of social psychology please, even very shortly. Then, after dissolution of Warsaw Pact and Ussr, I am afraid social psychology should be highly probably in the hands of imperialist institutions like Nato. Well if not in the hands, highly intervened by it. Perhaps you can kindly have some facts about this latter to share please. A good article title isn't it? Social psychology and the nurse Nato. What about Stalin evil and social psychology? Oh, nato is such a clean institution than cpsu. It is apparent that if Cpsu and stalin does not intervene in psychology, then nato does it and there is not a middle. I ask myself: Why cpsu intervention in science is not shy while such interventions in science are rather shy in contrast? May the reason be that cpsu knew that its was legitimitate and nato knew that on the contrary illegitimate in peoples' eyes? It is nice complot against humanity. Blame Stalin for intervening in science while intervening in science with nato. I am sure: Science will be very scientific with nato intervention. So nato does not emancipate peoples in ex yugoslavia territory but also social psychology. many thanks to nato. 14 Eyl 2017 15:05 tarihinde "Peter Franks" yazd?: Hi Alfredo, Thanks for the query and interest. The cover is a painting by Oroszco the Mexican painter from the 1930's. It comes from a series of Freezes he painted on the walls of Dartmouth University's library, now the Hoodmuseum that I used to visit while working on the dissertation during the 70's. It does represent the basic impotence of liberal science, The series is called The Epic of American Civilization and is an extensive mural cycle created by Mexican artist Jos? Clemente Orozco between 1932 and 1934.The crisis I am particularly referring to was the one in American Social Psychology which led to the calling of a conference at Carleton University under the auspices of Nato to discuss the way forward. At the time I ,was a member of the PsychAgitator based at the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Social Psychology Department which objected to the idea that NATO and the elite group of social psychologists could determine the way forward for Social Psychology. This situation has recently received some attention largely as the crisis of Social Psychology was never really resolved and it becomes urgent as neo liberalism collapses. Jos? Clemente *Orozco* (November 23, 1883 ? September 7, 1949) was a Mexican painter, who specialized in political *murals* that established the Mexican *Mural* Renaissance together with *murals* by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. The following analysis sums it up. The cycle is crucial in illustrating out a fundamental difference between Orozco and his contemporary Mexican muralists. For instance, Rivera represented the same general theme but infused it with optimism; his cycle characterizes white European colonialism as progress rather than deterioration. Orozco, on the other hand, made the later panels of this cycle grotesquely mirror the beginning ones: *Ancient Human Sacrifice* becomes *Modern Human Sacrifice* in such a way that there's no progress at all, but merely the exchanging of one barbaric behavior for another much like it. Thus Orozco brought introspection, criticism, and ambiguity to Mexican muralism as none of his contemporaries had done. So. Yes it does reflect my views of Social Psychology at the time..... Kind regards Peter *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 Cell: 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for sharing, Peter. Two questions having just seen the front cover > and downloaded the file. First, the front cover picture is quite dramatic > and intriguing, Is there something about it in the book or that you could > tell us here (artist, why)? Second, which crisis you refer to in particular > and is it over now? > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Peter Franks > Sent: 14 September 2017 09:56 > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Crisis of Social Psychology > > The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received > scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the > understanding of that crisis. > > https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_ > American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 > > I would be interested in comments. > > > > *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* > > Professor Extraordinary, > School of Public Leadership > University of Stellenbosch > Former Deputy Vice Chancellor > University of Limpopo > > 44 Firmount Road > Somerset West > 7130 > Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 > Cell: 082 200 5977 > peterefranks@gmail.com > https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks > > For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest > visit bookhuntersden.co.za > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Fri Sep 15 15:57:56 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2017 07:57:56 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Garbage and Hope In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks, Rod and Mike. I think the angel's gaze isn't really shifty, but strabismatic (that is, cross-eyed), something often seen in infants. Nevertheless, he's not gazing fixedly. According to Benjamin, though, he's facing the wind, with his back to the future--like a reporter in a hurricane. Benjamin gets a lot of things spectacularly wrong, especially things having to do with hope and facing the wrong way (you remember that he committed suicide just hours before the Spanish authorities opened the border to let his companions through). One of the first things he ever wrote for publication, upon arriving at the University of Berlin and being made president of the Freie Studentenschaft, was this: .?One of the most candidly mendacious pretexts for extracting science from all of its obligations is to suppose that it should permit X or Y to find a job. Now, a job follows so little from science that it (science?DK) might even be said to exclude it (a job?DK). For the essence of science will not suffer being separated from itself to the least degree: in one way or another, it obliges every researcher to make a teacher of himself, but it never imposes upon him the professional public forms of the doctor, the jurist or the university professor." So Benjamin thinks that science will make you a teacher, but not a professional, or even an academic. Very well. But perhaps this will happen anyway, when we make our schools into places of learning? Not so! ?One accomplishes nothing good in referring to institutes that permit one to acquire titles, degrees, and opportunities in life and in work as places for science. We are not refuting this statement in the least by objecting that the State must today educate doctors and lawyers and teachers. We are only underlining the crushing immensity of the task which consists in substituting a community of knowing subjects for a corporation of functionaries and diploma holders.? So there?s a fundamental contradiction between producing a corporation of diploma holders and producing a community of knowers. Why so? Perhaps the problem is simply one of inner motivation: students who are motivated by diplomas are very different from students motivated by knowledge? Not so! ?We are only underlining to what point, in the development of their professional apparatus, by knowledges and skills, the actual sciences have lost that unitary origin that they owed to the idea of knowledge, because this origin has become for them a mystery if not a fiction.? Aha! It has to do with the unitary origin of knowledge--something lost in the strongly classified disciplines today. In Quebec City, Carrie and I sat through a longish presentation by Mohammed Elhammoumi and two Brazilian Colleagues on keeping the integrity of Vygotsky's work in a conservative age (i.e. a strongly classified one). The Brazilian comrades were good (and of course Mohammed himself was spot on, as usual) but everybody seemed to think that the integrity of Vygotsky's work lies in its boundary-breaking theory. I think that's a professor's view rather than a practitioner's, and I worry that it just substitutes stratification for classification. I remarked that we need ways of getting our students to think critically about the music of Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. Carrie thought it shouldn't be too hard to do this, but I think it's harder than it sounds, particularly for the kinetic arts. The music/video composite is designed not to be prized apart or thought about at all. In that sense it really is, like Benjamin, facing the wrong way. Development, after all, is not so much about growth as about differentiation. David Kellogg PS: Hi, Carrie--looking forward to reading from you! dk On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 4:37 AM, mike cole wrote: > As you know David, I love to think with Angelus Novus and the erudition you > bring to us with your posts. > > There is a ton more to be said about Angelus Novus but here, too, the > picture is important to accompany the words, so I attach one. I knew the > text several years before I first saw the painting. I was really amazed at > how hard I would have found it to read Benjamin's text from the picture had > I not known about it before. I had a totally different mental image of the > painting from having initially intuited aspects of the text. My imagined > angel had more conventional wings stretched back to Eden and the wind > beating fiercely at its back. > > I imagined the wind was blowing that way in the late 1930's. Kinda windy > around here these days, now that I come to look up from my computer. > > I'll have to think about whether I interpret de Pisano's angel as sitting > to stretching upward in yearning, but either way, its very interesting to > have the different paintings > and texts to think about how he was caught between garbage and hope. > > In any event, very appropriate ideas to be thinking about. > > mike > > On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 6:21 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > > > I love the way you bring so many images into our discussions, David! > > > > The examples you give here seem to me to illustrate the degree to which > > what we see is what we feel - these images of angels work like Rorschach > > blots, triggering or resurrecting Benjamin's own concerns and providing > > hooks to hang them on (or Velcro to stick them to!). It is so easy to > > forget that seeing is a subjective process and to go along with the > > exaltation of the emperor's new clothes but this also highlights the > > importance of 'fact-checkers' who take the trouble, as you have, to > revisit > > what Benjamin was looking at and to ask whether what he saw is what > others > > might be expected to see. > > > > 'Nothing is more true' hangs here in a delightful ambiguity - who is to > > say that the 'objective' truth of the baptistery doors is MORE true than > > the subjective truth of what Benjamin experienced when he looked at the > > angel? The fit (or not) between the image and the response reveals much > > more about Benjamin than either alone. > > > > This is why we need the painstaking exegesis seen in so many posts in > this > > group. > > > > All the best, > > > > Rod > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > > Sent: 15 September 2017 07:32 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Garbage and Hope > > > > Mike wrote earlier about Benjamin's exegesis of Klee's Angelus Novus. > > Benjamin wrote: > > > > "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he > > is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His > eyes > > are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one > > pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where > we > > perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps > > piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The > angel > > would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been > smashed. > > But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with > > such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm > > irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, > while > > the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call > > progress." > > > > You notice that Benjamin calls it a painting (it's actually a monoprint, > > that is, a drawing in oils on glass which is then used to produce a > single > > copy, because the original is destroyed in the process). While Klee gives > > the work a somewhat shifty gaze and calls it "new angel", Benjamin > insists > > that it is staring fixedly and calls it the "angel of history". Benjamin > > apparently conceives of progress more or less the way that Ulvi thinks of > > Stalin: an irresistible omelette rather than a heap of smashed eggshells. > > > > Or does he? In "One Way Street", Walter Benjamin writes: > > > > "Florence, Baptistery. On the portal, the Spes [Hope], by Andrea de > Pisano. > > Sitting, she helplessly extends her arms toward a fruit that remains > > beyond her reach. And yet she is winged. Nothing is more true." (2016, > > Harvard Bellknap, pp. 68-69). > > > > Before you read on, have a look here: > > > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptisterium_San_ > > Giovanni_(Florenz)_01.jpg > > > > > > So nothing could be less true. First of all, Benjamin has the name wrong: > > it's Andrea Pisano, sometimes called da Pontedera Secondly, it's a crown > > and not a piece of fruit. Thirdly, the angel is in the process of > standing > > rather than sitting and even if she were not, the crown is within easy > > reach. > > > > Benjamin's friend Bertholt Brecht complained that the Greeks had only one > > theory about tragedy, and it was wrong at every point: Aristotle thought > > that tragedy happened to the mighty and not the lowly, that it was about > a > > flaw which was unique to the protagonist, and it was absolutely > inevitable. > > It has taken us only two thousand years to create a tragedy that was true > > to life: i.e. ordinary, common to everybody, and above all avoidable. > > > > Maybe Benjamin's exegesis of Spes (and Angelus Novus) is supposed to work > > the same way; it's hard to believe that Benjamin could have gotten > > everything so wrong by accident. > > > > David Kellogg > > ________________________________ > > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] > //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > it. > > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > emails > > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > > by an official order form. > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Fri Sep 15 16:04:30 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 16:04:30 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Garbage and Hope In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Of course, David, the wind is blowing FROM Eden! I was mixing two different thoughts. Not for the first time! more when I can narrow down to one thought at a time. :-) mike On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 3:57 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > Thanks, Rod and Mike. I think the angel's gaze isn't really shifty, but > strabismatic (that is, cross-eyed), something often seen in infants. > Nevertheless, he's not gazing fixedly. According to Benjamin, though, he's > facing the wind, with his back to the future--like a reporter in a > hurricane. > > Benjamin gets a lot of things spectacularly wrong, especially things having > to do with hope and facing the wrong way (you remember that he committed > suicide just hours before the Spanish authorities opened the border to let > his companions through). One of the first things he ever wrote for > publication, upon arriving at the University of Berlin and being made > president of the Freie Studentenschaft, was this: > > .?One of the most candidly mendacious pretexts for extracting science from > all of its obligations is to suppose that it should permit X or Y to find a > job. Now, a job follows so little from science that it (science?DK) might > even be said to exclude it (a job?DK). For the essence of science will not > suffer being separated from itself to the least degree: in one way or > another, it obliges every researcher to make a teacher of himself, but it > never imposes upon him the professional public forms of the doctor, the > jurist or the university professor." > > So Benjamin thinks that science will make you a teacher, but not a > professional, or even an academic. Very well. But perhaps this will happen > anyway, when we make our schools into places of learning? Not so! > > ?One accomplishes nothing good in referring to institutes that permit one > to acquire titles, degrees, and opportunities in life and in work as places > for science. We are not refuting this statement in the least by objecting > that the State must today educate doctors and lawyers and teachers. We are > only underlining the crushing immensity of the task which consists in > substituting a community of knowing subjects for a corporation of > functionaries and diploma holders.? > > So there?s a fundamental contradiction between producing a corporation of > diploma holders and producing a community of knowers. Why so? Perhaps the > problem is simply one of inner motivation: students who are motivated by > diplomas are very different from students motivated by knowledge? Not so! > > ?We are only underlining to what point, in the development of their > professional apparatus, by knowledges and skills, the actual sciences have > lost that unitary origin that they owed to the idea of knowledge, because > this origin has become for them a mystery if not a fiction.? > > Aha! It has to do with the unitary origin of knowledge--something lost in > the strongly classified disciplines today. In Quebec City, Carrie and I sat > through a longish presentation by Mohammed Elhammoumi and two Brazilian > Colleagues on keeping the integrity of Vygotsky's work in a conservative > age (i.e. a strongly classified one). The Brazilian comrades were good (and > of course Mohammed himself was spot on, as usual) but everybody seemed to > think that the integrity of Vygotsky's work lies in its boundary-breaking > theory. > > I think that's a professor's view rather than a practitioner's, and I worry > that it just substitutes stratification for classification. I remarked that > we need ways of getting our students to think critically about the music of > Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. Carrie thought it shouldn't be too hard > to do this, but I think it's harder than it sounds, particularly for the > kinetic arts. The music/video composite is designed not to be prized apart > or thought about at all. In that sense it really is, like Benjamin, facing > the wrong way. Development, after all, is not so much about growth as about > differentiation. > > David Kellogg > > PS: Hi, Carrie--looking forward to reading from you! > > dk > > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 4:37 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > As you know David, I love to think with Angelus Novus and the erudition > you > > bring to us with your posts. > > > > There is a ton more to be said about Angelus Novus but here, too, the > > picture is important to accompany the words, so I attach one. I knew the > > text several years before I first saw the painting. I was really amazed > at > > how hard I would have found it to read Benjamin's text from the picture > had > > I not known about it before. I had a totally different mental image of > the > > painting from having initially intuited aspects of the text. My imagined > > angel had more conventional wings stretched back to Eden and the wind > > beating fiercely at its back. > > > > I imagined the wind was blowing that way in the late 1930's. Kinda windy > > around here these days, now that I come to look up from my computer. > > > > I'll have to think about whether I interpret de Pisano's angel as sitting > > to stretching upward in yearning, but either way, its very interesting to > > have the different paintings > > and texts to think about how he was caught between garbage and hope. > > > > In any event, very appropriate ideas to be thinking about. > > > > mike > > > > On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 6:21 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < > > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > > > > > I love the way you bring so many images into our discussions, David! > > > > > > The examples you give here seem to me to illustrate the degree to which > > > what we see is what we feel - these images of angels work like > Rorschach > > > blots, triggering or resurrecting Benjamin's own concerns and providing > > > hooks to hang them on (or Velcro to stick them to!). It is so easy to > > > forget that seeing is a subjective process and to go along with the > > > exaltation of the emperor's new clothes but this also highlights the > > > importance of 'fact-checkers' who take the trouble, as you have, to > > revisit > > > what Benjamin was looking at and to ask whether what he saw is what > > others > > > might be expected to see. > > > > > > 'Nothing is more true' hangs here in a delightful ambiguity - who is to > > > say that the 'objective' truth of the baptistery doors is MORE true > than > > > the subjective truth of what Benjamin experienced when he looked at the > > > angel? The fit (or not) between the image and the response reveals much > > > more about Benjamin than either alone. > > > > > > This is why we need the painstaking exegesis seen in so many posts in > > this > > > group. > > > > > > All the best, > > > > > > Rod > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > > > Sent: 15 September 2017 07:32 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Garbage and Hope > > > > > > Mike wrote earlier about Benjamin's exegesis of Klee's Angelus Novus. > > > Benjamin wrote: > > > > > > "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though > he > > > is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His > > eyes > > > are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one > > > pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. > Where > > we > > > perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps > > > piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The > > angel > > > would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been > > smashed. > > > But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings > with > > > such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm > > > irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, > > while > > > the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call > > > progress." > > > > > > You notice that Benjamin calls it a painting (it's actually a > monoprint, > > > that is, a drawing in oils on glass which is then used to produce a > > single > > > copy, because the original is destroyed in the process). While Klee > gives > > > the work a somewhat shifty gaze and calls it "new angel", Benjamin > > insists > > > that it is staring fixedly and calls it the "angel of history". > Benjamin > > > apparently conceives of progress more or less the way that Ulvi thinks > of > > > Stalin: an irresistible omelette rather than a heap of smashed > eggshells. > > > > > > Or does he? In "One Way Street", Walter Benjamin writes: > > > > > > "Florence, Baptistery. On the portal, the Spes [Hope], by Andrea de > > Pisano. > > > Sitting, she helplessly extends her arms toward a fruit that remains > > > beyond her reach. And yet she is winged. Nothing is more true." (2016, > > > Harvard Bellknap, pp. 68-69). > > > > > > Before you read on, have a look here: > > > > > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptisterium_San_ > > > Giovanni_(Florenz)_01.jpg > > > > > > > > > So nothing could be less true. First of all, Benjamin has the name > wrong: > > > it's Andrea Pisano, sometimes called da Pontedera Secondly, it's a > crown > > > and not a piece of fruit. Thirdly, the angel is in the process of > > standing > > > rather than sitting and even if she were not, the crown is within easy > > > reach. > > > > > > Benjamin's friend Bertholt Brecht complained that the Greeks had only > one > > > theory about tragedy, and it was wrong at every point: Aristotle > thought > > > that tragedy happened to the mighty and not the lowly, that it was > about > > a > > > flaw which was unique to the protagonist, and it was absolutely > > inevitable. > > > It has taken us only two thousand years to create a tragedy that was > true > > > to life: i.e. ordinary, common to everybody, and above all avoidable. > > > > > > Maybe Benjamin's exegesis of Spes (and Angelus Novus) is supposed to > work > > > the same way; it's hard to believe that Benjamin could have gotten > > > everything so wrong by accident. > > > > > > David Kellogg > > > ________________________________ > > > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] > > //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > > > > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely > for > > > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > > > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > > > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > > it. > > > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > > > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > > > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University > accepts > > > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > > emails > > > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept > responsibility > > > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > > > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > > > by an official order form. > > > > > > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Fri Sep 15 16:37:11 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 23:37:11 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgUmU6IENyaXNpcyBvZiBTb2NpYWwgUHN5Y2hvbG9n?= =?utf-8?q?y?= In-Reply-To: References: <1505387132618.21988@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <1210227312.5106799.1505518631590@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Ulvi Just a brief eyewitness account:?Before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR social psychology was partly under the ban partially was a complete copy of Western social psychology. No Marxist social psychology in the USSR did not even exist because any truly scientific (=Marxist) study of social psychology of the Soviet man would have inevitably discovere that the relations of production in the USSR are entirely alienated nature and all the arguments about mass socialist labour enthusiasm are blatant propaganda.. The Warsaw Pact didn't sponsored research in the field of social psychology not because the Soviet generals?respect the independence of scientific research, but because they believed Kalashnicovs, tanks and atomic bombs more effective means of struggle with Western rivals than any psychology. Sasha ???????, 16 ???????? 2017 2:00 Ulvi ??il ?????(?): Ultra interesting. Peter can you kindly elaborate a little more on the involvement of nato about the (possible) development of social psychology please, even very shortly. Then, after dissolution of Warsaw Pact and Ussr, I am afraid social psychology should be highly probably in the hands of imperialist institutions like Nato. Well if not in the hands, highly intervened by it. Perhaps you can kindly have some facts about this latter to share please. A good article title isn't it? Social psychology? and the nurse Nato. What about? Stalin evil and social psychology? Oh, nato is such a clean institution than cpsu. It is apparent that if Cpsu and stalin does not intervene in psychology, then nato does it and there is not a middle. I ask myself: Why cpsu intervention in science is not shy while such interventions in science are rather shy in contrast? May the reason be that cpsu knew that its was legitimitate and nato knew that on the contrary illegitimate in peoples' eyes? It is nice complot against humanity. Blame Stalin for intervening in science while intervening in science? with nato. I am sure: Science will be very scientific with nato intervention. So nato does not emancipate peoples in ex yugoslavia territory but also social psychology. many thanks to nato. 14 Eyl 2017 15:05 tarihinde "Peter Franks" yazd?: Hi Alfredo, Thanks for the query and interest. The cover is a painting by Oroszco the Mexican painter from the 1930's. It comes from a series of Freezes he painted on the walls of Dartmouth University's library, now the Hoodmuseum that I used to visit while working on the dissertation during the 70's. It does represent the basic impotence of liberal science, The series is called The Epic of American Civilization and is an extensive mural cycle created by Mexican artist Jos? Clemente Orozco between 1932 and 1934.The crisis I am particularly referring to was the one in American Social Psychology which led to the calling of a conference at Carleton University under the auspices of Nato to discuss the way forward. At the time I ,was a member of the PsychAgitator based at the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Social Psychology Department which objected to the idea that NATO and the elite group of social psychologists could determine the way forward for Social Psychology. This situation has recently received some attention largely as the crisis of Social Psychology was never really resolved and it becomes urgent as neo liberalism collapses. Jos? Clemente *Orozco* (November 23, 1883 ? September 7, 1949) was a Mexican painter, who specialized in political *murals* that established the Mexican *Mural* Renaissance together with *murals* by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. The following analysis sums it up. The cycle is crucial in illustrating out a fundamental difference between Orozco and his contemporary Mexican muralists. For instance, Rivera represented the same general theme but infused it with optimism; his cycle characterizes white European colonialism as progress rather than deterioration. Orozco, on the other hand, made the later panels of this cycle grotesquely mirror the beginning ones: *Ancient Human Sacrifice* becomes *Modern Human Sacrifice* in such a way that there's no progress at all, but merely the exchanging of one barbaric behavior for another much like it. Thus Orozco brought introspection, criticism, and ambiguity to Mexican muralism as none of his contemporaries had done. So. Yes it does reflect my views of Social Psychology at the time..... Kind regards Peter *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* Professor Extraordinary, School of Public Leadership University of Stellenbosch Former Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Limpopo 44 Firmount Road Somerset West 7130 Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 ? ? ? Cell:? 082 200 5977 peterefranks@gmail.com https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest visit bookhuntersden.co.za On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for sharing, Peter. Two questions having just seen the front cover > and downloaded the file. First, the front cover picture is quite dramatic > and intriguing, Is there something about it in the book or that you could > tell us here (artist, why)? Second, which crisis you refer to in particular > and is it over now? > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Peter Franks > Sent: 14 September 2017 09:56 > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l]? Crisis of Social Psychology > > The following was written during the 1970's crisis although it received > scant attention at that time it does perhaps contribute to the > understanding of that crisis. > > https://www.academia.edu/8519216/A_Social_History_of_ > American_Social_Psychology_up_to_the_second_world_war_1975_2011 > > I would be interested in comments. > > > > *Prof. Peter E. Franks PhD* > > Professor Extraordinary, > School of Public Leadership > University of Stellenbosch > Former Deputy Vice Chancellor > University of Limpopo > > 44 Firmount Road > Somerset West > 7130 > Tel: Home: 021 851 9764 >? ? ? ? Cell:? 082 200 5977 > peterefranks@gmail.com > https://sun.academia.edu/PeterEmanuelFranks > > For rare and collectible books, Africana and books of special interest > visit bookhuntersden.co.za > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Sep 17 14:12:29 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 14:12:29 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk Message-ID: I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age of 63. All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to help us understand perezhivanie. mike From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Sun Sep 17 14:20:26 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 21:20:26 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiAgIFRoZSBQYXNzaW5nIG9mIEZ5ZG9yIFZhc2lsaXVr?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <193478253.6410052.1505683226742@mail.yahoo.com> Sad news. I was not familiar with Vasilyuk, but knew him as a highly charismatic and decent man. His death is a great loss for the Russian psychology. Sasha ???????????, 18 ???????? 2017 0:15 mike cole ?????(?): I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age of 63. All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to help us understand perezhivanie. mike From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sun Sep 17 14:25:29 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 21:25:29 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> Those are really sad news... I was priviliged to get to meet Fydor Vasiliuk at the ISCAR Summer University in Moscow in 2011, where he gave a very hands-on lecture on "the co-experiencing method" in consueling. He did give his lecture in Russian (we had a really diligent translator for many of the lectures), but was quite remarkable how well he would get to engage many of us as he would perform the method then and there with us, really co-experiencing despite all the difficulties (language, not having known each other from before). His influence has been very much present here recenlty with the occasion of the perezhivanie special issue. A big loss. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 17 September 2017 23:12 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age of 63. All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to help us understand perezhivanie. mike From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sun Sep 17 15:48:18 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2017 07:48:18 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation on social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply progressive movements which require study. From education studies we know that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; the two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's probably more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and when we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study really does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements are more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's earlier work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies operating in Vietnam. b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011. c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids to the boardrooms of New York bankers. I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about reactionary and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a little perplexed by c). I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, she presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their depth in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is the bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young actors rather than vice versa. I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that are the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like themselves, wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their boardrooms? (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have had to do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) David Kellogg On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Dear all, > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in > personal development and social change. > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > Alfredo > From ablunden@mira.net Sun Sep 17 18:13:48 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2017 11:13:48 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to Quebec? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation on > social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply > progressive movements which require study. From education studies we know > that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; the > two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's probably > more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and when > we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study really > does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements are > more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's earlier > work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). > > I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: > > a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies operating in > Vietnam. > b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of Anthony > Lamar Smith in 2011. > c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids to > the boardrooms of New York bankers. > > I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social > movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about reactionary > and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the > increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a > little perplexed by c). > > I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, she > presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their depth > in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is the > bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young actors > rather than vice versa. > > I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and > dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that are > the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy > Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like themselves, > wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their boardrooms? > > (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not > necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have had to > do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) > > David Kellogg > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > >> Dear all, >> >> >> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it >> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have >> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am >> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in >> personal development and social change. >> >> >> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing >> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play >> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's >> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to >> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to >> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through >> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages >> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." >> >> >> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and >> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get >> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am >> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be >> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest >> of many. Good read! And good weekend, >> >> >> Alfredo >> > From bferholt@gmail.com Sun Sep 17 18:35:39 2017 From: bferholt@gmail.com (Beth Ferholt) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 21:35:39 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk In-Reply-To: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> References: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: That is very sad news. Beth On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Those are really sad news... I was priviliged to get to meet Fydor > Vasiliuk at the ISCAR Summer University in Moscow in 2011, where he gave a > very hands-on lecture on "the co-experiencing method" in consueling. He did > give his lecture in Russian (we had a really diligent translator for many > of the lectures), but was quite remarkable how well he would get to engage > many of us as he would perform the method then and there with us, really > co-experiencing despite all the difficulties (language, not having known > each other from before). > His influence has been very much present here recenlty with the occasion > of the perezhivanie special issue. A big loss. > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 17 September 2017 23:12 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk > > I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age > of 63. > > All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to > help us understand perezhivanie. > > > mike > > -- Beth Ferholt Associate Professor Department of Early Childhood and Art Education Brooklyn College, City University of New York 2900 Bedford Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889 Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu Phone: (718) 951-5205 Fax: (718) 951-4816 From kplakits@gmail.com Sun Sep 17 23:27:41 2017 From: kplakits@gmail.com (Katerina Plakitsi) Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2017 06:27:41 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk In-Reply-To: References: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I have no words. Just sad! ???? ???, 18 ??? 2017 ???? 04:37 ? ??????? Beth Ferholt ??????: > That is very sad news. Beth > > On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Those are really sad news... I was priviliged to get to meet Fydor > > Vasiliuk at the ISCAR Summer University in Moscow in 2011, where he gave > a > > very hands-on lecture on "the co-experiencing method" in consueling. He > did > > give his lecture in Russian (we had a really diligent translator for many > > of the lectures), but was quite remarkable how well he would get to > engage > > many of us as he would perform the method then and there with us, really > > co-experiencing despite all the difficulties (language, not having known > > each other from before). > > His influence has been very much present here recenlty with the occasion > > of the perezhivanie special issue. A big loss. > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of mike cole > > Sent: 17 September 2017 23:12 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk > > > > I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the > age > > of 63. > > > > All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to > > help us understand perezhivanie. > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > -- > Beth Ferholt > Associate Professor > Department of Early Childhood and Art Education > Brooklyn College, City University of New Y > > ork > 2900 Bedford Avenue > Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889 > > Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu > Phone: (718) 951-5205 > Fax: (718) 951-4816 > -- ............................................................ Katerina Plakitsi ISCAR President Professor in Science Education School of Education Dept. of Early Childhood Education University of Ioannina Greece tel. +302651005771 fax. +302651005842 mobile.phone +306972898463 Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3 http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp From mvshea@gmail.com Mon Sep 18 17:21:28 2017 From: mvshea@gmail.com (molly shea) Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2017 17:21:28 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> Message-ID: I would also like to see the presentation and remarks if it is recorded and someone is able to share them. Thanks, Molly On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other > contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to > Quebec? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation on > > social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply > > progressive movements which require study. From education studies we know > > that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; > the > > two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's > probably > > more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and when > > we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study > really > > does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements are > > more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's > earlier > > work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). > > > > I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: > > > > a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies operating > in > > Vietnam. > > b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of Anthony > > Lamar Smith in 2011. > > c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids to > > the boardrooms of New York bankers. > > > > I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social > > movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about > reactionary > > and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the > > increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a > > little perplexed by c). > > > > I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, she > > presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their depth > > in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is the > > bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young actors > > rather than vice versa. > > > > I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and > > dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that > are > > the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy > > Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like themselves, > > wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their boardrooms? > > > > (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not > > necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have had > to > > do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > wrote: > > > >> Dear all, > >> > >> > >> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and > it > >> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > >> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > >> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance > in > >> personal development and social change. > >> > >> > >> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > >> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly > play > >> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > >> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit > to > >> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > >> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass > through > >> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > >> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > >> > >> > >> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > >> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > get > >> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. > I am > >> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > >> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > interest > >> of many. Good read! And good weekend, > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> > > > > From vetoshkina.liub@gmail.com Tue Sep 19 01:05:39 2017 From: vetoshkina.liub@gmail.com (Liubov Vetoshkina) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:05:39 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk In-Reply-To: References: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Dear all, Just to let you know, Vasilyuk's students and colleagues have created a web-page in his memory: http://fyodorvasilyuk.ru/en_US/ You can read the obituary and share your memories and pictures there. Regards, a silent XMCA reader from Helsinki Liubov Vetoshkina Liubov Vetoshkina (M.Psych.) Grant-Funded Researcher, PhD Candidate Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Learning, Culture and Interventions Expert Group Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki P.O. Box 9, Siltavuorenpenger 1A 228 FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland Tel. +358 456620601 <+358%2045%206620601> On 18 September 2017 at 00:12, mike cole wrote: > I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age > of 63. > > All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to > help us understand perezhivanie. > > > mike > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 19 01:11:21 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 08:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk In-Reply-To: References: <1505683529861.61161@iped.uio.no> , Message-ID: <1505808681224.63292@iped.uio.no> Thank you so much, Liubov Vetoshkina, for breaking silence to share this. It is indeed a beautiful site Vasilyuk's students are making, and there is a section when you can share your experiences with/of him. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Liubov Vetoshkina Sent: 19 September 2017 10:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Passing of Fydor Vasiliuk Dear all, Just to let you know, Vasilyuk's students and colleagues have created a web-page in his memory: http://fyodorvasilyuk.ru/en_US/ You can read the obituary and share your memories and pictures there. Regards, a silent XMCA reader from Helsinki Liubov Vetoshkina Liubov Vetoshkina (M.Psych.) Grant-Funded Researcher, PhD Candidate Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Learning, Culture and Interventions Expert Group Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki P.O. Box 9, Siltavuorenpenger 1A 228 FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland Tel. +358 456620601 <+358%2045%206620601> On 18 September 2017 at 00:12, mike cole wrote: > I have just learned of the passing of Fydor Vasiliuk. Of cancer. At the age > of 63. > > All of XMCA is enormously indebted to Fydor for his untiring efforts to > help us understand perezhivanie. > > > mike > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 19 06:20:12 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:20:12 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Obituary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The attached file is an English language obituary for Fyodor Vasiliuk. Mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: ??????????, ?????????-???????????? Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:50 AM Subject: Obituary To: , , < anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch>, , Malcolm Reed < malcolm.reed@bristol.ac.uk>, Nikolay Veresov , < lchcmike@gmail.com>, , , , , < jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu> Attached please find Obituary. *Editorial board, Journal ?Cultural-Historical Psychology?,* Responsible representative: Natalya Meshkova, PhD in Psychology, skype: meshkovanat Executive Editorial office address: Sretenka str., 29, off. 209, Moscow, Russia 127051 Phone: + 7 (495) 608-16-27 Fax: +7 (495) 632-92-52 Email: kip.journal@gmail.com Web: http://psyjournals.ru/en/kip -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ???????_????????_???????_1.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25088 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170919/30f0d7c0/attachment.doc From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 19 09:40:18 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:40:18 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Fw: Required Reading In-Reply-To: References: <000601d31ea8$60491e60$20db5b20$@com> <15e9691203d-c06-17a23@webjas-vae080.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: I rarely pass on such messages. But this one seems to very badly needed. Its easy to respond to. Sorry to bother our global colleagues in an American problem. The Americans on the list can figure out ways to forward the contents to fellow citizens and those of you residing elsewhere can see us struggling with a government that is increasingly alienated from its constituents. Sadly, mike -------------------------------------- Michael Lewis, PhD University Distinguished Professor Director, Institute for the Study of Child Development Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 89 French Street, Room 1201 New Brunswick, NJ 08901 Ph: 732-235-7901 Fax: 732-235-6189 Email: lewis@rwjms.rutgers.edu ISCD Website: http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/pediatric/iscd ------------------------------ *From:* drlrosenblum@aol.com *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 3:57 PM *To:* david@enock.com; rnadler@emory.edu; Michael Lewis; goldberg@buffalo.edu; ed1844@aol.com; jeestunautre@aol.com; gdr1312@gmail.com *Subject:* Fwd: Required Reading [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag1.gif] [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-toprightcorner.gif] [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag2.gif] *This will only take 1 minute to read!* *28th Amendment, 35 States and Counting**.* It will take you less than a minute to read this. If you agree, please pass it on. It's an idea whose time has come to deal with this self serving situation: Children of Congress members do not have to pay back their college student loans. Staffers of Congress family members are also exempt from having to payback student loans. Members of Congress can retire at full pay after only one term. Members of Congress have exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed, under which ordinary citizens must live. For example, they are exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment. And as the latest example, they have exempted themselves from Healthcare Reform, in all of its aspects. We must not tolerate an elite class of such people, elected as public servants and then putting themselves above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or whatever. The self-serving must stop. Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon their states. *It only takes 38 (of the 50) States **to* convene a Constitutional Convention. *IF???* *Each person that receives this will forward it on to 10 people, in three days most people in The United States of America will have the message.* Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: *"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the Citizens of the United States ..."* *You are one of my 10* [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-bottomleftcorner.gif] [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] From jgregmcverry@gmail.com Tue Sep 19 10:01:26 2017 From: jgregmcverry@gmail.com (Greg Mcverry) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 17:01:26 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Fw: Required Reading In-Reply-To: References: <000601d31ea8$60491e60$20db5b20$@com> <15e9691203d-c06-17a23@webjas-vae080.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: Mike, Thanks for sharing. This is a meme and not true: https://www.thoughtco.com/about-that-proposed-28th-amendment-3299418 Greg On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 12:44 PM mike cole wrote: > I rarely pass on such messages. But this one seems to very badly needed. > Its easy to respond to. > > Sorry to bother our global colleagues in an American problem. The Americans > on the list can figure out ways to forward the contents to fellow citizens > and those of you residing elsewhere can see us struggling with a government > that is increasingly alienated from its constituents. > > Sadly, > mike > > > > -------------------------------------- > Michael Lewis, PhD > University Distinguished Professor > Director, Institute for the Study of Child Development > Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School > 89 French Street, Room 1201 > < > https://maps.google.com/?q=89+French+Street,+Room+1201+%0D+New+Brunswick,+NJ+08901+%0D+Ph:+732&entry=gmail&source=g > > > New Brunswick, NJ 08901 > Ph: 732-235-7901 <(732)%20235-7901> > Fax: 732-235-6189 <(732)%20235-6189> > Email: lewis@rwjms.rutgers.edu > ISCD Website: http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/pediatric/iscd > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* drlrosenblum@aol.com > *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 3:57 PM > *To:* david@enock.com; rnadler@emory.edu; Michael Lewis; > goldberg@buffalo.edu; ed1844@aol.com; jeestunautre@aol.com; > gdr1312@gmail.com > *Subject:* Fwd: Required Reading > > > > > > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag1.gif] > [image: > http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-toprightcorner.gif] > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag2.gif] > > *This will only take 1 minute to read!* > *28th Amendment, 35 States and Counting**.* > > It will take you less than a minute to read this. If you agree, please pass > it on. It's an idea whose time has come to deal with this self serving > situation: > > Children of Congress members do not have to pay back their college student > loans. > > Staffers of Congress family members are also exempt from having to payback > student loans. > > Members of Congress can retire at full pay after only one term. > > Members of Congress have exempted themselves from many of the laws they > have passed, under which ordinary citizens must live. For example, they are > exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment. > > And as the latest example, they have exempted themselves from Healthcare > Reform, in all of its aspects. > > We must not tolerate an elite class of such people, elected as public > servants and then putting themselves above the law. > > I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or > whatever. The self-serving must stop. > > Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for > imposing unlawful burdens upon their states. *It only takes 38 (of the 50) > States **to* convene a Constitutional Convention. > > > *IF???* > > *Each person that receives this will forward it on to 10 people, in three > days most people in The United States of America will have the message.* > > Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: > > > *"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United > States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; > and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or > Representatives that does not apply equally to the Citizens of the United > States ..."* > > > *You are one of my 10* > > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] > [image: > http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-bottomleftcorner.gif] > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 19 12:34:46 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:34:46 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Fw: Required Reading In-Reply-To: References: <000601d31ea8$60491e60$20db5b20$@com> <15e9691203d-c06-17a23@webjas-vae080.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: SO INTERESTING, GREG! Fake news. I'll send it back to the person who sent it to me, although I suspect its difficult to swim up that stream! mike On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 10:01 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Mike, > > Thanks for sharing. This is a meme and not true: > https://www.thoughtco.com/about-that-proposed-28th-amendment-3299418 > > Greg > > On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 12:44 PM mike cole wrote: > > > I rarely pass on such messages. But this one seems to very badly needed. > > Its easy to respond to. > > > > Sorry to bother our global colleagues in an American problem. The > Americans > > on the list can figure out ways to forward the contents to fellow > citizens > > and those of you residing elsewhere can see us struggling with a > government > > that is increasingly alienated from its constituents. > > > > Sadly, > > mike > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------- > > Michael Lewis, PhD > > University Distinguished Professor > > Director, Institute for the Study of Child Development > > Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School > > 89 French Street, Room 1201 > > < > > https://maps.google.com/?q=89+French+Street,+Room+1201+%0D+ > New+Brunswick,+NJ+08901+%0D+Ph:+732&entry=gmail&source=g > > > > > New Brunswick, NJ 08901 > > Ph: 732-235-7901 <(732)%20235-7901> > > Fax: 732-235-6189 <(732)%20235-6189> > > Email: lewis@rwjms.rutgers.edu > > ISCD Website: http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/pediatric/iscd > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* drlrosenblum@aol.com > > *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 3:57 PM > > *To:* david@enock.com; rnadler@emory.edu; Michael Lewis; > > goldberg@buffalo.edu; ed1844@aol.com; jeestunautre@aol.com; > > gdr1312@gmail.com > > *Subject:* Fwd: Required Reading > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag1.gif] > > [image: > > http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-toprightcorner.gif] > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-flag2.gif] > > > > *This will only take 1 minute to read!* > > *28th Amendment, 35 States and Counting**.* > > > > It will take you less than a minute to read this. If you agree, please > pass > > it on. It's an idea whose time has come to deal with this self serving > > situation: > > > > Children of Congress members do not have to pay back their college > student > > loans. > > > > Staffers of Congress family members are also exempt from having to > payback > > student loans. > > > > Members of Congress can retire at full pay after only one term. > > > > Members of Congress have exempted themselves from many of the laws they > > have passed, under which ordinary citizens must live. For example, they > are > > exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment. > > > > And as the latest example, they have exempted themselves from Healthcare > > Reform, in all of its aspects. > > > > We must not tolerate an elite class of such people, elected as public > > servants and then putting themselves above the law. > > > > I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or > > whatever. The self-serving must stop. > > > > Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for > > imposing unlawful burdens upon their states. *It only takes 38 (of the > 50) > > States **to* convene a Constitutional Convention. > > > > > > *IF???* > > > > *Each person that receives this will forward it on to 10 people, in three > > days most people in The United States of America will have the message.* > > > > Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: > > > > > > *"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United > > States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or > Representatives; > > and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or > > Representatives that does not apply equally to the Citizens of the United > > States ..."* > > > > > > *You are one of my 10* > > > > > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] > > [image: > > http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/support1-bottomleftcorner.gif] > > [image: http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/postcards/images/spacer.gif] > > > From kplakits@gmail.com Tue Sep 19 15:19:14 2017 From: kplakits@gmail.com (Katerina Plakitsi) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 01:19:14 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear all, Please deliver the attachment on behalf of ISCAR Society. Katerina Plakitsi 2017-09-19 16:20 GMT+03:00 mike cole : > Dear Colleagues, > > The attached file is an English language obituary for Fyodor Vasiliuk. > Mike > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: ??????????, ?????????-???????????? > Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:50 AM > Subject: Obituary > To: , , < > anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch>, , Malcolm Reed < > malcolm.reed@bristol.ac.uk>, Nikolay Veresov , > < > lchcmike@gmail.com>, , no>, > , , < > jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu> > > > Attached please find Obituary. > > *Editorial board, Journal ?Cultural-Historical Psychology?,* > > Responsible representative: > > Natalya Meshkova, PhD in Psychology, > > skype: meshkovanat > > > > Executive Editorial office address: > > Sretenka str., 29, off. 209, Moscow, Russia 127051 > > Phone: + 7 (495) 608-16-27 > > Fax: +7 (495) 632-92-52 > > Email: kip.journal@gmail.com > > Web: http://psyjournals.ru/en/kip > -- ............................................................ Katerina Plakitsi ISCAR President Professor in Science Education School of Education Dept. of Early Childhood Education University of Ioannina Greece tel. +302651005771 fax. +302651005842 mobile.phone +306972898463 Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3 http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: A Tribute to Fiodor Efimovish Vasiliuk.doc Type: application/msword Size: 55808 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170920/a9c8ee2d/attachment.doc From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 20 03:22:31 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 10:22:31 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1505902956589.17147@iped.uio.no> Thanks so much for sharing this tribute, Katerina. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Katerina Plakitsi Sent: 20 September 2017 00:19 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary Dear all, Please deliver the attachment on behalf of ISCAR Society. Katerina Plakitsi 2017-09-19 16:20 GMT+03:00 mike cole : > Dear Colleagues, > > The attached file is an English language obituary for Fyodor Vasiliuk. > Mike > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: ??????????, ?????????-???????????? > Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:50 AM > Subject: Obituary > To: , , < > anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch>, , Malcolm Reed < > malcolm.reed@bristol.ac.uk>, Nikolay Veresov , > < > lchcmike@gmail.com>, , no>, > , , < > jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu> > > > Attached please find Obituary. > > *Editorial board, Journal ?Cultural-Historical Psychology?,* > > Responsible representative: > > Natalya Meshkova, PhD in Psychology, > > skype: meshkovanat > > > > Executive Editorial office address: > > Sretenka str., 29, off. 209, Moscow, Russia 127051 > > Phone: + 7 (495) 608-16-27 > > Fax: +7 (495) 632-92-52 > > Email: kip.journal@gmail.com > > Web: http://psyjournals.ru/en/kip > -- ............................................................ Katerina Plakitsi ISCAR President Professor in Science Education School of Education Dept. of Early Childhood Education University of Ioannina Greece tel. +302651005771 fax. +302651005842 mobile.phone +306972898463 Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3 http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 20 03:49:38 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 10:49:38 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1505904583610.42804@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing this translation Mike, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 19 September 2017 15:20 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Obituary Dear Colleagues, The attached file is an English language obituary for Fyodor Vasiliuk. Mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: ??????????, ?????????-???????????? Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:50 AM Subject: Obituary To: , , < anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch>, , Malcolm Reed < malcolm.reed@bristol.ac.uk>, Nikolay Veresov , < lchcmike@gmail.com>, , , , , < jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu> Attached please find Obituary. *Editorial board, Journal ?Cultural-Historical Psychology?,* Responsible representative: Natalya Meshkova, PhD in Psychology, skype: meshkovanat Executive Editorial office address: Sretenka str., 29, off. 209, Moscow, Russia 127051 Phone: + 7 (495) 608-16-27 Fax: +7 (495) 632-92-52 Email: kip.journal@gmail.com Web: http://psyjournals.ru/en/kip From kplakits@gmail.com Wed Sep 20 03:55:57 2017 From: kplakits@gmail.com (Katerina Plakitsi) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:55:57 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary In-Reply-To: <1505902956589.17147@iped.uio.no> References: <1505902956589.17147@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: You are welcome - 2017-09-20 13:22 GMT+03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil : > Thanks so much for sharing this tribute, Katerina. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Katerina Plakitsi > Sent: 20 September 2017 00:19 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Obituary > > Dear all, > > Please deliver the attachment on behalf of ISCAR Society. > Katerina Plakitsi > > 2017-09-19 16:20 GMT+03:00 mike cole : > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > The attached file is an English language obituary for Fyodor Vasiliuk. > > Mike > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > > From: ??????????, ?????????-???????????? > > Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:50 AM > > Subject: Obituary > > To: , , < > > anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch>, , Malcolm Reed < > > malcolm.reed@bristol.ac.uk>, Nikolay Veresov >, > > < > > lchcmike@gmail.com>, , > > no>, > > , , < > > jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu> > > > > > > Attached please find Obituary. > > > > *Editorial board, Journal ?Cultural-Historical Psychology?,* > > > > Responsible representative: > > > > Natalya Meshkova, PhD in Psychology, > > > > skype: meshkovanat > > > > > > > > Executive Editorial office address: > > > > Sretenka str., 29, off. 209, Moscow, Russia 127051 > > > > Phone: + 7 (495) 608-16-27 > > > > Fax: +7 (495) 632-92-52 > > > > Email: kip.journal@gmail.com > > > > Web: http://psyjournals.ru/en/kip > > > > > > -- > ............................................................ > Katerina Plakitsi > ISCAR President > Professor in Science Education > School of Education > Dept. of Early Childhood Education > University of Ioannina > Greece > tel. +302651005771 > fax. +302651005842 > mobile.phone +306972898463 > Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3 > > http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits > www.epoque-project.eu > http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset > http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp > > -- ............................................................ Katerina Plakitsi ISCAR President Professor in Science Education School of Education Dept. of Early Childhood Education University of Ioannina Greece tel. +302651005771 fax. +302651005842 mobile.phone +306972898463 Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3 https://www.iscar.org/ http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 20 05:21:43 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 12:21:43 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] PhD Research Fellowship in Science Education Message-ID: <1505910109214.15183@iped.uio.no> Dear xmca'ers, a PhD opportunity in Norway in Science Education. PhD's in Norway have really good salary and welfare conditions. https://www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-stillinger/stilling/142041/phd-research-fellowhip-in-science-education#.WcFv-Bftcyg.facebook? Alfredo From smago@uga.edu Wed Sep 20 06:33:13 2017 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:33:13 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?q?FW=3A_submitting_a_proposal_to_the_Journal_of_Language?= =?utf-8?q?_and_Literacy=E2=80=99s_2018_Winter_Conference?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello Colleagues Please consider submitting a proposal to the Journal of Language and Literacy?s 2018 Winter Conference. The theme of this year?s conference and subsequent spring issue is Reframing Pedagogical Practice and Language and Literacy Research: Teaching to the Future. For this conference, we invite national and international scholars with ranging research interests in language and literacy education to join us for a participatory conversation on various topics within our field. Specifically, we invite teachers and researchers to examine what works well in our classrooms, the changing needs to 21st Century Students, and what literacy classrooms will look like in the future. A hallmark of the JoLLE Conference is the interactive and engaging presentations for both attendees and presenters, and because JoLLE understands literacy in broad terms and welcomes a range of research projects, approaches, and methods, we pride ourselves on being a conference that not only caters to researchers, but also to educators in K-12 and higher education. Additionally, JoLLE, a peer-reviewed journal, welcomes manuscript submissions for its Spring 2018 issue based on the conference theme, and invites those who present at the conference to consider submitting papers for publication consideration. The deadline for manuscript submissions based on the conference theme is February 28, 2018. The deadline for conference proposal submissions is October 25, 2017 at 11:59pm EST. ? Proposals can be submitted to EasyChair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=jolle2018 ? More information is available at http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/conference/. Please feel free to share this information widely with others. If there are any questions about the conference, proposal submission, or registration, please contact the conference chairs, Stephanie Toliver and Hunter Strickland, at JoLLE.Conference@Gmail.com. Peter Smagorinsky Distinguished Research Professor of English Education Department of Language and Literacy Education The University of Georgia 315 Aderhold Hall Athens, GA 30602 Advisor, Journal of Language and Literacy Education Follow JoLLE on twitter @Jolle_uga [cid:image001.jpg@01CEA4AC.71367E90] Personal twitter account: @psmagorinsky -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2929 bytes Desc: image001.jpg Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170920/2acac25f/attachment.jpg From jamesma320@gmail.com Wed Sep 20 09:36:52 2017 From: jamesma320@gmail.com (James Ma) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 17:36:52 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] My thoughts Message-ID: The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a 360-degree view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well illustrated, contextualised and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still preoccupied with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing cultural-historical activity research. It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many facets of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm Reed points out in his prologue for the Congress: ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and whom we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit to reparation and rediscovery.? This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell and Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in April 1996): ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and Vygotsky in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that of the other.? Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of old traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for evaluation. Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? I?m linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn in philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: Saussure on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different theories by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound ?sameness? of differences between theories. I refer to ?sameness? as ontological and epistemological confluence or complementarity that can pave the way for mutual fertilisation and enrichment. This is exemplified in ?The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 *). In synergising different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for cultural-historical activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue to the Congress in terms of ?impeccable research?. Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through the work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional language in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as language and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James Wertsch in 2007). On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and semiotics can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and political conditions in modern society. James *_____________________________________* *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa * *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015 ) From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 20 10:26:01 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 17:26:01 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net>, Message-ID: <1505928361466.18833@iped.uio.no> David, interesting remarks. I also thought Engestr?m's keynote was keeling bit too much on the technical side for being the venue and occasion it was, even for one like me who thinks that the analyses and cases he presented are really interesting and relevant. Mike, any chance you have some notes to share from your remarks following Yrj?'s keynote? Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of molly shea Sent: 19 September 2017 02:21 To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion I would also like to see the presentation and remarks if it is recorded and someone is able to share them. Thanks, Molly On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other > contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to > Quebec? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation on > > social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply > > progressive movements which require study. From education studies we know > > that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; > the > > two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's > probably > > more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and when > > we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study > really > > does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements are > > more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's > earlier > > work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). > > > > I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: > > > > a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies operating > in > > Vietnam. > > b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of Anthony > > Lamar Smith in 2011. > > c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids to > > the boardrooms of New York bankers. > > > > I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social > > movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about > reactionary > > and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the > > increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a > > little perplexed by c). > > > > I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, she > > presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their depth > > in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is the > > bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young actors > > rather than vice versa. > > > > I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and > > dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that > are > > the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy > > Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like themselves, > > wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their boardrooms? > > > > (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not > > necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have had > to > > do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > wrote: > > > >> Dear all, > >> > >> > >> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and > it > >> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > >> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > >> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance > in > >> personal development and social change. > >> > >> > >> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > >> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly > play > >> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > >> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit > to > >> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > >> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass > through > >> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > >> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > >> > >> > >> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > >> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > get > >> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. > I am > >> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > >> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > interest > >> of many. Good read! And good weekend, > >> > >> > >> Alfredo > >> > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 20 16:57:33 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 16:57:33 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: <1505928361466.18833@iped.uio.no> References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> <1505928361466.18833@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Hi Alfredo -- No, I just jotted down some notes from two opportunities to go through the slides Yrjo showed. As David said, I remarked on my concern about a theoretical focus that did not encompass social movements that the members of ISCAR are likely to oppose strongly, current resurrgence of publicly accepted rascism/fascism in the US being one of them. I also commented on the problem facing young researchers coming into the field and thinking about conducting intervention research that is at the same time part of a social movement. It seems clear from my experience and that of my colleagues who engage in design-based research in the CHAT framework that such projects are the work of many years, in my case, decades. How do young people coming into the field "make a mark" for themselves when they are of necessity a part of a collective that extends over many years? I also raised an issue that I raised in the brief exchange with Zlatko about his work on models of management. The theoretical terms in which various different people are describing the process of learning and development whether talking about children or institutions or social movements appears to be distinctly similar in their basic properties. It felt like I was hearing echoes from Zlatko and Yrjo of something like Heinz Werner's "orthogenetic principle" : "wherever development occurs it proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic integration." David mentioned the first part of this process the other day in a comment about development being differentiation. Anyway, my brief take. It was not much of a communicative event from my perspective. Missed being there to discuss! mike PS -Its at a time like this that you miss old friends. Joe Glick was my go to guy for discussions of Werner. On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > David, interesting remarks. > > I also thought Engestr?m's keynote was keeling bit too much on the > technical side for being the venue and occasion it was, even for one like > me who thinks that the analyses and cases he presented are really > interesting and relevant. > > Mike, any chance you have some notes to share from your remarks following > Yrj?'s keynote? > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of molly shea > Sent: 19 September 2017 02:21 > To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion > > I would also like to see the presentation and remarks if it is recorded and > someone is able to share them. > > Thanks, > Molly > > On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other > > contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to > > Quebec? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > > In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation on > > > social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply > > > progressive movements which require study. From education studies we > know > > > that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; > > the > > > two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's > > probably > > > more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and > when > > > we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study > > really > > > does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements > are > > > more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's > > earlier > > > work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). > > > > > > I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: > > > > > > a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies > operating > > in > > > Vietnam. > > > b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of > Anthony > > > Lamar Smith in 2011. > > > c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids > to > > > the boardrooms of New York bankers. > > > > > > I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social > > > movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about > > reactionary > > > and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the > > > increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a > > > little perplexed by c). > > > > > > I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, > she > > > presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their > depth > > > in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is > the > > > bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young > actors > > > rather than vice versa. > > > > > > I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and > > > dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that > > are > > > the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy > > > Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like > themselves, > > > wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their > boardrooms? > > > > > > (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not > > > necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have > had > > to > > > do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) > > > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > >> Dear all, > > >> > > >> > > >> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and > > it > > >> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > > >> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > > >> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and > performance > > in > > >> personal development and social change. > > >> > > >> > > >> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop > bringing > > >> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly > > play > > >> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > > >> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a > revisit > > to > > >> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > > >> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass > > through > > >> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > > >> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > >> > > >> > > >> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, > and > > >> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > > get > > >> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. > > I am > > >> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to > be > > >> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > > interest > > >> of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > >> > > >> > > >> Alfredo > > >> > > > > > > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Wed Sep 20 21:33:58 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:33:58 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> <1505928361466.18833@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I'm studying Gramsci's Prison Notebooks right now, for three reasons. The first is that, like a lot of people on this list, I've only ever read the "Selections" version, and when I am stuck in a line in the supermarket or a find myself spending too much time in the gym, I feel the need to read the whole thing in detail. The second is Halliday: the "philological method" Gramsci uses and the "historical" historical materialism--with the accent on historical rather than on materialism--is clearly a big influence in Halliday's work. But the third is that I think that the task of reconstructing Vygotsky's pedological work is a little similar to the task that scholars faced when they tried to make sense out of the notebooks, and I think the payoff will be--if anything--greater. Gramsci rejects the "sociologism" of Bukharin. He doesn't reject sociology; he just thinks that it plays a supporting role in a social movement. Why? Well, because it's a generalization, and social movements have to be concerned with the specificity of particular social facts as well as with general sociological patterns. I think the tendency in a lot of work is to present a vignette (like Carrie's opening vignette) and then try to discuss it in terms of general laws. But Gramsci says that in a social movement, things have to be the other way around: we present general social laws, and we criticize them in view of specific historical facts. (The editor of the Complete Notebooks remarks that attempts to produce a "Crocean Gramsci" or a "Leninist Gramsci" are essentially sociologistic, and he demands we read the Complete Notebooks philologically, with due attention to the specificity of each fragment, for precisely this reason!) So another important remark that Mike made Skypily in Quebec was that ISCAR itself is a social movement, and one way to test our theories out is, like doctors, to inject them into ourselves and see if we drop dead. I am not entirely sure that ISCAR is a social movement (and I'm not sure that what Carrie is describing in her paper is a social movement either); it seems to me that one reason why ISCAR is losing members is precisely that it is not moving fast enough towards a discernible object outside itself. I don't think that ISCAR is going to drop dead (although we saw some very pretty symptoms of this in the Australasian section meeting). But I do think that an organization that concentrates only on expanding itself is not a social movement, and is probably in danger of succeeding. David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 8:57 AM, mike cole wrote: > Hi Alfredo -- > > No, I just jotted down some notes from two opportunities to go through the > slides Yrjo showed. As David said, I remarked on my concern about a > theoretical focus that did not encompass social movements that the members > of ISCAR are likely to oppose strongly, current resurrgence of publicly > accepted rascism/fascism in the US being one of them. > > I also commented on the problem facing young researchers coming into the > field and thinking about conducting intervention research that is at the > same time part of a social movement. It seems clear from my experience and > that of my colleagues who engage in design-based research in the CHAT > framework that such projects are the work of many years, in my case, > decades. How do young people coming into the field "make a mark" for > themselves when they are of necessity a part of a collective that extends > over many years? > > I also raised an issue that I raised in the brief exchange with Zlatko > about his work on models of management. The theoretical terms in which > various different people are describing the process of learning and > development whether talking about children or institutions or social > movements appears to be distinctly similar in their basic properties. It > felt like I was hearing echoes from Zlatko and Yrjo of something like Heinz > Werner's "orthogenetic principle" : "wherever development occurs it > proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to > a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic > integration." > > David mentioned the first part of this process the other day in a comment > about development being differentiation. > > Anyway, my brief take. It was not much of a communicative event from my > perspective. Missed being there to discuss! > > mike > > PS -Its at a time like this that you miss old friends. Joe Glick was my go > to guy for discussions of Werner. > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > David, interesting remarks. > > > > I also thought Engestr?m's keynote was keeling bit too much on the > > technical side for being the venue and occasion it was, even for one like > > me who thinks that the analyses and cases he presented are really > > interesting and relevant. > > > > Mike, any chance you have some notes to share from your remarks following > > Yrj?'s keynote? > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of molly shea > > Sent: 19 September 2017 02:21 > > To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion > > > > I would also like to see the presentation and remarks if it is recorded > and > > someone is able to share them. > > > > Thanks, > > Molly > > > > On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > > > Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other > > > contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to > > > Quebec? > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > > > In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation > on > > > > social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply > > > > progressive movements which require study. From education studies we > > know > > > > that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote > it; > > > the > > > > two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's > > > probably > > > > more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and > > when > > > > we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study > > > really > > > > does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements > > are > > > > more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's > > > earlier > > > > work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). > > > > > > > > I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: > > > > > > > > a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies > > operating > > > in > > > > Vietnam. > > > > b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of > > Anthony > > > > Lamar Smith in 2011. > > > > c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids > > to > > > > the boardrooms of New York bankers. > > > > > > > > I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social > > > > movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about > > > reactionary > > > > and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the > > > > increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself > a > > > > little perplexed by c). > > > > > > > > I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, > > she > > > > presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their > > depth > > > > in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is > > the > > > > bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young > > actors > > > > rather than vice versa. > > > > > > > > I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and > > > > dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality > that > > > are > > > > the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing > "Crazy > > > > Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like > > themselves, > > > > wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their > > boardrooms? > > > > > > > > (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint > Lous--not > > > > necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have > > had > > > to > > > > do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) > > > > > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > >> Dear all, > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now > and > > > it > > > >> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > > > >> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I > am > > > >> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and > > performance > > > in > > > >> personal development and social change. > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop > > bringing > > > >> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly > > > play > > > >> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > > > >> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a > > revisit > > > to > > > >> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > > > >> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass > > > through > > > >> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > > > >> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, > > and > > > >> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we > all > > > get > > > >> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might > have. > > > I am > > > >> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to > > be > > > >> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > > > interest > > > >> of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Alfredo > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > From ablunden@mira.net Wed Sep 20 22:00:32 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 15:00:32 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion In-Reply-To: References: <1505508803206.3223@iped.uio.no> <20bfbb61-2da1-ad7f-8572-e87e459f568a@mira.net> <1505928361466.18833@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <014fc36c-d866-8a83-f132-9a8d9834f8ef@mira.net> I have always held the view that asking the question of whether or not something is a social movement is a waste of time and a distraction. Social movements are one of the phases through which ideas pass, along with social problems, institutions, organisations, moral panics, ideas, cultures, states and sundry other ideal forms which pass one into another in the course of their passage through human life. In the academy, each of these social forms is owned by a different discipline and belongs in different departments and publishes in different journals, etc., etc. - distinctions manufactured and imposed by the dominant structures of our capitalist society. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 21/09/2017 2:33 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > I'm studying Gramsci's Prison Notebooks right now, for three reasons. The > first is that, like a lot of people on this list, I've only ever read the > "Selections" version, and when I am stuck in a line in the supermarket or a > find myself spending too much time in the gym, I feel the need to read the > whole thing in detail. The second is Halliday: the "philological method" > Gramsci uses and the "historical" historical materialism--with the accent > on historical rather than on materialism--is clearly a big influence in > Halliday's work. But the third is that I think that the task of > reconstructing Vygotsky's pedological work is a little similar to the task > that scholars faced when they tried to make sense out of the notebooks, and > I think the payoff will be--if anything--greater. > > Gramsci rejects the "sociologism" of Bukharin. He doesn't reject sociology; > he just thinks that it plays a supporting role in a social movement. Why? > Well, because it's a generalization, and social movements have to be > concerned with the specificity of particular social facts as well as with > general sociological patterns. I think the tendency in a lot of work is to > present a vignette (like Carrie's opening vignette) and then try to discuss > it in terms of general laws. But Gramsci says that in a social movement, > things have to be the other way around: we present general social laws, and > we criticize them in view of specific historical facts. (The editor of the > Complete Notebooks remarks that attempts to produce a "Crocean Gramsci" or > a "Leninist Gramsci" are essentially sociologistic, and he demands we read > the Complete Notebooks philologically, with due attention to the > specificity of each fragment, for precisely this reason!) > > So another important remark that Mike made Skypily in Quebec was that ISCAR > itself is a social movement, and one way to test our theories out is, like > doctors, to inject them into ourselves and see if we drop dead. I am not > entirely sure that ISCAR is a social movement (and I'm not sure that what > Carrie is describing in her paper is a social movement either); it seems to > me that one reason why ISCAR is losing members is precisely that it is not > moving fast enough towards a discernible object outside itself. I don't > think that ISCAR is going to drop dead (although we saw some very pretty > symptoms of this in the Australasian section meeting). But I do think that > an organization that concentrates only on expanding itself is not a social > movement, and is probably in danger of succeeding. > > David Kellogg > > On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 8:57 AM, mike cole wrote: > >> Hi Alfredo -- >> >> No, I just jotted down some notes from two opportunities to go through the >> slides Yrjo showed. As David said, I remarked on my concern about a >> theoretical focus that did not encompass social movements that the members >> of ISCAR are likely to oppose strongly, current resurrgence of publicly >> accepted rascism/fascism in the US being one of them. >> >> I also commented on the problem facing young researchers coming into the >> field and thinking about conducting intervention research that is at the >> same time part of a social movement. It seems clear from my experience and >> that of my colleagues who engage in design-based research in the CHAT >> framework that such projects are the work of many years, in my case, >> decades. How do young people coming into the field "make a mark" for >> themselves when they are of necessity a part of a collective that extends >> over many years? >> >> I also raised an issue that I raised in the brief exchange with Zlatko >> about his work on models of management. The theoretical terms in which >> various different people are describing the process of learning and >> development whether talking about children or institutions or social >> movements appears to be distinctly similar in their basic properties. It >> felt like I was hearing echoes from Zlatko and Yrjo of something like Heinz >> Werner's "orthogenetic principle" : "wherever development occurs it >> proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to >> a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic >> integration." >> >> David mentioned the first part of this process the other day in a comment >> about development being differentiation. >> >> Anyway, my brief take. It was not much of a communicative event from my >> perspective. Missed being there to discuss! >> >> mike >> >> PS -Its at a time like this that you miss old friends. Joe Glick was my go >> to guy for discussions of Werner. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil >> wrote: >> >>> David, interesting remarks. >>> >>> I also thought Engestr?m's keynote was keeling bit too much on the >>> technical side for being the venue and occasion it was, even for one like >>> me who thinks that the analyses and cases he presented are really >>> interesting and relevant. >>> >>> Mike, any chance you have some notes to share from your remarks following >>> Yrj?'s keynote? >>> >>> Alfredo >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of molly shea >>> Sent: 19 September 2017 02:21 >>> To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion >>> >>> I would also like to see the presentation and remarks if it is recorded >> and >>> someone is able to share them. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Molly >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>>> Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other >>>> contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to >>>> Quebec? >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>>> In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrj? Engestr?m?s presentation >> on >>>>> social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply >>>>> progressive movements which require study. From education studies we >>> know >>>>> that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote >> it; >>>> the >>>>> two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's >>>> probably >>>>> more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and >>> when >>>>> we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study >>>> really >>>>> does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements >>> are >>>>> more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engestr?m's >>>> earlier >>>>> work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation). >>>>> >>>>> I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements: >>>>> >>>>> a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies >>> operating >>>> in >>>>> Vietnam. >>>>> b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of >>> Anthony >>>>> Lamar Smith in 2011. >>>>> c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids >>> to >>>>> the boardrooms of New York bankers. >>>>> >>>>> I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social >>>>> movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about >>>> reactionary >>>>> and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the >>>>> increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself >> a >>>>> little perplexed by c). >>>>> >>>>> I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, >>> she >>>>> presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their >>> depth >>>>> in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is >>> the >>>>> bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young >>> actors >>>>> rather than vice versa. >>>>> >>>>> I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and >>>>> dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality >> that >>>> are >>>>> the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing >> "Crazy >>>>> Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like >>> themselves, >>>>> wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their >>> boardrooms? >>>>> (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint >> Lous--not >>>>> necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have >>> had >>>> to >>>>> do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!) >>>>> >>>>> David Kellogg >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < >>> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Dear all, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now >> and >>>> it >>>>>> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have >>>>>> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I >> am >>>>>> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and >>> performance >>>> in >>>>>> personal development and social change. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop >>> bringing >>>>>> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly >>>> play >>>>>> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's >>>>>> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a >>> revisit >>>> to >>>>>> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to >>>>>> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass >>>> through >>>>>> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages >>>>>> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, >>> and >>>>>> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we >> all >>>> get >>>>>> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might >> have. >>>> I am >>>>>> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to >>> be >>>>>> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the >>>> interest >>>>>> of many. Good read! And good weekend, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>> >>>> > From jamesma320@gmail.com Wed Sep 20 23:05:31 2017 From: jamesma320@gmail.com (James Ma) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 07:05:31 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] My thoughts about ISCAR Message-ID: The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a 360-degree view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well contextualised, illustrated and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still preoccupied with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing cultural-historical activity research. It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many facets of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm Reed points out in his prologue for the Congress: ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and whom we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit to reparation and rediscovery.? This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell and Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in April 1996): ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and Vygotsky in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that of the other.? Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of old traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for evaluation. Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? I?m a linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn in philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: Saussure on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different theories by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound *sameness* of differences between theories. I use ?sameness? to refer to ontological and epistemological confluence or complementarity that provides a basis for mutual amelioration and consolidation. This is exemplified in ?The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 *). In synergising different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for cultural-historical activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue for the Congress in terms of ?impeccable research?. Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through the work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional language in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as language and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James Wertsch in 2007). On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and semiotics can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and political conditions in modern society. James *_____________________________________* *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa * *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015 ) On 15 September 2017 at 21:53, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Dear all, > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in > personal development and social change. > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > Alfredo > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 20 23:59:21 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 06:59:21 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My thoughts about ISCAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1505977162380.9774@iped.uio.no> Thanks James, these are insightful comments on ISCAR, and the kind of reflection I think I missed in the keynote that was mentioned in a couple of e-mails earlier, one making explicit not just technical findings, but also horizons. Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of James Ma Sent: 21 September 2017 08:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] My thoughts about ISCAR The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a 360-degree view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well contextualised, illustrated and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still preoccupied with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing cultural-historical activity research. It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many facets of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm Reed points out in his prologue for the Congress: ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and whom we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit to reparation and rediscovery.? This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell and Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in April 1996): ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and Vygotsky in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that of the other.? Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of old traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for evaluation. Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? I?m a linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn in philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: Saussure on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different theories by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound *sameness* of differences between theories. I use ?sameness? to refer to ontological and epistemological confluence or complementarity that provides a basis for mutual amelioration and consolidation. This is exemplified in ?The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 *). In synergising different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for cultural-historical activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue for the Congress in terms of ?impeccable research?. Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through the work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional language in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as language and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James Wertsch in 2007). On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and semiotics can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and political conditions in modern society. James *_____________________________________* *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa * *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of semiotic mediation http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015 ) On 15 September 2017 at 21:53, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Dear all, > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in > personal development and social change. > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > Alfredo > From jamesma320@gmail.com Thu Sep 21 00:16:31 2017 From: jamesma320@gmail.com (James Ma) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 08:16:31 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My thoughts about ISCAR In-Reply-To: <1505977162380.9774@iped.uio.no> References: <1505977162380.9774@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Many thanks Alfredo. I thought my message had never gone through since I didn't receive a copy to myself after sending. Best wishes, James On 21 September 2017 at 07:59, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks James, these are insightful comments on ISCAR, and the kind of > reflection I think I missed in the keynote that was mentioned in a couple > of e-mails earlier, one making explicit not just technical findings, but > also horizons. > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of James Ma > Sent: 21 September 2017 08:05 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] My thoughts about ISCAR > > The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a 360-degree > view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, > accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of > Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well > contextualised, illustrated and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. > While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still preoccupied > with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or > approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing > cultural-historical activity research. > > It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would > frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining > proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, > *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and > inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical > activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be > henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many facets > of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm Reed > points out in his prologue for the Congress: > > ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and whom > we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit to > reparation and rediscovery.? > > This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell and > Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after > the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in > April 1996): > > ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and Vygotsky > in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that > of the other.? > > Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an > unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of old > traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for evaluation. > Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy > was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: > ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are > philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? > > I?m a linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn in > philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other > thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of > speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t > particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing > reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was > already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without > language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas and > nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found > Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: Saussure > on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. > > I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different theories > by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than > simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a > synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound *sameness* of > differences between theories. I use ?sameness? to refer to ontological and > epistemological confluence or complementarity that provides a basis for > mutual amelioration and consolidation. This is exemplified in ?The synergy > of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of > semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 > *). In synergising > different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for cultural-historical > activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent > alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue for the Congress in terms of > ?impeccable research?. > > Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through the > work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional language > in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and > brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and > fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as language > and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working > together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of > ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the > resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge > Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James > Wertsch in 2007). > > On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by > Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of > Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and semiotics > can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity > research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and > re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and > political conditions in modern society. > James > > > *_____________________________________* > > *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa > * > > *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* > > Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher > education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 > > Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell > http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 > > The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the > multimodality of semiotic mediation > http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the > Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place > http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles? > journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A > and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? > http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/ > educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015 > ) > > > > > > > > > > > On 15 September 2017 at 21:53, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Dear all, > > > > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it > > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance > in > > personal development and social change. > > > > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play > > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit > to > > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through > > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > get > > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I > am > > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > interest > > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > > > > Alfredo > > > > From ivan@llaisdy.com Thu Sep 21 03:50:27 2017 From: ivan@llaisdy.com (Ivan Uemlianin) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 11:50:27 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?utf-8?b?0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog0J7RgtCyOiBSZTog?= =?utf-8?q?Unit_of_Analysis?= In-Reply-To: <2146825494.3979277.1505430379738@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <1395496089.1346889.1505264601319@mail.yahoo.com> <1505400225233.89594@iped.uio.no> <2146825494.3979277.1505430379738@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <17f37c66-35e1-e427-71c7-f253a4fa0403@llaisdy.com> Dear Sasha Thank you for your bilingual text! And thank you for sparing me the "academic courtesy" :) Again I agree with most but not all of your email, and again the disagreement is where you touch on Vygotsky. > Do we have even the slightest reason to believe that Vygotsky managed > to realize such an understanding of Spinoza and Spinozism not in > general theoretical declarations about the harmfulness of Cartesian > dualism and the preference of Spinoza's monism, but in his own > psychological theory? > > We believe that no... For Vygotsky did not deduce a "sign" from the > object oriented sensual activities of the material entity, as would > have to try to do Spinozist, but comes from the fact that the sign in > all its ideality is able to convert real, sensuous activity of the > subject, its behavior. In other words, Vygotsky in his theory > (contrary to his sincere intentions and declarations) appears not as > a materialist (Marxist), but like the typical idealist. I don't think Vygotsky completed this project, perhaps he only started it off, to be continued by Leontiev, Ilyenkov and others. My defensive position is merely that he was not barking up the wrong tree. As I've said, I think his treatment of the child's socialisation is fully Spinozan and materialist.? e.g., the way the activity of the social environment is transmitted to the child.? Surely word meaning is treated here (e.g. in Thinking and Speech) as a reflection of activity.? The activity of the social environment (including its verbal behaviour) is adopted by the child. Vygotsky was an experimental psychologist and his experiments, and his critique of Piaget's & others' experiments, aim to show the practical ways that word meaning is created and transmitted. The problem of the Ideal --- how Thinking and Extension relate --- is there in Spinoza.? For all his undoubted Monism and materialism this problem is smudged over in his definition of the Attributes in E1d4: > By attribute, I mean that which *the intellect* perceives > as constituting the essence of substance. Which intellect? Vygotksy's psychology might have shown the way forward for a psychology (& even a philosophy of mind) that does without Thinking (in Spinoza's sense, of a distinct Attribute of Substance) altogether, and has only Extension and "imaginatio" (as in E2p17). Best wishes Ivan On 15/09/2017 00:06, Alexander Surmava wrote: > Dear Sasha > > > > I like this summary ... until the bit where you linkVygotsky with Rousseau and Kant. > > > > To my eye, Vygotsky's writing has the influence ofSpinoza stamped all over it.??The development of the child is a storyof the smaller, relatively passive body (i.e. the child) becoming aligned with,sharing in the life of, the larger, relatively active body (i.e. the socialenvironment). > > > > This is not a story of pre-existing entities coming toan agreement or a social contract. > > > > Do you think Kant's influence on Vygotsky is strongerthan Spinoza's? > > > > Best wishes > > > > Ivan > > > > > | ??????? ????! > > > > | Dear Ivan! > > | > | ? ???, ??? ??? ?????????? ??? ????? :-) . > > > > | I'm glad You liked my text :-) . > > | > | ??, ?????? ???????, ??? ????? ? ???? ????????? ??????????? ? ????????????? ?????????? ???????? ??? ???? ???????? ??????. ???????, ???? ?? ?? ???????? ?????? ? ???, ?? ?? ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????????,?en bloc?:-) . > > > > | But I must emphasize that the idea of the role of philosophy of the Enlightenment in Vygotsky?s worldview is the most important for me. Therefore, if You do not agree with it, you don't agree with my text text?as a?whole, en bloc :-) . > > | > | ??????? ??????? ???? ? ??????? ????????????? ?????????? ? ??????? ?????????? ????? ????????????. > > > > | So let's leave aside academic courtesy and discuss the content of my statements. > > | > | ?, ?????? ???, ???????????, ??? ??? ????? ?????? ?????????????, ???????? ? ????? ?????, ?????????? ???????????? ???? ??????????. ?? ??? ?????? ? ???????? ????? ????? ?????, ??? ????? ??????? ???????????? ?????? ?????. > > > > | I guess that my text sounds paradoxical, especially in the circle of researchers who are fans of Vygotsky. But any new idea usually looks as something strange and paradoxica, because any novelty contradicts old ideas. > > | > | ? ????, ??? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ???????????. ?? ? ?????? ??? ???????? ?????????. ???? ??????? ?? ????????????? ??????? ???? ??????????? ??? ?????????? ?? ??????????? ??? ?????????? ??? ???????. ??? ? ???????? ????? ???? ???????? ????????. ??, ??, ??? ?????, ??? ? ?????? ??????? ??????? ????? ? ??????? :-) . > > > > | I know that Vygotsky considered to be spinozist. But I believe this judgment is erroneous. Unless, of course, you identify the desire to be a Spinozist or Marxist with Spinozism or Marxism as such. So I passionately want to be a ballet dancer. But, those who see how I dance politely look away :-). > > | > | ??????? ??? ? XVII ???? - ??????? ? ??? ????, ? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ??????????????. ??????? ? ??? ???????, ?????? ? ???????? ??????????? ? ?????????? ????????? ????? ????? ????????? ?????????? ?????????. ??????, ??????? ?? ??????????? ? ??? ??????????????? ?????? ?????????. ???????, ?????? ?????? ???????, ? ????????? ?? ????????, ????????? ? ??? ???????????? ????????????? ???? ? ?????????? ???????? ? ?????? ?? ???? ? ?? ??. > > > > | Spinoza lived in the seventeenth century - and therefore his ideas, and his language cannot fail to bear the stamp of this circumstance. Therefore, in his texts, along with great insights and discoveries, one can surely find many obsolete ideas. Lying on the surface example is his so called "geometrical method" of presentation. Therefore, to love Spinoza?s texts, and understand them adequately, to discern an ?????? immortal theoretical kernel from the perishable shell are far not one and the same. > > | > | ? ??? ???????? ?????????? ? ????? ?????? ??????? ? ??? ???????, ? ???, ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ???????????????? ????? ????? ???? ? ?????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ??????? ? ????? ???????????? ? ??????? ???????????? ???? ??????. ??? ? ????????????? ??????? ???? ?????????? ?????, ??? ??????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ? ??????? ??????????. ??????, ???????? ? ????????? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ???, ??? ?? ?? ?????? ??????, ?? ??????-???????????. ???????? ???????, ??????, ??????????? ???? ??? ??????????? ???????? ???????????? ???????. ??? ?? ???????? ???????? (??????????), ?? ???????? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ??????? ???????????? ??????, ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ??????, ??????????, ???????????????? ?????????? ???????-???????, ?? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ????? ??????? ????????? ????? ???????????? ???????, ???????? ????????, ???????? ?????????, ???????????? ???. > > > > | What is the essence of the Spinozism from the point of view of Hegel? In its monism, in the fact that Spinoza?s world is not composed of an infinite number of isolated "atomic facts" in the style of Wittgenstein and of the Legion of positivists of of every stripe and color. The world in the representation of Spinoza is a concrete whole, all of whose phenomena are the modes of a single universal basis - the world substance. Besides Marx, Engels and Ilyenkov appreciate Spinoza primarily for the fact that he's not just the monist, but monist-materialist. Spinoza's substance is a material substance, Nature in General. As for thinking (ideal), according to Spinoza, it is not externally opposed to inert, dead matter as the second, magic, the intelligible substance of Plato-Descartes, but is inherent to the Nature, is a property of the very material Nature, is a way of motion, of action of ?natural, material bodies. > > | > | ???? ?? ? ??? ???? ?? ???????? ????????? ????????, ??? ?????????? ??????? ??????????? ???????? ????????? ??????? ? ?????????? ?? ? ????????????????? ??????????? ? ?????????? ?????????????? ???????? ? ?????????????????? ????????????? ???????, ?? ? ????? ??????????? ??????????????? ??????? > > > > | Do we have even the slightest reason to believe that Vygotsky managed to realize such an understanding of Spinoza and Spinozism not in general theoretical declarations about the harmfulness of Cartesian dualism and the preference of Spinoza's monism, but in his own psychological theory? > > | > | ?? ????????, ??? ???? ??? ????????? ?? ?????????? ???? ?????? ?? ?????????-??????????? ???????????? ????????????? ????????, ??? ?????? ??? ?? ???????? ????????? ?????????, ????????????? ????, ??? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??????????? ???????? ????????????? ????????, ??????????? ???????????? ????????, ??? ?????????. ????? ??????, ????????? ? ????? ?????? (? ????????????????? ????? ????????? ?????????? ? ???????????) ????????? ?? ??? ??????????? (????????), ? ??? ???????? ????????. > > > > | We believe that no... For Vygotsky did not deduce a "sign" from the object oriented sensual activities of the material entity, as would have to try to do Spinozist, but comes from the fact that the sign in all its ideality is able to convert real, sensuous activity of the subject, its behavior. In other words, Vygotsky in his theory (contrary to his sincere intentions and declarations) appears not as a materialist (Marxist), but like the typical idealist. > > | > | (????? ????, ??? ?? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ? ????, ??? ??? ????? ?? ???????? ???? ?? ??? ??????????? ??????????? ? ?????-?? ???????????. :-) ). > > > > | ( Thank God that we are not conducting this discussion in the USSR, so that no one will dare to reproach me for this objective statement of the theoretical facts that I am doing something indecent. :-) ) > > | > | ? ??????? ????????? ?????????? ??? ??????????????? ???????? ? ????????? ????, ??? ????????? (??????????) ???????, ?, ??????, ??? ????????? ???????. > > > > | There are two opposing traditions in understanding how an active subject arises, and, hence, how freedom arises in the history of philosophy. > > | > | ?????? ???????? ???????? ? ???????, ????????? ??????????? ? ?????. > > > > | The first tradition arises to Descartes, philosophers of the Enlightenment and Kant. > > | > | ?????? ? ? ???????, ??????, ?????? ? ? ???????? ????, ???? ? ?? ??? ????????????, ? ?????????. > > > > | The second ? to Spinoza, Hegel, Marx and in enormous extent, although not without controversy, to Ilienkov. > > | > | ??? ??????? ? ???????? ???, ??????? ????????, ???????? ? ????? ???????????? ????, ?? ?????????, ? ?????? ?? ????????. ??? ????? ????????, ?? ???????? ? ???????? (? ???????? ??? ???????????? ??????????? ??? ????? ??????? ????????????? ???????), ???? ?? ????????? ????????, ?? ??????????? ?? ??????? ??????????? ???????????? ????????. ???? ? ??? ???????????? ? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????? ??????????? ???? ?????????? ????????????? ???? ? ??????????? ?????. ??????????????? ?????????? ?????? ?????????? ????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????. > > > > | For Descartes - the corporeal world, including plants, animals and living human bodies, is not subjective, and therefore not free. All living beings, not excluding man (within his elementary mental or better to say behavioral functions), are not free subjects, but not free from external causality mechanical automata. Entrance to the world of subjectness and freedom is carried out by means of a magical act of uniting a mechanical body with an incorporeal soul. The notorious pineal gland plays a role of mediator of this magical act. > > | > | ??????? ???????????? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ?????????, ??????????????? ?????????? ???????? (???????) ??? ????????????. ?? ????????? ??????? ????????? ????????? ?????????????, ????????? ?????????? ????????? ???? ?????, ??? ??? ??????? ???? ??? ? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ??? ??????????????, ?? ?????????? ???????????.??????? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ??????? ????????? ????????, ? ?????? ????? ???? ? ?????? ???????????? ? ?????????? ???????? ???? ???????, ?? ??-?????????? ???? ??????? ?????????????? ????????????? ???? ????????? ??????? ???? ???????????? ????????????? ??????. ???????, ???? ???????????? ?????, ?????? ??? ? ??????????? ????????? ????????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??? ????????????? ?????? ??? ?????? ??????, ??? ??? ???? ???????? ?????? ????????????? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ?.?.????????? ? ?.?. ?????????.??????? ?????, ??? 300 ? 100 ??? ????? ?? ???? ??????? ? ????????? ????????????. > > > > | Spinoza brilliantly solved this problem by proposing a philosophy which consistently understands the thinking (psyche) as an object oriented activity. But the philosophy of Spinoza has been so revolutionary, so infinitely ahead of his time, that his main idea was not understood neither by his contemporaries nor by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. More than a century after the death of Spinoza, a number of philosophers, especially Hegel and Goethe knew about the great significance of Spinozism, but really the ideas of the Old ?Dutch grinder of lenses were mastered only by a Marxist theoretical thought. However, the idea of activities again, now in the Marxian narrative turned out to be too hard nut for the contemporaries now of Marx himself, so the idea had to be re-reinvent a hundred years later by E. V. Ilyenkov and A. N. Leontiev. To reappear, like 300 and 100 years ago, not to be understood and appreciated by contemporaries. > > | > | ? ??? ???????? ???????????, ?? ????? ???????? ????????????? ?? ??????? ? ???, ??? ??????????? ??? ???????, ?? ?? ???? ??? ???????, ?? ?? ???????????? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ?? ???? ??????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????????, ?? ????????? ??????????? ?????? ???????? ? ????????????? ?????????, ? ???????????? ??? ???????, ? ?????????? ????? ??????. ? ?????-?? ?????? ??? ????????? ?????? ???????, ?? ????????? ????, ???? ????? ? ????????? ????? ?????? ? ??? ??? ??????? ? ???????? ????????, ??? ?????? ?????????? ????????, ??????? ????????? ?????? ? ????? ?????, ????? ?????????? ????? ? ???? ???? ??????????? ?????????, ?? ????????? ??, ?????? ?? ??? ? ????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ?? ????? ???????????? ?????. ????? ??????, ?? ????????? ??????????? ???????? ???????? ? ??????????? ? ???????????? ?? ????? ??????????, ?? ????, ???? ??????????? ???????????? ???????, ?? ????? ???????? , ??????? ?????? ? ???, ??? ????? ?????????? ? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ????????. ? ???? ???? ?? ????, ??? ??? ?????????? ?????????? ? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ?????????????. ?? ? ???? ?? ???? ? ?? ????????, ???, ?? ?????? ??? ??????, ??? ? ????????? ???????????? ??????? ??????? ???? ?? ???????????? ???????? ? ?? ???? ???????????????? (=?? ????????????? ??????), ?? ???? ??? ??????????? "????????????? ????????". > > > > | But the Enlightenment philosophers, did not particularly dwell on the question of how a disembodied spirit of freedom, aka the soul or psyche, aka a human consciousness is able to turn unfree and enslaved to affects and passions animal into free citizen, but saw the possibility of such a transition in the "Social contract", in sociality as such, in the relations between people. In a sense, they did the sensible thing. They did not wait until science and philosophy will solve the question - how freedom is possible in principle. Sharp class battles shook Europe in modern times, placing thinkers face to face with the most difficult and urgency issues, not interested in whether they are ready to give to them is entirely rational answers. In other words, they took the person's ability to understand and act in accordance with his understanding, that is, the fact of the possibility of human freedom, for something real, leaving the question of how such a reality is possible in principle, for the theorists of the future. This was their strength, for they immediately began to reflect on pressing social issues. But this was also their weakness, because, not to get Spinozism, they doomed themselves in the understanding of human history to an arbitrary imagination ? the idea of conventionalism (=semiotic logic), the idea of the so-called "Social contract". > > | > | ???????? ???????????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ??? ? ????, ????? ???????? ??????? ????????????? ???????? ?? ?? ???????????? ?????? ? ??????????, ?? ?? ???????, ????? ??????? ?????????? ???? ???????????? ?????, ?? ??? ??????????-?????????? ????????????. ?? ???????????? ??? ??????????? ????? ???????? ?????, ??????? ????????? ? ?????????? ????????, ?????????? ???????. ? ??????? ?????? ? ???????? ??????? ????? ?????????? ? ??????? ???????? ????????? ???? ????? ????????? ????????? ???????????? ????, ? ?? ????? ????, ?????????? ??????????? ????????, ?????? ??????? ? ?? ??????????-????????????? ???????, ?? ????????? ????????, ???????????? ????????????, ?????. ??????? ???????? ? ????????? ????? ??????? ???????? ??? ??????? ??????? ? ????????? ?????? ???? ????????, ??????? ?? ?????????, ?? ???? ???????????? ?? ????????????? ???? ? ????????? ???????? ???????, ? ????? ????? ???????? ????????? ??????????. > > | Classics of political economy have taken the first step to deduce the nature of human society not from the arbitrary signs and agreements, but from the way people produce their material life, from their sensual object-oriented activity. But finally this direction of thought was completed by Marx, combining Spinozism with the understanding of society, understanding of history. In the works of Marx and Engels for the first time since Anaxagoras and Spinoza thinking has ceased to be a kind of magic of a disembodied spirit, being in reality, the social privilege of the ruling, propertied classes and their bureaucratic-professorial staff, but an attribute of the real, practical activities, of labor and laborers. For the first time man in sweaty overalls working was issued a pass into the sterile clean temple of thinking, for the first time, not ideologues, that is, specialists in the fooling of the masses in the interests of the ruling classes but the working people recognized as thinking beings. > > | > > > End of the third portion :-) > > To be continued... > > Sasha > > > > ???????, 14 ???????? 2017 20:17 mike cole ?????(?): > > > There is a great deal packed into your messages, Sasha. I believe you need to make a set of files of them and collect them into a book of some sort. It would be an interesting use of XMCA as a medium of collective activity. > I had a thought on one of the many things you wrote: > In other words, it is not enough to point out the most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to the level of the most developed, concrete. > > I believe that the methodological value of the formative experiments that in the US are called "Designed Experiments" are an example of what you write. They are "putting theory into practice" so that practice becomes the ongoing testing/theorizing about what's next. > In this sense, Davydov's work seems to be a positive example. Or are you criticizing it for something it leaves out? > mike > > > On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > Alexander, we do not want you to sleep less than required, but we (at least myself) are expectant to get the third volume of the series. This (the delivery by chapters) is an interesting genre within xmca :) I think many of us will in a better position to comment, add or respond when you mark some conclusion point. I am sure many have already felt they had more than one thing to add or respond so far. > > Alfredo > ______________________________ __________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd. edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava > Sent: 13 September 2017 03:03 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] ???:? Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > For those XMCA-ers who read Russian -? I put into the FB?s group of Cultural and Historical Psychology a Russian copy (sometimes the original,sometimes my translation into Russian from English). https://www.facebook.com/ groups/564569043580624/ permalink/1437218002982386/So Icontinue: It seems tome that the completely sincere attempt of Vygotsky to bring Marxism intopsychology, ended in total failure, unless, of course, the fact that he leftus a scientific school, or probably better to say scientific collective withinthe framework of which the task of elaboration of true scientific (=?arxist) materialistic psychology wascontinued by A.N.Leontiev and indirectly by E.V.Ilyenkov, who advanced insolving this problem much further. As forVygotsky, he left us with many profound methodological speculations and ... failedin realization of the most of them. Thus, he seduced us with the absolutelycorrect reasoning about the need to ascend from the abstract to the concrete,from the germ cell to the developed organic whole, but at the same time he failedin the search of such germ cell.? With enthusiasmhe tried to talk about the so-called higher mental functions, about the sensesand perezhivaniyah, and at the same time he did not notice that he forgot togive a theoretical definition of the most abstract level of his theory - thedefinition of lower or elementary mental functions. For a person who put psychologists to thetask of creating their own psychological ?Das Kapital?, this was a mistake of acosmic scale. To admit it is like trying to determine the nature of surplusvalue and profit, forgetting to first give the definition and detailed analysisof goods and value as such, or accidentally forget to write the first volume of?Das Kapital? and start research right from the second and the third one. Suchforgetfulness can give as its inevitable result only a vulgar theory. Let'ssay, as Proudhon's "theory", which explained the capitalistexploitation ... by theft. Indiscussions about the "germ" of the human psyche, t ons of > ?paper werewritten (or many PC keyboards were broken :-) ) and many theorists call this orthat psychological phenomenon as such an embryo. Meanwhile, to point out thisor that phenomenon as a germ cell of human consciousness, means to do less thana half of the matter. It is necessary to analyze it in its contradictorydefinitions and show how all higher forms of human activity are born out of themovement of these contradictions. In other words, it is not enough to point outthe most abstract category, it is necessary to show how to move from it to thelevel of the most developed, concrete. Andbesides, if we want to build a Marxist psychology and not the next ideologicalfake, candidature for the role of "germ cells" must be real,practical relation, not something only subjectively experienced, not somethingjust imaginary. Thus so called perezhivanie is obviously not suited for thisrole just for this reason. It is obvious that the perezhivanie as apsychological phenomenon is something much more developed, much more concretethan what can be seen as the most abstract, the most elementary brick in thebuilding of psychological ?Das Kapital?. The huge step in the right direction with his attemptto identify and analyze the elementary psychological relation was made byAlexey Leontiev in his "Problems of development of psyche". In fact, he tried tocorrect Vygotsky's gross error - his attempt to start from the end, from the analysis not of the most abstract, but of the most concrete, directly fromhigher mental functions. > > And on this I will again stop today, for on the clock is already 4 o'clock inthe morning :-) > > > ? ? ???????, 12 ???????? 2017 3:27 Alexander Surmava ?????(?): > > > > > Some reflections on the category of activity > > Theoretical understanding of the category of activity (deyatelnosti) in the philosophy of the Modern Era goes back to Spinoza. The one whose cause of action belongs to himself is active. Active is the one who acts (according the form of it's object). It is not the one who moves according to an external impulse or program of a trajectory. Conversely, the one whose movement or conditions are determined by any external cause, external influence or stimulus is passive. By the way, the concept of the Subject as it is is inseparable from the concept of activity. There where is no object oriented activity, there is no subject, no psychy, no life.The Stimulus-Reaction relationship is entirely passive, at least from the reacting side. Therefore, the S->R relationship is an attribute of the mechanism and is incompatible with living subjectivity. Thus, a computer responsive to clicks of a mouse or keyboard in accordance with its program is not a subject, but an entirely mechanical automaton, a passive obedient to our will object of OUR activity, our subjectivity. The same can be said about the Cartesian animals and the primitive, non-cultured man in the representation of the old philosophy (and to a large extent of Vygotsky and paradoxically even Ilyenkov).The question arises - how, according to the old philosophers, emerges a subject?Descartes' responce is - magically. Through the magical joining of the disembodied soul to the mechanical body. Through the addition of a purposeful free will to the causal mechanical stimulus-reactive automaton. Obviously, from the point of view of rational, scientific logic, Descartes' solution is a dead end.Meanwhile, the problem, in this formulation, simply has no solution. Basically.Starting from passive, simply reacting body we will never come to free subject.? (In parentheses, recall that stimulus-reactive logic in any scientific understanding of both physiology and psychology is almost the only logic up to the present day.) > The next attempt to solve the problem belongs to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who completed this line of thought, belive that the transition from the unfree, animal-like existence of people to freedom and reason take place through a social contract. In other words, according to these philosphers freedom is achieved through a specific convention, agreement. Let's notice, that over a natural question, how mechanical, in fact automatic machine is capable to make such a somersault of a mortal they did not reflect. According to their teachings, it is necessary to distinguish between the natural state of a person in which he is similar to an animal, and his cultural state in which he becomes above his unfree natural affects and bodily impulses and gains freedom. You probably noticed that actually this is the formulation of the so-called cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and this logic is equally far from both the real culture, and from real history, and from Marxism.Although, it can not be denied that Vygotsky had good philosophical grounds for his theory. Rousseau and Kant are the greatest thinkers in the history of culture. > Let me finish this now, for it's already 3:00 a.m. in Moscow :-)If the topic seems interesting, I'll continue it tomorrow.Sasha > > > > > ? ? ? ????????????, 11 ???????? 2017 23:38 Alfredo Jornet Gil ?????(?): > > > ?Just to add some precedents, Dewey had taken the transactional view more or less at the same time as Vygotsky was lecturing on perezhivanie, when he formulated the notion of 'an experience' as unity of doing and undergoing, in his Art as Experience (1932-1934), and explicitly names his approach as *transactional* (vs self-factional and interactional) in Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known, 1949. > > Marx and Engels too speak to the 'passible' nature of 'real experience', in their "The Holy Family", when critiquing "Critical Criticism" and speculative construction for going against "everything living, everything which is immediate, every sensuous experience, any and every *real* experience, the 'Whence' and 'Whither' of which one never *knows* beforehand". > > Alfredo > > > ______________________________ __________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd. edu on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 11 September 2017 21:14 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis > > Ivan-- > > your comment about everything being relative and the citation from Spinoza > seem to fit pretty well with what Michael commented upon. > > For those of us trained as experimental psychologists, Spinoza was not a > central feature of the curriculum (a well known cognitive psychologist > colleague of mind outspokenly banned philosophy from consideration similar > to Pavlov's ban on use of psychological vocabulary to talk about > conditional reflexes in dogs. > > Consequently, your remarks are very valuable in helping to understand the > issues at stake at stake among the cognoscenti vis a vis the particular > topic at hand. > > thanks > mike > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:08 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> I agree with your suggestions. I also consider actions to be transactions >> and happy to open the way to "feelings" instead of "sensations," which in >> English would accomplish the job. >> >> But its a terrible problem that we live life forward and understand it >> backwards. Leads to all sorts of tangles in the tread of life. >> >> mike >> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Mike, >>> if you add, "the capacity to be affected," then you open up theoretical >>> possibilities for affect (emotion). >>> >>> I have recently suggested to think not in terms of actions but >>> transactions. So, for example, listening to someone else requires (a) >>> actively attending and (b) receiving what you (in most cases) not already >>> know. That is, while actively attending to someone else speak, you do not >>> know (grasp) what is affecting you until you realize that you are hurt >>> (insulted etc). >>> >>> Anyway, you cannot reduce this to activity or passivity, because there are >>> two movements, a going (attending) and a coming (receiving), efferent and >>> afferent... So you are thinking in terms of transactions, the kind that >>> you >>> would get if you take seriously perezhivanie as the unity/identity of >>> person and environment. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>> >>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>> -------------------- >>> Applied Cognitive Science >>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>> University of Victoria >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>> >> ections-in-mathematics-and- science-education/the- mathematics >>> -of-mathematics/>* >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:18 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> >>>> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew. >>>> >>>> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries >>>> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage: >>>> >>>> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for >>> suffering >>>> or sensation. >>>> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*. >>>> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its >>> meaning >>>> significantly. >>>> >>>> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the >>> term >>>> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a >>>> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by >>>> Vasiliuk. >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term >>>>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of >>>>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*). >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>> -------------------- >>>>> Applied Cognitive Science >>>>> MacLaurin Building A567 >>>>> University of Victoria >>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2 >>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth >>>>> >>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics >>>>> >>>> directions-in-mathematics-and- science-education/the- >>>>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>* >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Dear Sasha >>>>>> >>>>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would >>>>>> characterise animals and infants? >>>>>> >>>>>> Ivan >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> festina lente >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear Ivan. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, >>> and >>>>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that >>>> neo >>>>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. >>> And I >>>> am >>>>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows >>>> from >>>>>> Spinoza :-). >>>>>>> Sasha >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ?? ????????????, 11 ???????? 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden < >>>> ablunden@mira.net >>>>>> ?????(?): >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead >>>>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in >>>>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection >>>>>>> with activity. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced >>>>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could >>>>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your >>>>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so >>>>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the >>>>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role >>>>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral' >>>>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a >>>>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, >>>>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about >>>>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' >>>>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its >>>>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30 >>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the >>>>>>>> issues you raise are treated in >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- >>>>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, >>>>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast >>>>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very >>>>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force >>>>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or >>>>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). >>>>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the >>>>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention >>>>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) >>>>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got >>>>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does >>>>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is >>>>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the >>>>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a >>>>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a >>>>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of >>>>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies). >>>>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is >>>>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism >>>>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions, >>>>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies >>>>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess >>>>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to >>>>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took >>>>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis >>>>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their >>>>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I >>>>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept* >>>>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to >>>>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only >>>>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated >>>>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both >>>>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit >>>>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest - >>>>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which >>>>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood >>>>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of >>>>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds >>>>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of >>>>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois >>>>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among >>>>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it >>>>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He >>>>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but >>>>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), >>>>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other >>>>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into >>>>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*, >>>>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, >>>>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'. >>>>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an >>>>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to; >>>>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct >>>>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk >>>>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that >>>>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between >>>>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and >>>>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said >>>>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as >>>>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis >>>>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that >>>>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are expressions of a system >>>>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a >>>>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I >>>>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we >>>>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some >>>>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and >>>>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of >>>>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance >>>>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you >>>>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate, >>>>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, >>>>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our >>>>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many >>>>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are >>>>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too >>>>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures >>>>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt', >>>>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and >>>>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the >>>>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. >>>>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the >>>>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate >>>>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in >>>>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral >>>>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require >>>>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than >>>>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow >>>>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of >>>>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for >>>>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you >>>>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If >>>>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the >>>>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing >>>>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not >>>>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not >>>>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can >>>>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of >>>>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of >>>>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about >>>>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds >>>>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would >>>>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as >>>>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of >>>>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was >>>>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and >>>>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that >>>>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must >>>>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree >>>>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one >>>>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special >>>>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion >>>>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' >>>>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the >>>>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as >>>>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we >>>>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between >>>>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process >>>>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is >>>>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human >>>>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some >>>>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their >>>>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or >>>>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with >>>>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is >>>>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is >>>>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions >>>>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11 >>>>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know >>>>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction >>>>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and >>>>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns >>>>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider >>>>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract >>>>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging >>>>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of >>>>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most >>>>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows >>>>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent >>>>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the >>>>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the >>>>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT >>>>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't >>>>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are >>>>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we >>>>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in >>>>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or >>>>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and >>>>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one >>>>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom >>>>>>>>> from different perspectives. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia. edu/research >>>>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and >>>>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. >>> is >>>>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. >>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the >>> expressions >>>> of >>>>> a >>>>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* >>> particulars >>>>> ways >>>>>> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be >>>> like >>>>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate >>>> system >>>>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom >>>>>> conflict and the system that sustains it). >>>>>>>>>> Alfredo >>>>>>>>>> ______________________________ __________ >>>>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman. ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>> edu>? on behalf of David Dirlam >>>>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 >>>>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the >>>>> conception >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin >>> stress >>>> the >>>>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should >>>> have >>>>>> some >>>>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that >>>> experts >>>>>> need >>>>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit >>>>>> (worded like >>>>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will >>> correct >>>> me >>>>>> if I >>>>>>>>>> missed his meaning). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their >>>>>> classifiability >>>>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not >>> an >>>>>> element, >>>>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the >>>> chemical >>>>>> bonds >>>>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of >>>> water >>>>>> (how >>>>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David >>>> Kellogg's >>>>>> point. >>>>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, >>> while >>>>>> actions >>>>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that >>> the >>>>>> activity >>>>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between >>>> them. >>>>>> If we >>>>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in >>> the >>>>>> complexity >>>>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm >>> not >>>>>> just >>>>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The >>>> identifiability, >>>>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their >>>>>> constituents all >>>>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the >>>>>> constituents >>>>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles >>> illustrate >>>>> that. >>>>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify >>>>>> activities, and >>>>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of >>>>>> characterizing >>>>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> David >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden< >>> ablunden@mira.net> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to >>>>>> aspire to >>>>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts >>> which >>>> are >>>>>> utterly >>>>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. >>> For >>>>>> example, >>>>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is >>>> not >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------ ------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics. org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia. edu/research >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, >>>> one >>>>>> might >>>>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the >>>> phenomenon >>>>>> that is >>>>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the >>>>>> course of >>>>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific >>>>> concept? >>>>>>>>>>>> just wondering >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Martin >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson>>>> gmail.com >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification >>> of >>>>>> unit of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's >>>>>> Introduction >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The >>>> short >>>>>> of it >>>>>>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole". >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept >>>>> "unit >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, >>> an >>>>>> adequate >>>>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of >>>> analysis - >>>>>> one >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to >>>> study >>>>>> water, a >>>>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level >>> of >>>> an >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but >>>> hydrogen >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not >>>>>> illuminate >>>>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful >>> language >>>> use >>>>>>>>>>>>> requires >>>>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, >>>>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these >>>>>> linguistic >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic >>> communication, >>>>> but >>>>>>>>>>>>> natural >>>>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that >>>>>> includes other >>>>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities." >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> ublication/319322253_Introduct >>>>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education >>>>>>>>>>>>> ) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for >>>>> thinking >>>>>>>>>>>>> about >>>>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -greg >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/ GregoryThompson >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> > > > > > > > > -- ============================================================ Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD Llaisdy Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd Speech Technology Research and Development ivan@llaisdy.com @llaisdy llaisdy.wordpress.com github.com/llaisdy www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin festina lente ============================================================ From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Sep 21 12:05:59 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 12:05:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My thoughts about ISCAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi James- Thanks for your take on ISCAR. Your note reminded me of earlier discussions of Peirce and Vygotsky on xlchc/xmca and I found this earlier exchange involving the ideas of Arne Raeithel and Alfred Lang. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2016-06.dir/msg00109.html. Understanding the affinities and differences between LSV and Peirce seems to be right up there with similar comparisons involving Spinoza, Halliday/Hasan/Bernstein, Bakhtin, and many more. Sure is more than enough to try to get one's mind around!! mike On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 11:05 PM, James Ma wrote: > The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a 360-degree > view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, > accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of > Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well > contextualised, illustrated and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. > While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still preoccupied > with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or > approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing > cultural-historical activity research. > > It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would > frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining > proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, > *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and > inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical > activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be > henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many facets > of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm Reed > points out in his prologue for the Congress: > > ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and whom > we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit to > reparation and rediscovery.? > > This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell and > Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after > the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in > April 1996): > > ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and Vygotsky > in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that > of the other.? > > Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an > unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of old > traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for evaluation. > Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy > was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: > ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are > philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? > > I?m a linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn in > philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other > thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of > speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t > particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing > reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was > already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without > language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas and > nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found > Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: Saussure > on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. > > I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different theories > by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than > simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a > synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound *sameness* of > differences between theories. I use ?sameness? to refer to ontological and > epistemological confluence or complementarity that provides a basis for > mutual amelioration and consolidation. This is exemplified in ?The synergy > of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of > semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 > *). In synergising > different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for cultural-historical > activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent > alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue for the Congress in terms of > ?impeccable research?. > > Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through the > work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional language > in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and > brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and > fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as language > and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working > together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of > ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the > resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge > Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James > Wertsch in 2007). > > On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by > Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of > Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and semiotics > can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity > research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and > re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and > political conditions in modern society. > James > > > *_____________________________________* > > *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa > * > > *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* > > Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher > education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 > > Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell > http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 > > The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the > multimodality of semiotic mediation > http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the > Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place > http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles? > journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A > and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? > http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/ > educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015 > ) > > > > > > > > > > > On 15 September 2017 at 21:53, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Dear all, > > > > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it > > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance > in > > personal development and social change. > > > > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing > > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play > > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit > to > > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through > > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > get > > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I > am > > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > interest > > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > > > > Alfredo > > > From jamesma320@gmail.com Thu Sep 21 12:58:27 2017 From: jamesma320@gmail.com (James Ma) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 20:58:27 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My thoughts about ISCAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Mike for useful information. What I've found most interesting is that a great deal of Peirce's pragmatism (more exactly, pragmaticism) can be packed into his semiosis. James 21 September 2017 at 20:05, mike cole wrote: > Hi James- > > Thanks for your take on ISCAR. Your note reminded me of earlier discussions > of > Peirce and Vygotsky on xlchc/xmca and I found this earlier exchange > involving the > ideas of Arne Raeithel and Alfred Lang. > > http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2016-06.dir/msg00109.html. > > Understanding the affinities and differences between LSV and Peirce seems > to be right up there with similar comparisons involving Spinoza, > Halliday/Hasan/Bernstein, Bakhtin, and many more. > > Sure is more than enough to try to get one's mind around!! > > mike > > > On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 11:05 PM, James Ma wrote: > > > The 5th ISCAR Congress was hailed as a great success in taking a > 360-degree > > view of the landscape of cultural-historical activity research, > > accentuating the state of scholarship in practice. The ontogenesis of > > Vygotsky alongside his cultural-historical school of thought was so well > > contextualised, illustrated and communicated that I felt I ?knew? him. > > While travelling in Canada after the congregation, I was still > preoccupied > > with thoughts about Vygotsky and how his theory had been approached or > > approximated and what might have been led to as a way of developing > > cultural-historical activity research. > > > > It might seem that an unquestioning assertion of Vygotskyan legacy would > > frame cultural-historical activity research not only as act of gaining > > proximity to Vygotsky but also as an attitude invested in *exhausting*, > > *exploiting* or even *worshiping* his work. How can the ingenuity and > > inspiration of his insights nourish the landscape of cultural-historical > > activity research? How might cultural-historical activity research be > > henceforth set to continue well into the future, thus informing many > facets > > of our modern life? These questions are of no easy matter, as Malcolm > Reed > > points out in his prologue for the Congress: > > > > ?Like any landscape we have cultivated, we need also to learn what and > whom > > we have depleted and used to extinction, and count that cost and commit > to > > reparation and rediscovery.? > > > > This reminds me of the opening remarks by Leslie Smith, Julie Dockrell > and > > Peter Tomlinson (who edited ?Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond? published after > > the Piaget-Vygotsky Centenary Conference held in Brighton, England, in > > April 1996): > > > > ?There is sometimes a tendency to interpret the work of Piaget and > Vygotsky > > in a polarised way, as if the work of one had nothing in common with that > > of the other.? > > > > Arguably, any theory has its limitations and shortcomings, and neither an > > unquestioning acceptance of new trends nor an unquestioning refusal of > old > > traditions can succeed in the end in that it allows no room for > evaluation. > > Vygotsky might well be seen as someone like C. S. Peirce whose philosophy > > was meant for those who want to explore and discover ? as Peirce put it: > > ?Those who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are > > philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!? > > > > I?m a linguist by avocation. I see Vygotsky within the linguistic turn > in > > philosophy, which leads me to contemplate his ideas in the light of other > > thinkers. When I first came across Vygotsky?s idea that the structure of > > speech is *not* the mirror image of the structure of thought, I wasn?t > > particularly impressed. Vygotsky posited thought as undergoing > > reconstruction and reconfiguration before vocalisation, but this was > > already foreshadowed in Saussure?s work. For Saussure, thought without > > language is a vague, uncharted nebula ? there are no pre-existing ideas > and > > nothing is distinct before the appearance of language. Later I found > > Saussure and Vygotsky balancing each other with different focuses: > Saussure > > on structure, Vygotsky on action, and Peirce on process and action. > > > > I?ve proposed a methodological approach that synergises different > theories > > by placing otherwise disparate perspectives in dialogue. Rather than > > simply contrasting different theoretical roots or orientations, a > > synergistic approach allows me to draw out the profound *sameness* of > > differences between theories. I use ?sameness? to refer to ontological > and > > epistemological confluence or complementarity that provides a basis for > > mutual amelioration and consolidation. This is exemplified in ?The > synergy > > of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the multimodality of > > semiotic mediation? *http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 > > *). In synergising > > different theoretical positions, a *tour d?horizon* for > cultural-historical > > activity research may be brought forth. I feel this is to some extent > > alluded to in Jennifer Vadeboncoeur?s epilogue for the Congress in terms > of > > ?impeccable research?. > > > > Just to add that the term ?synergy? first came to my attention through > the > > work of Eve Gregory on children learning English as an additional > language > > in the UK, referring to the reciprocity of learning between sisters and > > brothers as ?a synergy whereby siblings act as adjuvants, stimulating and > > fostering each other?s development? (see ?Sisters and brothers as > language > > and literacy teachers: synergy between siblings playing and working > > together?, *Journal of Early Childhood Literacy*, 2001). The use of > > ?synergy? in my work was also inspired by Anne Edwards? writing on the > > resemblance of Vygotsky, Mead and American pragmatism in *Cambridge > > Companion to Vygotsky* (edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James > > Wertsch in 2007). > > > > On account of ?semiotic methodology in the making? as highlighted by > > Alberto Rosa and Jaan Valsiner (see *The Cambridge Handbook of > > Sociocultural Psychology*, 2007), I feel Peircean pragmatism and > semiotics > > can render impetus to Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity > > research, bringing to the fore the importance of evaluating and > > re-evaluating theory in the light of changing social, economic and > > political conditions in modern society. > > James > > > > > > *_____________________________________* > > > > *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa > > * > > > > *RECENT PUBLICATIONS* > > > > Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher > > education http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234 > > > > Lev Vygotsky and his theory in a nutshell > > http://www.scrss.org.uk/publications.htm#2016 > > > > The synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky as an analytical approach to the > > multimodality of semiotic mediation > > http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2014.913294 (This article is in the > > Journal?s ?Most Read Articles? 1st place > > http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles? > > journalCode=hmca20#.Va9Q7tFRF9A > > and in the ?Class of 2015 Educational Research? > > http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/ > > educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy- > leadership-2015 > > ) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 15 September 2017 at 21:53, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > wrote: > > > > > Dear all, > > > > > > > > > Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and > it > > > is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have > > > selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am > > > confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance > > in > > > personal development and social change. > > > > > > > > > Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop > bringing > > > youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly > play > > > and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's > > > writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit > > to > > > the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to > > > understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass > through > > > on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages > > > (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming." > > > > > > > > > Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and > > > she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all > > get > > > the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. > I > > am > > > sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be > > > able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the > > interest > > > of many. Good read! And good weekend, > > > > > > > > > Alfredo > > > > > > From anamshane@gmail.com Sat Sep 23 12:16:49 2017 From: anamshane@gmail.com (Ana Marjanovic-Shane) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 19:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Konstantinov's innovative math program In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear all, Eugene Matusov published a new monograph "Nikolai N. Konstantinov?s Authorial Math Pedagogy for People with Wings" in The Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology (JREEP), Edited by Pentti Hakkarainen. -- see the attachment. This is a story of a unique approach to teaching math, where authorship of the student and her/his agency are in the central focus, and math becomes an exciting and challenging adventure for all involved. Congratulations! Ana ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Eugene Matusov Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 2:02 PM Subject: Konstantinov's innovative math program To: Jenifer Hummer , Joseph DiNapoli , Robert Mixell , Amanda Jansen , Ana Marjanovic-Shane , Anne Morris , Leda Echevers , , Mark Smith < mpsmith@udel.edu>, , Alexander Poddiakov < apoddiakov@gmail.com>, Mike Cole , Mike Cole < mcole@ucsd.edu> Dear Ana, Mark, Sasha, Laura, Jenifer, Tony, Joe, Anne, Siobahn, Amanda, Mike, and Leda? Thanks A LOT for your help and support of the project! Attached please find the special issue of the Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology where the project has been just published. Eugeen ---------------------------- Eugene Matusov, PhD Editor-in-Chief, Dialogic Pedagogy Journal Professor of Education School of Education 16 W Main st University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716, USA Publications: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/publications.htm DiaPed: http://diaped.soe.udel.edu DPJ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dialogic-Pedagogy-Journal/581685735176063 ---------------------------- -- *Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Ph.D.* Chestnut Hill College, Associate Professor of Education Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, deputy Editor-in-Chief (dpj.pitt.edu) e-mails: shaneam@chc.edu anamshane@gmail.com Phone: +1 267-334-2905 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Matusov, Nikolai N Konstantinov authorial math pedagogy for people with wings, JREEP, 2017.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1090756 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170923/3cc0b747/attachment-0001.pdf From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Sep 23 18:08:22 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 18:08:22 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [liberationtech] Outreachy - Internerships for Underrrepresented People in Tech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am not sure if this forum still exists, but if it does, perhaps some folks out there will find the program below of interest to themselves or their students/friends. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Cecilia Tanaka Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 5:27 PM Subject: [liberationtech] Outreachy - Internerships for Underrrepresented People in Tech To: liberationtech Cc: Hackerspaces General Discussion List Much love and good luck! <3 Ceci, late, always late... Sorry, I was invited to be the next Alice's White Rabbit and I am trying... :P ========== Outreachy internships are open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Internships are also open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. We are planning to expand the program to more participants from underrepresented backgrounds in the future. # https://www.outreachy.org Outreachy provides three-month internships for people from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech. Interns are paid a stipend of $5,500 and have a $500 travel stipend available to them. Interns work remotely with mentors from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities on projects ranging from programming, user experience, documentation, illustration and graphical design, to data science. Interns often find employment after their internship with Outreachy sponsors or in jobs that use the FOSS skills they learned during their internship. ------- "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live." - Mae Jemison -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/ mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwhitt@stanford.edu. From modesofpractice@gmail.com Sun Sep 24 12:36:06 2017 From: modesofpractice@gmail.com (David Dirlam) Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2017 15:36:06 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis In-Reply-To: References: <831A54E8-7FE6-4255-96C0-2FED9883F3F8@uniandes.edu.co> <1504821508663.98467@iped.uio.no> <538844fb-4e7d-f0b8-d954-b7e950e90d7c@mira.net> <1504899113467.54692@iped.uio.no> <3ae8c016-6b18-5111-609f-9a6ee76e3bc4@mira.net> <1505142079000.10498@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I was away from a computer in the mountains for a few weeks and so had to put this fascinating discussion on hold. Thanks, Mike for your two fascinating points. First, I did find a u-tube simulation of the giant component formation from udacity at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpe44sTSoF8). It doesn't allow input of the parameters, but starts with 1,000 dots. As the largest component increases in size (due to new connections), the giant component emerges at about 40 seconds into the video. In this model the outlier nodes are gradually pulled into the giant component until all nodes are in it. If we could input, or better yet, add parameters, we would start to form more complex models. The star-logo programs that Gerry Balzano was working with at LCHC a few decades ago would allow us to separate components based on the number of near simultaneous occurrences. Adding a practice parameter to often repeated components would allow us to replicate the sort of plateaus that Lashley observed as typists moved with experience from hunt-and-peck to whole-word to phrase typing. My Visual Basic is rusty, but it could also be done in Excel using the keyboard matrix on one sheet, several thousand lines of text in another, some code that increase a cluster's strength parameter with each new encounter of letter sequences in the text, and a third sheet that would add clusters as words whenever the strength got strong enough. Some more code to calculate time from cluster strength would show the Lashley plateaus. Secondly, you're "good luck" implication is absolutely right -- we can't really tame intelligence any more than the old circus "tamers" could really tame their lions. But out goal in the book proposal is to give some cognitive and social tools that people can use to help protect themselves from artificial intelligence and the knowledge explosion. On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 4:05 PM, mike cole wrote: > Is there a computer simulation/ > ?visualization of the network producing a giant component you wrote about > available, David? > > Good luck taming the human capacity you call intelligence! > > mike > > On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 9:24 AM Andy Blunden wrote: > > > What do you mean by "unit" David? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 13/09/2017 2:16 AM, David Dirlam wrote: > > > I've been on vacation in a spot with no internet or cell phone service > -- > > > cut off from civilization, perhaps, but that's not as bad as being cut > > off > > > from this fascinating discussion :-) > > > > > > An idea from each of Alfredo's and Andy's posts generated visceral > > > reactions in me. Out in the mountains, I spent many hours with a former > > > student of mine, who has been a licensed clinical social worker in the > > > western Virginia coalfields for 20 years. We're proposing a book on > > "Taming > > > Intelligence" to address the human side of dealing with AI changes in > > work. > > > I did a long developmental interview of her (a way of helping people > > > organize their professional experience) and the 9 needs of Manfred > > Max-Neef > > > turned out to be most of the dimensions for organizing her expertise. > > They > > > happen to be the topic of one of the 7 chapters we have planned for the > > > book, but I didn't expect to find them so deeply embedded in the > > > therapeutic process (my ignorance, probably). Where they fit into modes > > of > > > practice are that one of the parameters for describing changes in the > > > frequency of a practice over time is resources and the 9 needs spell > out > > > the internal effects of resource availability (off the top of my head > > they > > > are health-safety, sustenance, leisure, creativity, understanding, > > liberty, > > > love, identity, and belonging). > > > > > > About the usefulness of a complex nested hierarchy, like biology's, it > is > > > essential to the taming intelligence argument. Repetitive practices (up > > to > > > procedures and recipes) are those most vulnerable to automation. We > > toured > > > a former coal mine that exhibited what happened to the miners when the > > > "continuous miner" machine was introduced. Two men could accomplish in > an > > > hour what it took a dozen to achieve in a day before it was introduced. > > The > > > devastating effect on miners and their families in the mid-20th century > > was > > > similar to the effect that the flying shuttle had on weavers two > > centuries > > > earlier. > > > > > > Adaptive practices require ongoing changes like the sort of learning > that > > > my voice recognition software does, but also like transformative > learning > > > and the development of expertise. They are more resistant to change, > but > > > call-centers, customer-service personnel, and even journalists are > being > > > affected by them. > > > > > > Finally, collaborative and institutional practices are most resistant. > We > > > don't collaborate well until we begin to understand what others know > and > > > can do that we do not. Group and institution formation begins to work > > when, > > > I believe, the division of labor occurs. But that is a topic that > others > > on > > > this list have more expertise than me (of course I'd love to read more > on > > > how they relate to units of practice from contributors). In any case, > > > machine discovery of these are farther away than for the simpler > > practices > > > that actually occur within them. > > > > > > Another aspect of the usefulness of multiple levels of units came up > > during > > > my interview of my colleague. She is a very versatile counselor, used > to > > > many populations and therapeutic approaches, She mentioned the > usefulness > > > of some behavior therapy approaches derived from animal behavior > research > > > and memory research for helping patients with PTSD begin to fell secure > > in > > > public. The examples she used work best at the repetitive behavior > level. > > > When we discussed transformative learning or belonging, the approach > > > changed to more cognitive and social methods. > > > > > > I have found network theory's concept of the giant component extremely > > > useful for thinking about nested units. It starts with random nodes > > > (envision dots on a paper) and adds links one at a time (lines between > > the > > > dots). Little twig compnents appear all over the paper when this is > done. > > > However, when the number of links begins to get close to the number of > > > dots, there is a sudden change in the size of the linked components > that > > > results in a "giant component" that links nearly all nodes. This giant > > > component is a model of the next level of unit. > > > > > > All for now. Thanks much for your thoughts. > > > > > > > > > David D > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> > > > wrote: > > > > > >> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced in your > text, > > >> yes, and quite different from what one could grasp from the previous > > >> e-mail. ???And I ?now follow your elaboration on micro- and macro-unit > > much > > >> better, so thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the > elaboration > > >> would lead to some acknowledgement of the role of needs, real needs, > as > > key > > >> to what the word 'visceral' was suggesting here. I was thinking that > > rather > > >> than a 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting, > which > > is > > >> how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about the significance of > > >> 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical' activity, the fundamental fact > of > > a > > >> need and its connections to its production and satisfaction. > > >> > > >> A > > >> > > >> ________________________________ > > >> From: Andy Blunden > > >> Sent: 09 September 2017 03:30 > > >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >> > > >> > > >> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the issues you > > >> raise are treated in http://www.ethicalpolitics. > > org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe- > > >> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf > > >> > > >> > > >> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' > and > > >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. The whole point is to begin > by > > >> *not* dividing. By contrast for example, Newton explained natural > > processes > > >> (very successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force is an > > >> example of something which is not visceral or sensuous (and also not > > >> discrete so it can't be a 'unit'). The "expression" of a force can be > > >> visceral (think of the effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an > > >> invention needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will) > but > > has > > >> no content other than its expression. People got by without it for > > >> millennia. This is not to say it does not have a sound basis in > material > > >> reality. But it is abstract, in the sense that it exists only within > the > > >> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a starting point > or > > >> foundation for a theory. To claim that a force exists is to reify an > > >> abstraction from a form of movement (constant acceleration between two > > >> bodies). Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is > > >> something quite different from the kind of empiricism which > uncritically > > >> accepts theory-laden perceptions, discovers patterns in these > > perceptions > > >> and then reifies these patterns in forces and such abstractions. > > >> > > >> > > >> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess the unit of > > >> analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to determine a unit of > > analysis > > >> for economics. Vygotsky took from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a > > unit of > > >> analysis for intellect. And both these characters studied their field > > >> obsessively during that interval. This is why I insist that the unit > of > > >> analysis is a *visceral concept* unifying a series of phenomena, > > something > > >> which gets to the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only > > >> through prolonged study, not something which is generated by some > > formula > > >> with a moment's reflection. > > >> > > >> > > >> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both Marx's > > Capital > > >> and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit but quickly move on to the > real > > >> phenomenon of interest - capital and concepts respectively. But > capital > > >> (which makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood without > > >> having first identified the real substance of value in the commodity. > > The > > >> rest of the book then proceeds on the basis of this unit, capital > > (i.e., a > > >> unit of capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois > > society > > >> as a society of simple commodity exchange among equals - a total > > fiction. > > >> Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it to elucidate the nature and > > development of > > >> concepts. He does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, > but > > >> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term), an aggregate > of > > >> actions centred on a symbol or other artefact. The whole point of > > >> introducing the cell into biology was to understand the behaviour of > > >> *organisms*, not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology, > > >> though this was a side benefit of the discovery. > > >> > > >> > > >> Andy > > >> > > >> ________________________________ > > >> Andy Blunden > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > >> > > >> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the ?'visceral'. The way you > > >> describe it, though, suggests to me an empiricist position that I know > > you > > >> do not ascribe to; and so I'll take it that either I've missed the > > correct > > >> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk about this. > In > > >> any case, I assume you do not mean that whatever our object of study > > is, it > > >> is divided between the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and > sensuous' > > >> and something else that, by implication, may have been said to be > > >> 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as well mean > precisely > > >> this, I am not sure). > > >> > > >> > > >> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis is when > > discussing > > >> hurricanes either, but I do think that Hurricanes Irma, Jos?, etc, are > > >> expressions of a system in a very similar way that ?any psychological > > fact > > >> is a expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I was > > thinking > > >> that, if we assumed for a second that we know what the unit for > > ?studying > > >> of hurricanes is (some concrete relation between climate or > environment > > and > > >> hurricane), ?'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of in may ways, > > only > > >> some of which may be helpful to advance our scientific understanding > of > > >> human praxis. The way you seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, > as > > >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because, > are > > we > > >> 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our roofs away? In fact, > > is it > > >> the wind at all, or the many micro particles of soil and other matter > > that > > >> are smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too big, too > > >> complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures it all? And so, if your > > >> object of study is to be 'felt', I don't think the definition of > > >> 'immediate, embodied, and sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it > > >> being the opposite to ??'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'. That > > is, > > >> if we do not oppose the immediate to the mediated in the sense just > > implied > > >> (visceral is immediate vs. ?'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am > > arguing > > >> in favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral relation > that > > you > > >> mention, but I do think that we require a much more sophisticated > > >> definition of 'visceral' than the one that the three words already > > >> mentioned allow for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works, > > Vygotsky > > >> was very concerned on emphasising the unity of intellect and affect as > > the > > >> most important problem for psychology for precisely this reason. > > >> > > >> > > >> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you draw in your > > >> e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If the question is the > > production > > >> of awareness, of the 'experience of having a mind' that you are > > discussing > > >> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not two, not one > micro > > >> and one macro. I am of course not saying that one unit addresses all > the > > >> problems one can pose for psychology. But I do think that the very > idea > > of > > >> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of inquiry for a > > >> particular problem (you've written about this). You ask about > Michael's > > >> mind, and Michael responds that his mind is but one expression of a > > >> society. I would add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as > > >> consciousness in and through each and every single one of our > > >> consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was suggesting, the one > denoting > > >> the unity of person and situation, seems to me well suited; not a > > >> micro-unit that is micro with respect to the macro-activity. > > >> > > >> > > >> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must agree with > > that > > >> of which it is the idea', and then agree with Vygotsky that ideas are > > not > > >> intellect on the one hand, and affect on the other, but a very special > > >> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion of 'visceral > > and > > >> sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea' or field of inquiry. We can > then > > >> ask questions about the affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for > > example, > > >> as Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we would do so > > >> without implying an opposition between the feeling and the felt, but > > some > > >> production process that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my > > view, > > >> is not so much about experience as it is about human situations; > > historical > > >> events, which happen to have some individual people having them as > > inherent > > >> part of their being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or > > >> totally unconscious event would not be historical). > > >> > > >> > > >> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with too long posts > > >> like this one, but I think the issue is complex and requires some > > >> elaboration. I hope xmca is also appreciated for allowing going deep > > into > > >> questions that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive. > > >> > > >> > > >> Alfredo > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> ________________________________ > > >> From: Andy Blunden > > >> Sent: 08 September 2017 04:11 > > >> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >> > > >> > > >> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know through your > > >> immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction with something. In this > > sense I > > >> am with Lakoff and Johnson here (though not being American I don't see > > guns > > >> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider what Marx > did > > >> when began Capital not from the abstract concept of "value" but from > the > > >> action of exchanging commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form > > of > > >> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most "real" and most > > >> fundamental form of value - as Marx shows in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I. > > >> > > >> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent of grasping > > what > > >> their unit of analysis is. > > >> > > >> In any social system, including classroom activity, the micro-unit is > an > > >> artefact-mediated action and the macro-units are the activities. That > is > > >> the basic CHAT approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't > > it? > > >> What chronotope determines classroom activity - are we training people > > to > > >> be productive workers or are we participating in social movements or > > are we > > >> engaged in transforming relations of domination in the classroom or > are > > we > > >> part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and change the world? > The > > >> action/activity just gives us one range of insights, but we might > > analyse > > >> the classroom from different perspectives. > > >> > > >> Andy > > >> > > >> ________________________________ > > >> Andy Blunden > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > >> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > >> > > >> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and > > >> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is > > >> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'. > > >> > > >> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of a > > >> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars > > ways > > >> that are called Irma, Jos?, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be > like > > >> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate > system > > >> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom > > >> conflict and the system that sustains it). > > >> > > >> Alfredo > > >> ________________________________________ > > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> mailman.ucsd.edu> > xmca-l-bounces@ > > >> mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Dirlam < > modesofpractice@gmail.com > > >< > > >> mailto:modesofpractice@gmail.com> > > >> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41 > > >> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis > > >> > > >> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the conception > of > > >> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the > > >> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have > some > > >> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts > > need > > >> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit (worded > > like > > >> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me > if > > I > > >> missed his meaning). > > >> > > >> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their > > classifiability > > >> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an > > element, > > >> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical > > bonds > > >> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water > > (how > > >> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's > > point. > > >> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while > > actions > > >> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the > > activity > > >> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them. If > > we > > >> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the > > complexity > > >> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not > just > > >> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability, > > >> classification, and interrelations between cells and their > constituents > > all > > >> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the > > constituents > > >> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate that. > > >> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify activities, > > and > > >> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents. > > >> > > >> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of > > characterizing > > >> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections. > > >> > > >> David > > >> > > >> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden > > > >> ablunden@mira.net> wrote: > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to aspire > to > > >> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are > > utterly > > >> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For > > example, > > >> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not the > > >> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course. > > >> > > >> Andy > > >> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >> Andy Blunden > > >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research > > >> > > >> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> Isn?t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one > might > > >> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that > > is > > >> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course > of > > >> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept? > > >> > > >> just wondering > > >> > > >> Martin > > >> > > >> > > >> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson >< > > >> mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> > > >> > > >> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > >> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of > > >> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's > Introduction > > >> to > > >> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of > it > > >> is > > >> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the > > >> essential features of the whole". > > >> > > >> Here is their longer explanation: > > >> > > >> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of > > >> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate > > >> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one > > >> that > > >> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study > water, > > a > > >> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an > > >> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and > > >> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not > illuminate > > >> the > > >> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use > > >> requires > > >> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology, > > >> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these > linguistic > > >> and > > >> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but > > >> natural > > >> language use also involves social action in a context that includes > > other > > >> actors and socially significant regularities." > > >> > > >> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at: > > >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct > > >> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education > > >> ) > > >> > > >> ?I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking > > >> about > > >> unit of analysis.? > > >> > > >> ?-greg? > > >> > > >> -- > > >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > >> Assistant Professor > > >> Department of Anthropology > > >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > >> Brigham Young University > > >> Provo, UT 84602 > > >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > > > > > > From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Sun Sep 24 13:58:18 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2017 20:58:18 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] =?utf-8?b?IFJlOiDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiDQntGC0LI6IFJlOiDQntGC0LI6IFJl?= =?utf-8?q?=3A_Unit_of_Analysis?= References: <292655362.14209812.1506286698854.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <292655362.14209812.1506286698854@mail.yahoo.com> The fourth post on the topic. Reply to IvanThe Russian translation of the discussion is duplicated here:?https://www.facebook.com/groups/564569043580624/permalink/1447798525257667/? | Dear Sasha | Dear Ivan! | ??????? ????! | | ? | ? | ? | | Thank you for your bilingual text! And thank you for sparing me the "academic courtesy" :) | I will answer your comments with pleasure. And I'll start by asking you to clarify once again - what, at least slightly resembling Spinoza's central ideas, did you find in Vygotsky? | ? ????????????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?????????. ? ????? ????? ? ????, ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ? ???, ???? ?? ????????? ???????????? ??????????? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ? ??????????? | | Again I agree with most but not all of your email, and again the disagreement is where you touch on Vygotsky. | And let's agree that we will not consider simple verbal declarations of adherence to Spinozism. Not because we do not believe in their sincerity, but because science does not consist of naked intentions. Science has to produce at least some result, hasn't it? :-) | ? ????? ???????????, ??? ??????? ????????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ?????????? ?? ????????????? ?? ?????. ?? ??????, ??? ?? ????? ? ?? ???????????, ? ??????, ??? ????? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ?????????. ????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ?? ????????? ?????????. ?? ??? ??? :-) | | I don't think Vygotsky completed this project, perhaps he only started it off, to be continued by Leontiev, Ilyenkov and others. My defensive position is merely that he was not barking up the wrong tree. | The fact that Vygotsky did not finish his project is something absolutely indisputable. Therefore, we have to evaluate not a holistic, concrete theoretical system, which he simply did not have time to create, but his first, necessarily the most abstract steps. Essentially, it is necessary to evaluate the "germ cell" of his theory, of course, if it was found at all. At the same time, again, we will judge not by the declarations of Leontyev and Ilyenkov, but by the content of their theorizing. I know, of course, that Leontiev always insisted publicly that he and Vygotsky had a single theoretical approach, differing only in the level of abstractness and concreteness. But I am convinced that Leontiev's statements were motivated exclusively by political reasons. This is sad, but from the point of view of the "germ cell" one can not speak about Vygotsky's theory, in principle, for he could not distinguish this cell (he did not have enough time for that). Of course, I can make mistakes in this assessment, and you or someone else knows what should be considered as the "germ cell" of Vygotsky's theory. In this case, I will be glad to make it known and amend my position. If, of course, the theoretical analysis confirms that the proposed category is suitable for the role assigned to it. For Ilyenkov, the role of such a "germ cell" is played by an object-oriented action, it is also an "action copying the form of an object", it is also ?predmetnaya deyatelnost?. Leontiev was close to the same understanding of the "germ cell", exploring in detail the so-called "perceptual actions, plastically resembling the form of an object". As far as I know Vygotsky hadn?t nothing even remotely similar to the idea of activity understood in Spinozian way. Although the word "activity" he used often enough. But one thing is a WORD, and quite another is the concept behind it, an understanding of the essence of the matter. One thing is "word" and quite another "concept." It must be admitted, however, that both Ilyenkov and Leontiev also did not go very far from the original "germ cell" to the concrete theory. Their concepts are also filled with unresolved contradictions. But I stress, from their position with all their contradictions, there is a way forward, not to a dead end. An analysis of the contradictions between Leontiev and Ilyenkov, I am ready to discuss in further reports. | ??, ??? ????????? ?? ???????? ???? ?????? - ????? ?????????? ??????????. ?????? ????????? ??? ?????????? ?? ?????????, ?????????? ????????????? ???????, ??????? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ???????, ? ?? ??????, ?????????? ????? ??????????? ????. ??-???????? ????????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????? ??????? ??????, ???????, ???? ??? ?????? ???? ???????. (???? ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ?????, ??, ??? ?? ????????, ?? ?????? ?? ???????? ????? ? ?????????.) ?? ????, ??? ????????? ?????????? ????????????? ? ???????? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ?????? ? ???, ???????? ?? ?????? ?????????-????????? ?????????? ???????????? ? ????????? ??? ??????, ??? ??? ???????? ?? ????????????? ??????????. ??? ???? ?????-????, ????? ?????? ?? ?? ??????????? ????????? ? ?????????, ? ?? ?????????? ?? ????????????????. ???, ??????????, ????????, ??? ???????? ???????? ?????? ????????? ?? ???, ??? ? ??? ? ????????? ??? ?????? ????????????? ??????, ????????????? ?????? ??????? ?????????????-????????????. ?? ? ???????, ??? ??? ????????? ????????? ?????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ?????????. ? ???????, ??? ??? ?? ????????, ?? ? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????? ? ?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????? ? ????????, ??? ???????? ??? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ???? (?? ?????). ???????, ? ?? ????????, ??? ???? ?????????, ? ??? ???? ??? ????-?? ??? ???????? ? ??? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???????????? ?????????? ?????? ??????????. ? ????? ??????, ???? ??? ?????? ???????? ? ???? ???????. ???? ???????, ????????????? ?????? ??????????, ??? ?????? ????????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ?? ????. ??? ????????? ????? ????????? ???????? ? ??????????-?????????? ????????, ??? ?? ????????? ?? ????? ?????????, ??? ?? ?????????? ????????????. ???????? ?????? ? ?????? ?? ????????? ????????, ?????????? ???????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ????????????? ????????, ??????????? ?????????????? ????? ?????????. ? ??????????, ????????? ??? ???????? ??? ?????? ???? ????????? ???????? ?? ??? ?????????? ????????????. ???? ????? ?????????????? ??? ???????????? ??, ??????????, ??????????? ?????????? ?????. ?? ???? ???? ?????, ? ?????? ?????? ? ??????? ?? ??? ???????, ????????? ???????? ????. ???? ???? ??????? ? ?????? ?????? ?????????. ????, ???????, ????????, ??? ? ????????, ? ???????? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ???????????? ?? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????. ?? ????????? ???? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????????????. ?? ?? ?? ????????????, ??? ??????? ???????? ???? ???? ??????. ?????? ???????????? ????????? ? ????????? ? ????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????????. | | As I've said, I think his treatment of the child's socialisation is fully Spinozan and materialist.? e.g., the way the activity of the social environment is transmitted to the child.? Surely word meaning is treated here (e.g. in Thinking and Speech) as a reflection of activity.? | If we are trying to understand how the child's psyche (activity) arises and develops, we must consider his/her own object oriented activity, rather than the activity of the "social environment". For from the point of view, from the position of the child, all this stuff is not an activity at all, because that is not HIS/HERE activity, but some external circumstances, external stimuli. The child himself in such a scheme is regarded as something totally passive. But a child can not be alive and at the same time not active, because object-oriented activity is life. Therefore, the child's actual development always depends not on external, even if not physical, but social impacts on him, but on the activity of the child himself. Meanwhile, about the activity of the child himself, about an "action copying the form of an object", Vygotsky did not say a single word. Where and in what do you see Spinozism here? At the same time, how did you see the reflection of activity in the child's learning of the meanings of words? What real activity leads the child's thinking from concept-heap to concept-complex and from concept-complex to scientific concept? And where does Vygotsky have said at least a single word on this subject? Moreover, Vygotsky's proposed scheme for the development of the concept is anything, only not the real logic of growth and development of concepts, development of understanding. However, this topic should not be dealt with between the case, because it is too serious. Therefore, we will return to it a little later. | ???? ?? ???????? ?????? ??? ????????? ? ??????????? ??????? (????????????) ???????, ?? ?????? ????????????? ??? ??????????? ?????????? ????????????, ? ?? ???????????? ???????????? ??????????, ??? ??????????? ??????. ??? ? ????? ??????, ? ??????? ???????, ??? ??? ?? ????????????, ?? ??? ????????????, ?? ????? ??????? ??????????????, ??????? ???????. ??? ?? ??????? ? ????? ????? ??????????????? ??? ????? ?????????. ?? ????????? ????????? ???????, ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?????, ? ?????? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????????????? ?????-?? ??????? ?? ??? ????????, ??? ?? ?????? ??????? ? ????? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ???????????, ? ?? ???????????? ?????? ???????. ????? ???, ? ???????????? ?????? ???????, ??? ???????? ???????? ?? ????? ????????, ? ?????????? ?? ??????? ?? ??????? ?????. ??? ? ? ??? ????? ?? ???????????? ?????????? ??????, ????? ??????? ?? ????????? ????????? ???????????? ? ???????? ???????? ???????? ????? ????? ???????????? ????????? ???????? ??????? ?? ???????-???? ? ???????-????????? ? ?? ???????-????????? ? ???????? ???????? ? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ? ??????????? ??? ?????, ??? ???? ?????? ??? ????????? ????? ???????? ???????, ???????????? ?????????, ???????? ??? ??????, ?????? ?? ???????? ??????? ????? ? ???????? ?????? ???????, ???????? ?????????. ???????, ? ???? ????, ?? ??????? ???????? ??????, ??? ??? ??????? ????????. ? ??????, ?? ???????? ? ??? ??????? ???????. | | The activity of the social environment (including its verbal behaviour) is adopted by the child. | If "the activity of the social environment" (including its verbal behavior)"is only perceived by the child, then, as we said above, there is no activity of the child at all, and there is activity of someone else, which means that the child does not develop in this situation. Similarly, the student does not develops while the teacher is generating a flood of activities if the student himself is asleep, or directs his activity at an exciting game on his smartphone. Once again, what does Spinoza and Spinozism have to do with it? | ???? ????????????? ?????????? ?????? (??????? ?? ?????????? ??????????)?????? ???? ?????????????? ????????, ??, ??? ?? ??? ??????? ????, ????? ??? ???????????? ???????, ? ???? ???????????? ????-?? ???????, ? ?????? ??????? ? ????? ???????? ?? ???????????, ??? ?? ??????????? ??????, ? ?? ????? ??? ??????? is generating a flood of activities ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ?????????? ???? ???????????? ?? ????????????? ???? ?? ????? ?????????. ??? ???, ??? ??? ??? ??????? ? ?????????? | | Vygotsky was an experimental psychologist and his experiments, and his critique of Piaget's & others' experiments, aim to show the practical ways that word meaning is created and transmitted. | An experiment without theory is blind and deaf to any facts. So the criticism of the psychologist-experimenter is no different from criticism of the scientist-theorist. And with his theory of the development of meanings of words that he identified with the development of thinking as such, Vygotsky came to a complete standstill. Below we will show this by analysing the results of the "Uzbek" experiment and analysis of the so-called methodology of Vygotsky-Sakharov. | ??????????? ??? ?????? ???? ? ???? ? ????? ??????. ??????? ??????? ?????????-???????????????? ????? ?? ?????????? ?? ??????? ???????-?????????. ? ?? ????? ??????? ???????? ???????? ????, ??????? ?? ??????????? ? ????????? ???????? ??? ????????, ????????? ????? ? ?????? ?????. ???? ?? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ??????????? ???????????? ???????????? ? ??????? ??? ?????????? ???????? ??????????-????????. | | The problem of the Ideal --- how Thinking and Extension relate --- is there in Spinoza.? For all his undoubted Monism and materialism this problem is smudged over in his definition of the Attributes in E1d4: | Ivan, with all due respect I can not agree with your conclusion that the problem of the relation of ?Thinking? to ?Extention? is identical with the problem of the nature of Ideal or the problem of the nature of Mind. And even more I can?t agree with your paradoxical statement that with ?undoubted monism and materialism?, one can preserve some kind of ambiguous or blurred attitude to this problem. Spinoza (and Ilyenkov) had a particular though a crystal clear and unambiguous view at this matter - the concept of the Ideal (the concept of Mind) is not synonymous with the Cartesian disembodied-thinking substance, not a synonym for the Lockean and positivistic "mental" plan. The Cartesian psychophysical problem has no solution in principle, for it is completely false. ?Thinking? and ?Extension? do not interact in any way, for they do not exist in the Nature as such. There is simply no senseless extension. At least from the moment when the Nature with the necessity inherent in its nature generates living beings. In the Nature, there is no incorporeal thinking and can not be NEVER. ? A living, active subject must interact with the object of his living vital activity that opposes him. Such interaction can theoretically be understood as life and/or thinking. The ideal is either a living form of such a living movement (in accordance with the form of an object) or the same form of movement, but frozen in the form of the natural instrument, the organic body of living beings, or the cultural instrument of this activity, primarily tools of labor. So the form, nature of the wood is represented either in the form of a live movement of an experienced woodcutter or carpenter, or in the form of their tools - an ax, a cleaver, a plane, etc. And only secondarily the activity crystallizes in the form of verbal signs denoting certain properties of wood. However, I must stop here, for I understand that all that is said here can hardly be understood, outside the context of a more thorough discussion of the nature of the category of ideality and its understanding in the logic of Marx. To stop in order to return to the topic later and more fundamentally. | ????, ??? ???? ???????, ?? ???? ??????????? ? ????? ??????? ? ???, ??? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ? ??????????????? ???????????? ???????? ??????? ??????????, ???????? ??????? ????????. ? ??? ????? ? ????? ?????????????? ????????????, ??? ??? ??????????? ??????? ? ????????????, ????? ????????? ????? ????????????? ??? ????????? ????????? ? ???? ????????. ??????? (? ????????) ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????????? ?????? ? ??????????????? ??????? ? ??????? ?????????? (??????? ????????) ?? ??????? ????????????? ??????????-???????? ??????????, ?? ??????? ??????????? ? ??????????????? ????????????? ?????. ????????????? ??????????????? ???????? ?? ????? ??????? ? ????????, ??? ?????????? ????? ??????????. ???????? ? ????????????? ?? ??????????????? ?????, ??? ?? ?????????? ? ??????? ??? ???????. ????????????? ????????????? ? ???? ?????? ???. ?? ??????? ???? ??????? ? ???? ???????, ????? ??????? ? ??????????????, ?????????? ? ?? ???????, ????????? ????? ???????. ???????????? ?? ???????? ? ??????? ??? ? ???? ?? ????? ???????. ??????????????? ??, ?????? ??????????, ?????, ?????????? ??????? ? ?????????????? ??? ????????? ??? ?????????????????. ????? ?????????????? ???? ? ?????, ? ????????. ????????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???????? (?? ????? ????????), ???? ??? ?? ?????, ????????? ? ????? ????????????? ??????, ????????????? ???? ????? ???????, ???? ??????????? ?????? ???? ????????????, ?????? ????? ? ?????? ?????. ??? ?????, ??????? ????????? ???????????? ???? ? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ????????? ??? ????????, ???? ? ????? ?? ?????? ? ??????, ??????, ??????? ? ?.?. ? ?????? ???????? ? ???? ????????? ??????, ???????????? ?? ??? ???? ???????? ?????????. ???????, ? ????? ? ???????? ????????????, ??? ???????, ??? ??? ????????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ???? ??????, ??? ????????? ????? ?????????????? ????????? ? ??????? ????????? ??????????? ? ?? ????????? ? ?????? ??????. ???????????? ??? ????, ????? ????????? ? ???? ??????? ? ????? ??????????????. | | SPINOZA: E1 d4: By attribute, I mean that which *the intellect* perceives as constituting the essence of substance. | Spinoz's definition of the "attribute" is absolutely accurate and transparent, although it was expressed in a specific language of the XVII century. The opposition of Thinking and Extantion as two attributes of the Substance in the language ?of Marx, are identical to the opposition of the ideal and the material. Both the ideal and the material are not something independent from each other, but are positing each other definitions of world matter and its movement, Nature as a whole, the material Universe. | ???????????? ????????? ?????????? ????????? ????? ? ?????????, ???? ? ???????? ?? ????????????? ????? XVII ????. ????????????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??? ???? ????????? ?????????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????, ?? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????????? ?????????? ? ?????????????. ? ?????????, ? ???????????? ?? ??????????? ???? ?? ????? ????????, ?? ?????????? ???? ????? ??????????? ??????? ???????, ?? ????????, ??????? ? ?????, ???????????? ?????????. | | Which intellect? | You are asking whose intellect Spinoza means in his definition of "attribute"? I think that the intellect of coming?to a knowledge, active subject. | ?? ??????????? ? ???? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ? ????? ????????? ??????????? ?????, ??? ?? ?????????? ??????????, ??????????? ????????. | | Vygotksy's psychology might have shown the way forward for a psychology (& even a philosophy of mind) that does without Thinking (in Spinoza's sense, of a distinct Attribute of Substance) altogether, and has only Extension and "imaginatio" (as in E2 p17). | To follow your advice and try to do without Mind or Thinking (in the Spinozian sense, as a special attribute of The Substance) would mean, in Spinoza's style, to think of Nature or God in an imperfect way, as something lifeless and meaningless. Such a path in philosophy is not something new. This is the path of vulgar materialism of Lametrie and Kabanis, and from more modern characters - the path of Pavlov, behaviorists, adepts of "Cognitive science", etc. However, it is impossible to be a consistent vulgar materialist, not allowing in your system a fraction of no less vulgar idealism. At the same Pavlov vulgar idealism is presented in the form of "reflexes of the goal," "reflexes of freedom." In your discourse, vulgar idealism is seen - in the proposal to replace the theoretically clear Spinoza-defined thinking as an attribute of the substance to its own, but much less clearly theoretically articulated concept of ?imagination?. | ??????????? ?????? ?????? ? ?????????? ???????? ??? ???????? (? ???????????? ??????, ??? ??????? ???????? ??????????) ??????? ??, ?????? ? ????? ???????, ??????? ??????? ??? ???? ????????????? ???????, ??? ????? ???????????? ? ?????????????. ????? ???? ? ????????? ?? ???. ??? ???? ??????????? ???????????? ???????, ????????, ? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????? ? ???? ???????, ?????????????, ??????? ?Cognitive science? ? ??. ???????, ?????????? ???? ???????????????? ?????????? ?????????????, ?? ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????. ? ???? ?? ??????? ?????????? ???????? ???????????? ? ???? ?????????? ?????, ?????????? ????????. ? ????? ??????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????????????? ? ? ??????????? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ???????????? ???????? ???????? ??? ???????? ?????????? ?? ??? ??, ?? ???? ????? ????? ???????????? ???????????????? ??????? ??????????? - "imaginatio". | | Best wishes | All the best | ????? ?????? ???????, | | Ivan | Sasha | ???? | ? ?????? ? ????????? | Security Check Required | | From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Sun Sep 24 23:16:54 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 06:16:54 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Konstantinov's innovative math program In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1506320214905.66625@iped.uio.no> Nice, thanks for sharing! Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Ana Marjanovic-Shane Sent: 23 September 2017 21:16 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Cc: Eugene Matusov Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Konstantinov's innovative math program Dear all, Eugene Matusov published a new monograph "Nikolai N. Konstantinov?s Authorial Math Pedagogy for People with Wings" in The Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology (JREEP), Edited by Pentti Hakkarainen. -- see the attachment. This is a story of a unique approach to teaching math, where authorship of the student and her/his agency are in the central focus, and math becomes an exciting and challenging adventure for all involved. Congratulations! Ana ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Eugene Matusov Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 2:02 PM Subject: Konstantinov's innovative math program To: Jenifer Hummer , Joseph DiNapoli , Robert Mixell , Amanda Jansen , Ana Marjanovic-Shane , Anne Morris , Leda Echevers , , Mark Smith < mpsmith@udel.edu>, , Alexander Poddiakov < apoddiakov@gmail.com>, Mike Cole , Mike Cole < mcole@ucsd.edu> Dear Ana, Mark, Sasha, Laura, Jenifer, Tony, Joe, Anne, Siobahn, Amanda, Mike, and Leda? Thanks A LOT for your help and support of the project! Attached please find the special issue of the Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology where the project has been just published. Eugeen ---------------------------- Eugene Matusov, PhD Editor-in-Chief, Dialogic Pedagogy Journal Professor of Education School of Education 16 W Main st University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716, USA Publications: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/publications.htm DiaPed: http://diaped.soe.udel.edu DPJ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dialogic-Pedagogy-Journal/581685735176063 ---------------------------- -- *Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Ph.D.* Chestnut Hill College, Associate Professor of Education Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, deputy Editor-in-Chief (dpj.pitt.edu) e-mails: shaneam@chc.edu anamshane@gmail.com Phone: +1 267-334-2905 From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Sep 25 01:01:31 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 17:01:31 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Hegel's Headstand Message-ID: Andy: Gramsci has this, on p. 232 of the Complete Prison Notebooks, Vol.1, New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. ?In studying Marx?s Hegelianism one should remember (especially given Marx?s eminently practical-critical character) that Marx participated in German university life very shortly after Hegel?s death, when there must still have been a most vivid memory of Hegel?s ?oral? teachings and of the passionate discussions about concrete history which these teaching generated?that is, discussions in which the historical concreteness of Hegel?s though must have stood out much more clearly that it does in his systematic writings. Some of Marx?s assertions, it seems to me, should be considered in special relation to this ?conversational? vivacity: for instance, the statement that Hegel ?has men walking on their heads?. Hegel really does use this image when dealing with the French Revolution; he writes that at a certain time during the French Revolution (when the new state structure was organized) ?it seemed? that the world was walking on its head or something of the sort (c.f.). I think that Croce asks (search the reference) from where Marx derived this image; it certainly is in one of Hegel?s books (perhaps the Philosophy of Right, I don?t remember). However, it seems to me that, given the persistence with which Marx returns to it (I think that Marx repeats the image; check), it seems to me that at a certain time it was a topic of conversationi: it really seems to have sprung out of conversation, fresh, spontaneous, so little ?bookish??. The editor of the book remarks that Gramsci seems to have in mind the ?Postface? to the second edition of Capital. However, this is simply the Marx, not the Hegel: it?s the passage Lenin (and Vygotsky) referred to ?Sie steht bei ihm auf dem Kopf. Man muss sie umst?lpen, um den rationellen Kern in der mystischen H?lle zu entdecken.? While reading this over, I realized that Vygotsky, in Chapter Two of Thinking and Speech where he cites this passage in Lenin, cites it for good reason. The whole chapter is essentially doing to Piaget what Marx did to Hegel. Vygotsky, more than anyone alive at that time, understood Piaget's extraordinary contribution, and what Marx says of Hegel could easily have been said by Vygotsky of Piaget: "Die Mystifikation, welche die Dialektik in Hegels H?nden erleidet, verhindert in keiner Weise, dass er ihre allegeminen Bewegungsformen zuerst in umfassander und bewusster Weise dargestellt hat." Having admitted that Piaget was the first to present the child's thinking in its general form of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner, Vygotsky then goes on to stand Piaget on his head, by inverting "autism-->egocentrism-->social speech" to "social speech-->egocentric speech-->inner speech". David Kellogg From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Sep 25 01:14:09 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 08:14:09 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: =?windows-1251?b?zvLiOiBSZTogzvLiOiBSZTogzvLiOiBSZTogVW5pdCBv?= =?windows-1251?q?f_Analysis?= In-Reply-To: <292655362.14209812.1506286698854@mail.yahoo.com> References: <292655362.14209812.1506286698854.ref@mail.yahoo.com>, <292655362.14209812.1506286698854@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1506327249174.32840@iped.uio.no> Dear Sasha, Ivan, this is a really interesting discussion, and one much needed, I think. Sasha, I agree with and share most of your points, I too think that there is a challenge that any Vygotskian has to deal with here, rather than accepting widespread and fashionable readings of Vygotsky's legacy that allow plain dualistic constructivism to continue under the "sociocultural" label. But I have two questions that I think need First, on your remark, "And only secondarily the activity crystallizes in the form of verbal signs denoting certain properties of wood..." I am with you throughout, but this point, both in Ilyenkov and elsewhere, becomes difficult for me every time. This may be because I have not yet seen all the ground that actually is covered across the leap that goes from supposedly primary object-oriented action to so-called 'verbal' as secondary. Accepting I may be wrong or missed some point, I have a number of problems with this: I have a hard time reducing human communication to the 'verbal', and assuming that there may have been some object-oriented action that was not first communicative action among humans. Even if this perhaps was Vygotsky's fail too, I continue seeing that in most cases 'the verbal' is reduced to exactly that, verbalisation, of the idea of language as tool, words as crystallisations in the same way that hammers are... But what I think is key is *communication*, which cannot be reduced to the verbal alone, but which in humans happens to invariably have to deal with the verbal. If anything is a crystallisation, it is the form of the human larynx perhaps, but not 'verbs'. And so, I am inclined to think that addressing each other in soci(et)al relations is not well captured in the concept of object-oriented action as you just elaborated it, if the fact of human communication becomes secondary. I am not here suggesting that communication itself is object-less, and that object-orientedness emerges with language... But I do not think either that first is object-orientedness of practical action, and only later language, in the sense of human communication. I wonder whether the germ cell that would account for the *psychological fact* of the basic human need of social relation with others can do without capturing in itself the first most essential moment of the human life. Now, at the beginning of this thread I asked you whether, at some point along the line, we would be able to show how these important and necessary elaborations could have any analytical implications for the researchers/practitioners. I do not doubt we can reach that point, but I also think that precisely that point is being neglected when considering Vygotsky's legacy here. I am aware that your critique builds upon your admirable enterprise to account for the basic trait not only of humans, but of life in general, that it is not about stimulus-response, but a self-reproducing force what characterizes biological systems. I do agree that any psychological theory that starts from the S-R assumption is doomed to failure, and so I think the idea of mediation as in the triangle S-Mediation-R is wrong. I think Vygotsky would and did accept his own failure on this point (see all notes in Zavershneva, etc). Yet, even if accepting that Vygotsky may have not found his germ cell (something others like Andy Blunden may come and dispute), I do not think that Vygotsky was wrong in his quest to postulate the primacy not of the verbal in any verbalistic sense, but of human communication, which happens to invariably evolve into verbal forms across cultures. And so my problem may be this: even if I accept that the basic germ cell must be of the shape of a relation that has a subject and her object of action as irreducible aspects, I do not think that claiming the secondary nature of the verbal when explaining psychological development is wise, unless by verbal you just mean only the highest forms of communication. Vygotsky did not begin from those higher forms, he rather fought to find that kernel that would allow for developing into those higher forms, and did so from a profound respect to the basic fact of human social relation as primary. I do not yet see how the account you are unfolding takes up this basic truth as starting point in human ontogeny. If object-orientedness is a fact of life systems, then we need to qualify it with respect to different species, but, in psychology, with respect to ontogenetic (person) development. If I had to bring a Spinozist approach to understand my daughter's development, I doubt I could even get started unless I had a notion that would have the relation between my daughter and her societal environment, characterised by "the curse of matter, of moving layers of air", as the starting point. I think here I side with Mikhailov (2006), who sees that: "the 'unit' of this capacity [the capacity for the subjective motivation of human actions] is not a special abstraction like the reciprocal transitions of real into ideal forms and vice versa, but the act of *communication*?the act of addressing others and addressing the self as an other within the self". So, yes, verbal *forms* may be secondary, but the fact of verbal communication I think is primary, and I think here Vygotsky was not on the wrong path, even if he made a wrong start. My second question to you concerns the following remark: "A living, active subject must interact with the object of his living vital activity that opposes him. Such interaction can theoretically be understood as life and/or thinking." I do agree with the phrase if the sense is that we do not need an S-R scheme, but rather a unit of self-reproducing life that has subject and object as its irreducible aspects. But then, I wonder how adequate you consider the notion of 'interaction', cause I am afraid it often leads to another dualism, that of the person on the one end, and the object of her actions on the other, and then the actions yet become a third one that mediates between the two... To get out of this, there are notions better than interaction, such as transaction, which has been mentioned in previous e-mails, including those by Roth. We discuss this idea in several works, that if the unit is self-moving, it is not inter-action (as the interaction between two things), but transactional, which Dewey and Bentley characterised as "the right to see together, extensionally and durationally, much that is talked about conventionally as if it were composed of irreconcilable separates". I am sure you aware of this distinction, but when we describe subjects interacting with their objects, there is the danger to fall back or be heard as if falling back into the dualism we are in fact overcoming. Thanks for this relevant discussion, Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alexander Surmava Sent: 24 September 2017 22:58 To: Ivan Uemlianin; EXtended Mind Culture Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ???: Re: ???: Re: ???: Re: Unit of Analysis The fourth post on the topic. Reply to IvanThe Russian translation of the discussion is duplicated here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/564569043580624/permalink/1447798525257667/ | Dear Sasha | Dear Ivan! | ??????? ????! | | | | | | Thank you for your bilingual text! And thank you for sparing me the "academic courtesy" :) | I will answer your comments with pleasure. And I'll start by asking you to clarify once again - what, at least slightly resembling Spinoza's central ideas, did you find in Vygotsky? | ? ????????????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?????????. ? ????? ????? ? ????, ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ? ???, ???? ?? ????????? ???????????? ??????????? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ? ??????????? | | Again I agree with most but not all of your email, and again the disagreement is where you touch on Vygotsky. | And let's agree that we will not consider simple verbal declarations of adherence to Spinozism. Not because we do not believe in their sincerity, but because science does not consist of naked intentions. Science has to produce at least some result, hasn't it? :-) | ? ????? ???????????, ??? ??????? ????????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ?????????? ?? ????????????? ?? ?????. ?? ??????, ??? ?? ????? ? ?? ???????????, ? ??????, ??? ????? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ?????????. ????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ?? ????????? ?????????. ?? ??? ??? :-) | | I don't think Vygotsky completed this project, perhaps he only started it off, to be continued by Leontiev, Ilyenkov and others. My defensive position is merely that he was not barking up the wrong tree. | The fact that Vygotsky did not finish his project is something absolutely indisputable. Therefore, we have to evaluate not a holistic, concrete theoretical system, which he simply did not have time to create, but his first, necessarily the most abstract steps. Essentially, it is necessary to evaluate the "germ cell" of his theory, of course, if it was found at all. At the same time, again, we will judge not by the declarations of Leontyev and Ilyenkov, but by the content of their theorizing. I know, of course, that Leontiev always insisted publicly that he and Vygotsky had a single theoretical approach, differing only in the level of abstractness and concreteness. But I am convinced that Leontiev's statements were motivated exclusively by political reasons. This is sad, but from the point of view of the "germ cell" one can not speak about Vygotsky's theory, in principle, for he could not distinguish this cell (he did not have enough time for that). Of course, I can make mistakes in this assessment, and you or someone else knows what should be considered as the "germ cell" of Vygotsky's theory. In this case, I will be glad to make it known and amend my position. If, of course, the theoretical analysis confirms that the proposed category is suitable for the role assigned to it. For Ilyenkov, the role of such a "germ cell" is played by an object-oriented action, it is also an "action copying the form of an object", it is also ?predmetnaya deyatelnost?. Leontiev was close to the same understanding of the "germ cell", exploring in detail the so-called "perceptual actions, plastically resembling the form of an object". As far as I know Vygotsky hadn?t nothing even remotely similar to the idea of activity understood in Spinozian way. Although the word "activity" he used often enough. But one thing is a WORD, and quite another is the concept behind it, an understanding of the essence of the matter. One thing is "word" and quite another "concept." It must be admitted, however, that both Ilyenkov and Leontiev also did not go very far from the original "germ cell" to the concrete theory. Their concepts are also filled with unresolved contradictions. But I stress, from their position with all their contradictions, there is a way forward, not to a dead end. An analysis of the contradictions between Leontiev and Ilyenkov, I am ready to discuss in further reports. | ??, ??? ????????? ?? ???????? ???? ?????? - ????? ?????????? ??????????. ?????? ????????? ??? ?????????? ?? ?????????, ?????????? ????????????? ???????, ??????? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ???????, ? ?? ??????, ?????????? ????? ??????????? ????. ??-???????? ????????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????? ??????? ??????, ???????, ???? ??? ?????? ???? ???????. (???? ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ?????, ??, ??? ?? ????????, ?? ?????? ?? ???????? ????? ? ?????????.) ?? ????, ??? ????????? ?????????? ????????????? ? ???????? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ?????? ? ???, ???????? ?? ?????? ?????????-????????? ?????????? ???????????? ? ????????? ??? ??????, ??? ??? ???????? ?? ????????????? ??????????. ??? ???? ?????-????, ????? ?????? ?? ?? ??????????? ????????? ? ?????????, ? ?? ?????????? ?? ????????????????. ???, ??????????, ????????, ??? ???????? ???????? ?????? ????????? ?? ???, ??? ? ??? ? ????????? ??? ?????? ????????????? ??????, ????????????? ?????? ??????? ?????????????-????????????. ?? ? ???????, ??? ??? ????????? ????????? ?????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ?????????. ? ???????, ??? ??? ?? ????????, ?? ? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????? ? ?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????? ? ????????, ??? ???????? ??? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ???? (?? ?????). ???????, ? ?? ????????, ??? ???? ?????????, ? ??? ???? ??? ????-?? ??? ???????? ? ??? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???????????? ?????????? ?????? ??????????. ? ????? ??????, ???? ??? ?????? ???????? ? ???? ???????. ???? ???????, ????????????? ?????? ??????????, ??? ?????? ????????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ?? ????. ??? ????????? ????? ????????? ???????? ? ??????????-?????????? ????????, ??? ?? ????????? ?? ????? ?????????, ??? ?? ?????????? ????????????. ???????? ?????? ? ?????? ?? ????????? ????????, ?????????? ???????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ????????????? ????????, ??????????? ?????????????? ????? ?????????. ? ??????????, ????????? ??? ???????? ??? ?????? ???? ????????? ???????? ?? ??? ?????????? ????????????. ???? ????? ?????????????? ??? ???????????? ??, ??????????, ??????????? ?????????? ?????. ?? ???? ???? ?????, ? ?????? ?????? ? ??????? ?? ??? ???????, ????????? ???????? ????. ???? ???? ??????? ? ?????? ?????? ?????????. ????, ???????, ????????, ??? ? ????????, ? ???????? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ???????????? ?? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????. ?? ????????? ???? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????????????. ?? ?? ?? ????????????, ??? ??????? ???????? ???? ???? ??????. ?????? ???????????? ????????? ? ????????? ? ????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??????????. | | As I've said, I think his treatment of the child's socialisation is fully Spinozan and materialist. e.g., the way the activity of the social environment is transmitted to the child. Surely word meaning is treated here (e.g. in Thinking and Speech) as a reflection of activity. | If we are trying to understand how the child's psyche (activity) arises and develops, we must consider his/her own object oriented activity, rather than the activity of the "social environment". For from the point of view, from the position of the child, all this stuff is not an activity at all, because that is not HIS/HERE activity, but some external circumstances, external stimuli. The child himself in such a scheme is regarded as something totally passive. But a child can not be alive and at the same time not active, because object-oriented activity is life. Therefore, the child's actual development always depends not on external, even if not physical, but social impacts on him, but on the activity of the child himself. Meanwhile, about the activity of the child himself, about an "action copying the form of an object", Vygotsky did not say a single word. Where and in what do you see Spinozism here? At the same time, how did you see the reflection of activity in the child's learning of the meanings of words? What real activity leads the child's thinking from concept-heap to concept-complex and from concept-complex to scientific concept? And where does Vygotsky have said at least a single word on this subject? Moreover, Vygotsky's proposed scheme for the development of the concept is anything, only not the real logic of growth and development of concepts, development of understanding. However, this topic should not be dealt with between the case, because it is too serious. Therefore, we will return to it a little later. | ???? ?? ???????? ?????? ??? ????????? ? ??????????? ??????? (????????????) ???????, ?? ?????? ????????????? ??? ??????????? ?????????? ????????????, ? ?? ???????????? ???????????? ??????????, ??? ??????????? ??????. ??? ? ????? ??????, ? ??????? ???????, ??? ??? ?? ????????????, ?? ??? ????????????, ?? ????? ??????? ??????????????, ??????? ???????. ??? ?? ??????? ? ????? ????? ??????????????? ??? ????? ?????????. ?? ????????? ????????? ???????, ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?????, ? ?????? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????????????? ?????-?? ??????? ?? ??? ????????, ??? ?? ?????? ??????? ? ????? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ???????????, ? ?? ???????????? ?????? ???????. ????? ???, ? ???????????? ?????? ???????, ??? ???????? ???????? ?? ????? ????????, ? ?????????? ?? ??????? ?? ??????? ?????. ??? ? ? ??? ????? ?? ???????????? ?????????? ??????, ????? ??????? ?? ????????? ????????? ???????????? ? ???????? ???????? ???????? ????? ????? ???????????? ????????? ???????? ??????? ?? ???????-???? ? ???????-????????? ? ?? ???????-????????? ? ???????? ???????? ? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ? ??????????? ??? ?????, ??? ???? ?????? ??? ????????? ????? ???????? ???????, ???????????? ?????????, ???????? ??? ??????, ?????? ?? ???????? ??????? ????? ? ???????? ?????? ???????, ???????? ?????????. ???????, ? ???? ????, ?? ??????? ???????? ??????, ??? ??? ??????? ????????. ? ??????, ?? ???????? ? ??? ??????? ???????. | | The activity of the social environment (including its verbal behaviour) is adopted by the child. | If "the activity of the social environment" (including its verbal behavior)"is only perceived by the child, then, as we said above, there is no activity of the child at all, and there is activity of someone else, which means that the child does not develop in this situation. Similarly, the student does not develops while the teacher is generating a flood of activities if the student himself is asleep, or directs his activity at an exciting game on his smartphone. Once again, what does Spinoza and Spinozism have to do with it? | ???? ????????????? ?????????? ?????? (??????? ?? ?????????? ??????????) ????? ???? ?????????????? ????????, ??, ??? ?? ??? ??????? ????, ????? ??? ???????????? ???????, ? ???? ???????????? ????-?? ???????, ? ?????? ??????? ? ????? ???????? ?? ???????????, ??? ?? ??????????? ??????, ? ?? ????? ??? ??????? is generating a flood of activities ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ?????????? ???? ???????????? ?? ????????????? ???? ?? ????? ?????????. ??? ???, ??? ??? ??? ??????? ? ?????????? | | Vygotsky was an experimental psychologist and his experiments, and his critique of Piaget's & others' experiments, aim to show the practical ways that word meaning is created and transmitted. | An experiment without theory is blind and deaf to any facts. So the criticism of the psychologist-experimenter is no different from criticism of the scientist-theorist. And with his theory of the development of meanings of words that he identified with the development of thinking as such, Vygotsky came to a complete standstill. Below we will show this by analysing the results of the "Uzbek" experiment and analysis of the so-called methodology of Vygotsky-Sakharov. | ??????????? ??? ?????? ???? ? ???? ? ????? ??????. ??????? ??????? ?????????-???????????????? ????? ?? ?????????? ?? ??????? ???????-?????????. ? ?? ????? ??????? ???????? ???????? ????, ??????? ?? ??????????? ? ????????? ???????? ??? ????????, ????????? ????? ? ?????? ?????. ???? ?? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ??????????? ???????????? ???????????? ? ??????? ??? ?????????? ???????? ??????????-????????. | | The problem of the Ideal --- how Thinking and Extension relate --- is there in Spinoza. For all his undoubted Monism and materialism this problem is smudged over in his definition of the Attributes in E1d4: | Ivan, with all due respect I can not agree with your conclusion that the problem of the relation of ?Thinking? to ?Extention? is identical with the problem of the nature of Ideal or the problem of the nature of Mind. And even more I can?t agree with your paradoxical statement that with ?undoubted monism and materialism?, one can preserve some kind of ambiguous or blurred attitude to this problem. Spinoza (and Ilyenkov) had a particular though a crystal clear and unambiguous view at this matter - the concept of the Ideal (the concept of Mind) is not synonymous with the Cartesian disembodied-thinking substance, not a synonym for the Lockean and positivistic "mental" plan. The Cartesian psychophysical problem has no solution in principle, for it is completely false. ?Thinking? and ?Extension? do not interact in any way, for they do not exist in the Nature as such. There is simply no senseless extension. At least from the moment when the Nature with the necessity inherent in its nature generates living beings. In the Nature, there is no incorporeal thinking and can not be NEVER. A living, active subject must interact with the object of his living vital activity that opposes him. Such interaction can theoretically be understood as life and/or thinking. The ideal is either a living form of such a living movement (in accordance with the form of an object) or the same form of movement, but frozen in the form of the natural instrument, the organic body of living beings, or the cultural instrument of this activity, primarily tools of labor. So the form, nature of the wood is represented either in the form of a live movement of an experienced woodcutter or carpenter, or in the form of their tools - an ax, a cleaver, a plane, etc. And only secondarily the activity crystallizes in the form of verbal signs denoting certain properties of wood. However, I must stop here, for I understand that all that is said here can hardly be understood, outside the context of a more thorough discussion of the nature of the category of ideality and its understanding in the logic of Marx. To stop in order to return to the topic later and more fundamentally. | ????, ??? ???? ???????, ?? ???? ??????????? ? ????? ??????? ? ???, ??? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ? ??????????????? ???????????? ???????? ??????? ??????????, ???????? ??????? ????????. ? ??? ????? ? ????? ?????????????? ????????????, ??? ??? ??????????? ??????? ? ????????????, ????? ????????? ????? ????????????? ??? ????????? ????????? ? ???? ????????. ??????? (? ????????) ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????????? ?????? ? ??????????????? ??????? ? ??????? ?????????? (??????? ????????) ?? ??????? ????????????? ??????????-???????? ??????????, ?? ??????? ??????????? ? ??????????????? ????????????? ?????. ????????????? ??????????????? ???????? ?? ????? ??????? ? ????????, ??? ?????????? ????? ??????????. ???????? ? ????????????? ?? ??????????????? ?????, ??? ?? ?????????? ? ??????? ??? ???????. ????????????? ????????????? ? ???? ?????? ???. ?? ??????? ???? ??????? ? ???? ???????, ????? ??????? ? ??????????????, ?????????? ? ?? ???????, ????????? ????? ???????. ???????????? ?? ???????? ? ??????? ??? ? ???? ?? ????? ???????. ??????????????? ??, ?????? ??????????, ?????, ?????????? ??????? ? ?????????????? ??? ????????? ??? ?????????????????. ????? ?????????????? ???? ? ?????, ? ????????. ????????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???????? (?? ????? ????????), ???? ??? ?? ?????, ????????? ? ????? ????????????? ??????, ????????????? ???? ????? ???????, ???? ??????????? ?????? ???? ????????????, ?????? ????? ? ?????? ?????. ??? ?????, ??????? ????????? ???????????? ???? ? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ????????? ??? ????????, ???? ? ????? ?? ?????? ? ??????, ??????, ??????? ? ?.?. ? ?????? ???????? ? ???? ????????? ??????, ???????????? ?? ??? ???? ???????? ?????????. ???????, ? ????? ? ???????? ????????????, ??? ???????, ??? ??? ????????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ???? ??????, ??? ????????? ????? ?????????????? ????????? ? ??????? ????????? ??????????? ? ?? ????????? ? ?????? ??????. ???????????? ??? ????, ????? ????????? ? ???? ??????? ? ????? ??????????????. | | SPINOZA: E1 d4: By attribute, I mean that which *the intellect* perceives as constituting the essence of substance. | Spinoz's definition of the "attribute" is absolutely accurate and transparent, although it was expressed in a specific language of the XVII century. The opposition of Thinking and Extantion as two attributes of the Substance in the language of Marx, are identical to the opposition of the ideal and the material. Both the ideal and the material are not something independent from each other, but are positing each other definitions of world matter and its movement, Nature as a whole, the material Universe. | ???????????? ????????? ?????????? ????????? ????? ? ?????????, ???? ? ???????? ?? ????????????? ????? XVII ????. ????????????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ??? ???? ????????? ?????????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????, ?? ????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????????? ?????????? ? ?????????????. ? ?????????, ? ???????????? ?? ??????????? ???? ?? ????? ????????, ?? ?????????? ???? ????? ??????????? ??????? ???????, ?? ????????, ??????? ? ?????, ???????????? ?????????. | | Which intellect? | You are asking whose intellect Spinoza means in his definition of "attribute"? I think that the intellect of coming to a knowledge, active subject. | ?? ??????????? ? ???? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ? ????? ????????? ??????????? ?????, ??? ?? ?????????? ??????????, ??????????? ????????. | | Vygotksy's psychology might have shown the way forward for a psychology (& even a philosophy of mind) that does without Thinking (in Spinoza's sense, of a distinct Attribute of Substance) altogether, and has only Extension and "imaginatio" (as in E2 p17). | To follow your advice and try to do without Mind or Thinking (in the Spinozian sense, as a special attribute of The Substance) would mean, in Spinoza's style, to think of Nature or God in an imperfect way, as something lifeless and meaningless. Such a path in philosophy is not something new. This is the path of vulgar materialism of Lametrie and Kabanis, and from more modern characters - the path of Pavlov, behaviorists, adepts of "Cognitive science", etc. However, it is impossible to be a consistent vulgar materialist, not allowing in your system a fraction of no less vulgar idealism. At the same Pavlov vulgar idealism is presented in the form of "reflexes of the goal," "reflexes of freedom." In your discourse, vulgar idealism is seen - in the proposal to replace the theoretically clear Spinoza-defined thinking as an attribute of the substance to its own, but much less clearly theoretically articulated concept of ?imagination?. | ??????????? ?????? ?????? ? ?????????? ???????? ??? ???????? (? ???????????? ??????, ??? ??????? ???????? ??????????) ??????? ??, ?????? ? ????? ???????, ??????? ??????? ??? ???? ????????????? ???????, ??? ????? ???????????? ? ?????????????. ????? ???? ? ????????? ?? ???. ??? ???? ??????????? ???????????? ???????, ????????, ? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????? ? ???? ???????, ?????????????, ??????? ?Cognitive science? ? ??. ???????, ?????????? ???? ???????????????? ?????????? ?????????????, ?? ???????? ? ???? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????. ? ???? ?? ??????? ?????????? ???????? ???????????? ? ???? ?????????? ?????, ?????????? ????????. ? ????? ??????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????????????? ? ? ??????????? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ???????????? ???????? ???????? ??? ???????? ?????????? ?? ??? ??, ?? ???? ????? ????? ???????????? ???????????????? ??????? ??????????? - "imaginatio". | | Best wishes | All the best | ????? ?????? ???????, | | Ivan | Sasha | ???? | ?????? ? ????????? | Security Check Required | | From modesofpractice@gmail.com Mon Sep 25 06:12:23 2017 From: modesofpractice@gmail.com (David Dirlam) Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:12:23 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading In-Reply-To: References: <745a9332-7830-6d67-d3f1-d2d729d82706@mira.net> <91FF1B86-1F6F-40EC-9D89-DDEA5ABA198A@uniandes.edu.co> <27339eb1-dd83-4d24-1cde-668cd344fea4@mira.net> <2DB36616-7D51-4B7E-B4FA-38ADB8EA5A08@gmail.com> <0e46e2fb-b74e-f89f-a1a4-537bc3954276@mira.net> <1503218308054.50723@iped.uio.no> <1503222253604.91908@iped.uio.no> <6965a45b-5e09-9214-550e-5179360dfbcf@mira.net> <1503224179002.4159@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I'm still catching up, but like I used to remind my developmental students when they felt they missed an opportunity in one of their interesting conversations with kids,"You can always reinstate the context. They will remember the conversation and sometimes the delay creates opportunities that weren't there before." The Wertsch article that Mike sent creates a new opportunity in the context of simulations, like the "giant component" simulation that I sent yesterday. I see such simulations as models (or tools) that help us remember aspects of our complex topics that are too easily forgotten. Wertsch's argument that xmca writer's now rarely forget is to keep the social-cultural-historical context in mind when talking about human activity. For example, words without such context, cannot really be understood. The giant component simulation (especially with the added parameters I mentioned) shows how past coincidences accumulate into units. But this should not be construed as reductionism. The giant component is by no means equivalent to the sum of the dots. It would not exist without the relationships between them. Nonlinear dynamics provides a different model with different contexts from network theory. Adrian Bejan has developed many examples of how it connects to various social and psychological phenomena, which he summarizes in what he calls "the constructal law" (in my opinion, "constructal model" would be more descriptive and less misleading). His ideas help to see how such models might be useful in discussing social-cultural-historical phenomena. Of special interest in this discussion is the reminders that fluid dynamics can have for our discussion about units. The August 25 issue of Science has a fascinating article by a group of Spanish physicists (Cardesa, Vela-Martin, and Jimenez) on "The turbulent cascade in five dimensions." Their work greatly transcends Bejan's in precision but also does not consider his breadth of applications. They began with a rhyming verse from L.F. Richardson's work on weather prediction "Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity, and little whirls have lesser whirls and so on to viscosity." This means that to understand the phenomena we need not just the three dimensions of space and another of time, but also a dimension of scale. They then examined the extent to witch energy was transferred across scales. Their fascinating result was that there was energy transfer only between adjacent scales. This resulted in an energy cascade (a hurricane transfers energy to an embedded tornado but not to the eddies within the tornado). If we use the model to suggest ideas about units of typing activity, it suggests a very testable hypothesis that letter coincidences influence word typing, but do not add anything to phrase typing beyond the effects of word typing. The value to our discussion using simulations to understand tool mediated actions is that such models bolster the argument that we need multiple levels (scales) of units. In short, the how can we study the formation of larger units and any types of transfer between them if we do not consider multiple scales? David Dirlam On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 2:48 PM, mike cole wrote: > This is a question for Jim Wertsch, Alfredo: > > So, what was that something for which Vygotsky or his Western readers were > developing 'tool mediated action' as unit? > > Here is a copy of an early MCA article on the topic, but Jim's book on Mind > as Action or his later writing with V.P. Zinchenko ought to be sources for > seeing how the issue of units is dealt with there. > > http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Journal/pdfs/01-4-wertsch.pdf > > mike > > On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 3:16 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Yes, I guess, they are different concepts. But, in a way, the two are > > being mobilised here to do a similar job, namely to establish a field of > > inquiry and its methodology. As you've written somewhere else, for a unit > > to be such it has to be a unit of something, right? So, what was that > > something for which Vygotsky or his Western readers were developing 'tool > > mediated action' as unit? And, was there a unit Vygotsky was envisioning > to > > account for the semantics of action? > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of Andy Blunden > > Sent: 20 August 2017 12:03 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading > > > > Nicely put, Alfredo. But "key" then is quite a different > > concept from "germ cell" or "unit of analysis", isn't it? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > http://home.mira.net/~andy > > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making > > > > On 20/08/2017 7:44 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > > > In my e-mail, 'key' was loosely used as 'central aspect'; but if you > > push me a bit, I could also entertain the idea of 'key' as in 'the > anatomy > > of man is the key to the anatomy of ape' (the anatomy of the meaning of > the > > situation, or semantic field, is the key to the anatomy of human tool > use, > > if you will). > > > > > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > Sent: 20 August 2017 10:38 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; ablunden@mira.net > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading > > > > > > Was not the early Vygotsky already arguing that, in ontogenesis (not > > phylogenesis) 'properly human forms of using tools' emerge only 'as > speech > > and the use of symbolic signs are included' (From 'Tool and Sign ...')? > Are > > not these then not just 'two distinct forms of activity', abut also two > > developmentally different strata (for a lack of a better word)? > > > > > > In the late Vygotsky, we find the argument of a 'transition from the > > dynamics of thought to the dynamics of action, and back', where the sign > no > > longer is the key, but 'the meaning of the situation' is. Considering > > this,a good deal of exegesis seems to be needed before one can attribute > > 'tool mediated action' as a unit implicit in Vygotsky's legacy, does not > it? > > > > > > David, would your assessment of word meaning be the same if word > meaning > > would stand for the 'interpersonal meanings' that you suggest it does not > > contain? For, if we were to follow Vygotsky's own remarks that > > psychological functions are relations between people first, could it make > > sense to pursue 'word meaning' as actual speech, which always is a > concrete > > and real relation between people? > > > > > > Also, I wonder how Perezhivanie would fare your (or Vygotsky's own) > test. > > > > > > Lots of wondering here! > > > > > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > on behalf of Andy Blunden > > > Sent: 20 August 2017 07:23 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading > > > > > > "Artefact Mediated Action" was a product of the exegesis of > > > Vygotsky especially in the West; people came to the > > > conclusion that it was implicit in Vygotsky's work. But it > > > was also recognised and incorporated by A N Leontyev in his > > > work - indeed, Leontyev's Activity Theory makes no sense > > > without the artefact-mediated action as a unit of analysis. > > > But I don't think Vygotsky never said as much, did he? He > > > was more concerned to counter the tendency to subsume speech > > > as a subtype of artefact-mediated action, and keeping > > > tool-mediated actions and sign-mediated actions > > > qualitatively distinct forms of activity. But his analysis > > > of Sakharov's experiments takes as given that a concept is a > > > system of artefact-mediated actions. > > > > > > Do you see a problem here, Helena? > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > http://home.mira.net/~andy > > > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making > > > > > > On 20/08/2017 2:27 PM, Helena Worthen wrote: > > >> So "mediated action" works as a unit of analysis? > > >> > > >> Thanks -- H > > >> > > >> Helena Worthen > > >> helenaworthen@gmail.com > > >> Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com > > >> > > >> On Aug 20, 2017, at 4:01 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > > >> > > >>> I would like to propose the following tests for a unit of analysis. > > They > > >>> are all based on things Vygotsky wrote in the pedology.The examples, > > from > > >>> biology, political economy, and music, are my own. > > >>> > > >>> a) It must be maximally simple. That is, it must be small enough to > be > > >>> manageable in experiments, clinical settings, and observable using > > >>> "objectivizing" methods of research such as the functional method of > > dual > > >>> stimulation or the Zoped. For example, cells can be managed in a > petri > > >>> dish, drawn from patients during examinations, and their genesis may > be > > >>> provoked and observed with a microscope: the commodity can be > > abstracted > > >>> from an exchange for analysis, observed as it arises in production > and > > >>> exchange, and elicited through barter and markets. The four note > > "theme" of > > >>> that opens Beethoven's fifth symphony is simple enough to play on a > > timpani > > >>> as well as a piano. > > >>> > > >>> b) It must be minimally complex. That is, it must contain functioning > > >>> analogues of all the properties which are the object of > investigation. > > For > > >>> example, cells have functioning analogues for metabolism, > > reproduction, and > > >>> equilibrium with the environment.Commodities contain, in a coded, > > >>> potential, or "embryonic" form, all the social relations of labor and > > >>> capital we find in a mature capitalist economy. Beethoven's "theme" > is > > >>> complex enough to describe the structure of the symphony as a whole, > > and to > > >>> form its coda. > > >>> > > >>> c) These analogues cannot be simple, miniaturized "recapitulations" > of > > the > > >>> properties which are the object of investigation. The mechanisms of > > cell > > >>> metabolism, reproduction, homeostasis are not the same as the > > metabolism of > > >>> the human organism. A commodity cannot produce or exchange or invest > > >>> itself; it does not contain productive labour or finance capital in > > >>> anything but a coded form; these must be unfolded through the > > historical > > >>> process and that historical process is not infallibly predictable. > > >>> Beethoven's "theme" did not create its variations and permutations: > > >>> Beethoven did. > > >>> > > >>> Applying these tests to the units that Andy proposes (with one > > exception, > > >>> number three below, they are also based on Vygotsky!) we find: > > >>> > > >>> 1. Word meaning is maximally simple but not minimally complex. It > > doesn't > > >>> contain analogues of interpersonal meanings, e.g. questions, > commands, > > >>> statements, requests. It doesn?t contain analogues of textual > meanings, > > >>> e.g. hypotaxis and parataxis, Theme and Rheme, Given and New > > information. > > >>> > > >>> 2. The social situation of development is minimally complex but not > > >>> maximally simple: it does construe the ensemble of relations between > > the > > >>> child and the environment at a given age stage, including the whole > of > > >>> actual and potential language, but these cannot be managed in an > > >>> experimental or clinical setting, or elicited in complete form using > > the > > >>> functional method of dual stimulation or the Zoped. > > >>> > > >>> 3. Mediated actions are maximally simple and minimally complex, but > > not, as > > >>> far as I can see, structurally, functionally or genetically different > > from > > >>> the phenomena of activity they purport to explain. > > >>> > > >>> David Kellogg > > >>> Macquarie University > > >>> > > >>> Recent Article: Vygotsky, Halliday, and Hasan: Towards Conceptual > > >>> Complementarity > > >>> > > >>> Free E-print Downloadable at: > > >>> > > >>> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W7EDsmNSEwnpIKFRG8Up/full > > >>> > > >>> On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 10:37 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> Word meanings for the study of (verbal) intellect > > >>>> Artefact-mediated actions for the more general study of the > > development of > > >>>> activity > > >>>> Perezhivaniya for the study of personality development > > >>>> (Defect-Compensation) for the study of disability or whatever > > >>>> Social Situations of Development for the study of child development > > >>>> > > >>>> See page 9 on https://www.academia.edu/11387923/ > > >>>> > > >>>> Andy > > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>>> Andy Blunden > > >>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy > > >>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective- > decision-making > > >>>> On 19/08/2017 10:47 PM, Martin John Packer wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>>> What are the five, Andy? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Martin > > >>>>> > > >>>>> On Aug 18, 2017, at 9:07 PM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > >>>>>> Amazon have it for $38.21: https://www.amazon.com/Vygotsk > > >>>>>> y-Marx-Toward-Marxist-Psychology/dp/1138244813 which is not too > > bad. > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> My chapter is available at https://www.academia.edu/11387923/ but > > so > > >>>>>> far as I can see other authors have not posted theirs on > > academia.edu - > > >>>>>> maybe elsewhere? > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> Thank you, Alfredo, for highlighting how I have pointed to 5 > > different > > >>>>>> domains in which Vygotsky demonstrated the "method of analysis by > > units." > > >>>>>> To me, it seems useless to identify a writer's methodological > > innovations > > >>>>>> unless you can transport that methodology to a different context, > > and > > >>>>>> pointing to five applications by Vygotsky himself seemed a good > way > > of > > >>>>>> showing how portable the method is. More recently, I used this > > method in an > > >>>>>> approach to political science, taking a group of people in the > room > > trying > > >>>>>> to decide on what they are going to do together as a unit of > > analysis. > > >>>>>> Personally, I think this method has proved very fruitful and > > original. How > > >>>>>> lucky we are to be inheritors of Vygotsky's brilliant insights, > > still > > >>>>>> generally so unknown to the general scientific audience. What a > > gift LSV > > >>>>>> has given us! > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> But legacies are always problematic. Alfredo, I think you would > be a > > >>>>>> very good candidate to review this book. Beth? > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> Andy > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > > >>>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy > > >>>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective- > > decision-making > > >>>>>> On 18/08/2017 10:16 PM, mike cole wrote: > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Peter, Alfredo Et al - > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> It seems that the readers of MCA would appreciate a good overview > > >>>>>>> review of > > >>>>>>> the LSV and Marx book, but so far as I know, no one has proposed > > the > > >>>>>>> idea > > >>>>>>> to Beth, the book review editor. (You seem to have a jump on the > > task, > > >>>>>>> Alfredo!). > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Also, given the cost of the book, it would be nice if authors > could > > >>>>>>> follow > > >>>>>>> Andy's lead and make a draft available. Andy's article on units > of > > >>>>>>> analysis > > >>>>>>> is on Academia, a click away. That way the many readers of XMCA > > around > > >>>>>>> the > > >>>>>>> world would not be excluded from the discussion. > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Mike > > >>>>>>> Happy travels summer readers. :-) > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>> > > >> > > > > > > > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Sep 25 14:48:03 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:48:03 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hegel's Headstand In-Reply-To: <4a76c063-90f7-24bc-1e47-e405203abbfc@mira.net> References: <4a76c063-90f7-24bc-1e47-e405203abbfc@mira.net> Message-ID: In any case, it's not in Philosophy of Right, although there Hegel does write about the French Revolution at some length and with considerable asperity. Gramsci is essentially a linguist and not a sociologist. That explains his sensitivity to "bookish" modes of expression as opposed to conversational registers in Hegel. Anyway, we can see from this little example from Chapter Two of Thinking and Speech just what Vygotsky meant by "mastering the whole of Marx's method" and "writing psychology's Capital" rather than simply stitching quotes together. In the pedology (end of Early Childhood, and also the passage on the omnirelevance of speech at the end of Crisis at One), Vygotsky refers to Marx with a certain apophasis, to say that he could cite Marx here--but it would be out of context and people might assume that it is sufficient proof of what he wants to say about speech--still, it would show the penetrating quality of Marx's method. That's what he's doing in Chapter Two: citing Marx by not citing him. Gramsci does a lot of that too. David Kellogg On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:11 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > While it is possible that Hegel said that, I don't know where and I > haven't heard that before. I must have missed it in Gramsci. > > Marx was about 11 when Hegel died, so he never heard Hegel speak > personally, but he was immersed in a milieu of Left Hegelians in a Germany > in love with Hegel until 1841, when Marx was about 22. So he certainly has > a "conversational" familiarity with Hegel! > > andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 25/09/2017 6:01 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > Andy: > > Gramsci has this, on p. 232 of the Complete Prison Notebooks, Vol.1, New > York: Columbia University Press, 1975. > > ?In studying Marx?s Hegelianism one should remember (especially given > Marx?s eminently practical-critical character) that Marx participated in > German university life very shortly after Hegel?s death, when there must > still have been a most vivid memory of Hegel?s ?oral? teachings and of the > passionate discussions about concrete history which these teaching > generated?that is, discussions in which the historical concreteness of > Hegel?s though must have stood out much more clearly that it does in his > systematic writings. Some of Marx?s assertions, it seems to me, should be > considered in special relation to this ?conversational? vivacity: for > instance, the statement that Hegel ?has men walking on their heads?. Hegel > really does use this image when dealing with the French Revolution; he > writes that at a certain time during the French Revolution (when the new > state structure was organized) ?it seemed? that the world was walking on > its head or something of the sort (c.f.). I think that Croce asks (search > the reference) from where Marx derived this image; it certainly is in one > of Hegel?s books (perhaps the Philosophy of Right, I don?t remember). > However, it seems to me that, given the persistence with which Marx returns > to it (I think that Marx repeats the image; check), it seems to me that at > a certain time it was a topic of conversationi: it really seems to have > sprung out of conversation, fresh, spontaneous, so little ?bookish??. > The editor of the book remarks that Gramsci seems to have in mind the > ?Postface? to the second edition of Capital. However, this is simply the > Marx, not the Hegel: it?s the passage Lenin (and Vygotsky) referred to ?Sie > steht bei ihm auf dem Kopf. Man muss sie umst?lpen, um den rationellen > Kern in der mystischen H?lle zu entdecken.? While reading this over, I > realized that Vygotsky, in Chapter Two of Thinking and Speech where he > cites this passage in Lenin, cites it for good reason. The whole chapter is > essentially doing to Piaget what Marx did to Hegel. Vygotsky, more than > anyone alive at that time, understood Piaget's extraordinary contribution, > and what Marx says of Hegel could easily have been said by Vygotsky of > Piaget: "Die Mystifikation, welche die Dialektik in Hegels H?nden > erleidet, verhindert in keiner Weise, dass er ihre allegeminen > Bewegungsformen zuerst in umfassander und bewusster Weise dargestellt hat." > Having admitted that Piaget was the first to present the child's thinking > in its general form of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner, > Vygotsky then goes on to stand Piaget on his head, by inverting > "autism-->egocentrism-->social speech" to "social speech-->egocentric > speech-->inner speech". > David Kellogg > > > From ewall@umich.edu Mon Sep 25 15:48:40 2017 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 17:48:40 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Konstantinov's innovative math program In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9B91AF53-B839-469F-9F7D-BD3628AEC4BF@umich.edu> Thanks Ana (and Eugene(. Looks interesting. Ed Wall > On Sep 23, 2017, at 2:16 PM, Ana Marjanovic-Shane wrote: > > Dear all, > > Eugene Matusov published a new monograph "Nikolai N. Konstantinov?s > Authorial Math Pedagogy for People with Wings" in The Journal of Russian > and Eastern European Psychology (JREEP), Edited by Pentti Hakkarainen. -- > see the attachment. > > This is a story of a unique approach to teaching math, where authorship of > the student and her/his agency are in the central focus, and math becomes > an exciting and challenging adventure for all involved. > > Congratulations! > > Ana > > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Eugene Matusov > Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 2:02 PM > Subject: Konstantinov's innovative math program > To: Jenifer Hummer , Joseph DiNapoli , > Robert Mixell , Amanda Jansen , Ana > Marjanovic-Shane , Anne Morris , > Leda Echevers , , Mark Smith < > mpsmith@udel.edu>, , Alexander Poddiakov < > apoddiakov@gmail.com>, Mike Cole , Mike Cole < > mcole@ucsd.edu> > > > Dear Ana, Mark, Sasha, Laura, Jenifer, Tony, Joe, Anne, Siobahn, Amanda, > Mike, and Leda? > > > > Thanks A LOT for your help and support of the project! Attached please find > the special issue of the Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology > where the project has been just published. > > > > Eugeen > > > > ---------------------------- > > Eugene Matusov, PhD > > Editor-in-Chief, Dialogic Pedagogy Journal > > Professor of Education > > School of Education > > 16 W Main st > > University of Delaware > > Newark, DE 19716, USA > > > > Publications: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/publications.htm > > DiaPed: http://diaped.soe.udel.edu > > DPJ Facebook: > https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dialogic-Pedagogy-Journal/581685735176063 > > ---------------------------- > > > -- > *Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Ph.D.* > Chestnut Hill College, Associate Professor of Education > Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, deputy Editor-in-Chief (dpj.pitt.edu) > e-mails: shaneam@chc.edu > anamshane@gmail.com > Phone: +1 267-334-2905 > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 26 11:16:33 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:16:33 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] All Stars and Beyond Message-ID: I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All Starts program is to begin. But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we could start? I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is staggering. Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of teenagers/young adults. The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing seemed like a way to address Delpit-style critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about the processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to think about how newness comes into the world. I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the cases that Yrjo talked about. mike From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 26 12:17:22 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:17:22 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1506453446071.76059@iped.uio.no> Well, the conversation is clearly going on! Carrie will join as soon as she has the chance, I trust. Meanwhile, her article is going open access online from now and for the next two months, but I share the PDF here again in case newcomers don't find it in this thread. Mike, I am not sure now how the present case compares (will give it a thought too), but I was thinking that your comment, 'the sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work', sounds really hopeful to me. For these are activities of social change, and I would really be happy and proud if it is not only that we do go and try to investigate such settings, but that the spread of CHAT-related frameworks and worldviews may also be contributing to those settings becoming more and more common. Still, far from the mainstream, I am afraid... Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 26 September 2017 20:16 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] All Stars and Beyond I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All Starts program is to begin. But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we could start? I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is staggering. Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of teenagers/young adults. The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing seemed like a way to address Delpit-style critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about the processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to think about how newness comes into the world. I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the cases that Yrjo talked about. mike From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Sep 26 12:17:51 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:17:51 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: <1506453446071.76059@iped.uio.no> References: , <1506453446071.76059@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <1506453474602.88093@iped.uio.no> the article ________________________________________ From: Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 26 September 2017 21:17 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] All Stars and Beyond Well, the conversation is clearly going on! Carrie will join as soon as she has the chance, I trust. Meanwhile, her article is going open access online from now and for the next two months, but I share the PDF here again in case newcomers don't find it in this thread. Mike, I am not sure now how the present case compares (will give it a thought too), but I was thinking that your comment, 'the sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work', sounds really hopeful to me. For these are activities of social change, and I would really be happy and proud if it is not only that we do go and try to investigate such settings, but that the spread of CHAT-related frameworks and worldviews may also be contributing to those settings becoming more and more common. Still, far from the mainstream, I am afraid... Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 26 September 2017 20:16 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] All Stars and Beyond I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All Starts program is to begin. But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we could start? I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is staggering. Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of teenagers/young adults. The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing seemed like a way to address Delpit-style critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about the processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to think about how newness comes into the world. I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the cases that Yrjo talked about. mike -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Lobman 2017 Performing on a Wider Stage Developing Inner City Youth Through Play and Performance.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1322695 bytes Desc: Lobman 2017 Performing on a Wider Stage Developing Inner City Youth Through Play and Performance.pdf Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170926/3946c51c/attachment-0001.pdf From dkellogg60@gmail.com Tue Sep 26 14:05:54 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 06:05:54 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that the greater or lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks a dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be translated into the language of another great culture that is, one great national language which is historically rich and complex can translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a dialect cannot do the same thing.? Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: International. pp. 59-60 Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects generally. A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people speak (more or less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English in America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to what Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the eighteenth century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of any language could not express everything that the language (the dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and it is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological rather than lexicogrammatical or semantic. There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are called registers (if you are a Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed about their variation is probably true: they can only translate certain meanings and not others. Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special code. Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because child development (and even national development) invariably involves learning new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has to be tackled in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) of the semantic code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids need the semantic code of bankers about as much as bankers need the code of black kids: like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers and their codes just need to be abolished. David Kellogg On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All > Starts program is to begin. > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we > could start? > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is staggering. > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of > activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR > address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 > million dollars in 2015 and involves > a lot of teenagers/young adults. > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing seemed > like a way to address Delpit-style > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined > future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about the > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to > think about how newness comes into the world. > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the > cases that Yrjo talked about. > > mike > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 26 15:56:34 2017 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 22:56:34 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Bronx March Against Privatization of NYCHA - October 7 at 11 am In-Reply-To: <1128942659848.1102100306453.46231.0.451646JL.1002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> References: <1128942659848.1102100306453.46231.0.451646JL.1002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Re Carrie's article Mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Dr. Lenora Fulani & the Committee for Independent Community Action (CICA) Date: Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 1:46 PM Subject: Bronx March Against Privatization of NYCHA - October 7 at 11 am To: We invite you to join us in fighting the privatization of NYCHA by marching with us on Saturday, October 7! MARCH WITH DR. LENORA FULANI and RONALD TOPPING ADAMS HOUSES TA PRESIDENT ________ BRONX MARCH TO STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF NYCHA Moves are underway by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to sell and lease buildings, parking lots and playgrounds in our housing projects to private real estate developers. This must stop now! The projects were built so that the poor could have decent places to live, and we must all stand up to protect the homes of the poor. Join me, Adams Houses Tenant Association President Ronald Topping and the Committee for Independent Community Action (CICA) to stop NYCHA from closing down the housing projects and displacing the poor. March in opposition to privatization on Saturday, October 7! Sincerely, Dr. Lenora Fulani "NYCHA residents, together with thosands of other New Yorkers, are marching to stand up and fight, and tell our elected officials that we will not be forced out of our homes by the privatization of public housing. The impact of facing displacement and homelessness is frightening to the 600,000 residents of NYCHA. New York City belongs to all people! And as New Yorkers, we all must challenge this inhuman attack on the poor and stop the destruction of public housing. It's up to us!" -- Dr. Lenora B. Fulani "As the President of Adams Houses' Tenants Association, I will not stand by while my neighbors in the Bronx are in danger of losing their homes due to the privatization of NYCHA. I call on you to join this protest march. Stand up with me and hundreds of other concerned New Yorkers, and help build this movement." -- Ronald Topping We invite you to join us in fighting the privatization of NYCHA by marching with us on Saturday, October 7!? RSVP Bronx March to Stop the Privatization of NYCHA LOCATION In front of Adams Houses, northeast corner of 152nd St & Tinton Ave, Bronx, NY DATE AND TIME 10/07/17 11:00am - 10/07/17 3:00pm Arrive at 11 am. Wear a red t-shirt and comfortable shoes. Bring a bottle of water. I'll be there! Maybe No Train Directions: #2 or #5 to Jackson Avenue Walk 3 blocks on 152nd St to Tinton Ave #6 to East 149th Street Walk 3 blocks on Prospect Ave to 152nd St Turn left, walk 2 blocks to Tinton Ave Bus Directions: >From Manhattan Bx19 Bronx Pk-bound Bus to 149/Wales Walk 1 block on 149th St to Tinton Ave Turn left, walk 3 blocks on Tinton to 152nd St >From Bronx Bx19 Riverbank Pk-bound Bus to 149/Tinton Walk 3 blocks on Tinton to 152nd St [image: Facebook] Committee for Independent Community Action (CICA) 212-941-9400 x429 Committee for Independent Community Action (CICA) | 543 West 42nd Street , New York, NY 10036 Unsubscribe lchcmike@gmail.com Update Profile | About our service provider Sent by edial@allstars.org in collaboration with [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] Try it free today From smago@uga.edu Tue Sep 19 03:17:35 2017 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 10:17:35 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: JoLLE Call for Submissions - Poetry, Fiction, & Visual Arts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Please consider submitting your own work to the expanded Poetry, Fiction, and Visual Arts feature of the Journal of Language and Literacy Eduction. Facebook link Twitter link From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Wed Sep 27 13:28:39 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 20:28:39 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> Hi all, I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile I copy her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can answer to "all" when responding to this. Hello XMCAers, First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much appreciated. I am excited to jump into this conversation and respond to what has already been said. I was originally thinking I would pose some questions I am interested in exploring, but some of them are already coming up. That said, I am also eager to talk about the young people's responses to the program that appear near the end of the article and their sense of themselves as performers. I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I have to say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first became aware of the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a decade after its founding. It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a thousand young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised less than $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have learned of the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it was founded off of a sense of optimism--although what has been built generates optimism in the people who visit it and hear about it. The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the devastation of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. The All Stars Talent Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was founded by community organizers who had been working with adults in the community to create a union of welfare recipients and were looking for something for their young people to do. It was founded in order to create something positive, prosocial, and creative that the young people could own. Fred Newman used to say that it had all the characteristics of a gang, but without the negativity. The All Stars was and is independent of the politically controlled social welfare agencies that existed across the city. As its grown its retained those characteristics. So while I think it has produced optimism, politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. I think it was a more actively political choice to build something that was not a protest move, but a creative one--relating to the people in the community, and later the business people, as builders and creators of activities that were not controlled or dominated by the existing institutions and their assumptions about who people are. I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human ability to move around and about newness. If that is the case then I think the All Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as tapping into that human ability to do that and creates environments where that is cheered, supported, and validated. While I actually do value the particular "languages" the youth and business people learn, what I think is more critical is that they learn that they can learn them. Carrie Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that the greater or lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks a dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be translated into the language of another great culture that is, one great national language which is historically rich and complex can translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a dialect cannot do the same thing.? Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: International. pp. 59-60 Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects generally. A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people speak (more or less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English in America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to what Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the eighteenth century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of any language could not express everything that the language (the dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and it is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological rather than lexicogrammatical or semantic. There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are called registers (if you are a Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed about their variation is probably true: they can only translate certain meanings and not others. Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special code. Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because child development (and even national development) invariably involves learning new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has to be tackled in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) of the semantic code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids need the semantic code of bankers about as much as bankers need the code of black kids: like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers and their codes just need to be abolished. David Kellogg On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All > Starts program is to begin. > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we > could start? > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is staggering. > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of > activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR > address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 > million dollars in 2015 and involves > a lot of teenagers/young adults. > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing seemed > like a way to address Delpit-style > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined > future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about the > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to > think about how newness comes into the world. > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the > cases that Yrjo talked about. > > mike > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Wed Sep 27 17:41:07 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:41:07 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> References: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: As we speak, there is a specific public performance with a highly concrete meaning spreading across the USA. It originated with a single black man, who refused to stand during the national anthem as long as the country singing it refused to enforce the laws against murder against white policemen who take black lives with impunity. That man, Colin Kaepernick, later adapted the public performance himself, softening and blunting it. Partly his adaptation was an attempt to make it more active and less passive, but it was also in response to the criticism that he was dishonoring the military by refusing to stand. Refusal to stand is now "taking a knee", which is how solidiers sometimes commemorate the dead. But now the semantic content of the act has changed: from outright refusal to a sign of respect for American imperial ambition and its miserable cannon fodder. Mind you, this adaptation didn't save Kaepernick from being fired, but it did mean that "taking a knee" could spread. As it spreads, it is cheered, applauded, validated and encouraged, and it becomes powerful enough to challenge the most powerful man in the present American onagrocracy. He calls for firing all persons who take a knee, and the gesture is transformed again: it now becomes an anti-presidential gesture. Some people have complained that the original meaning of the performance has become hopelessly diluted, and of course they are completely right. We can see this from the social consequences: Kaepernick lost his job, but those who followed him (which now include the NFL bosses Trump called upon to do the firing) simply became part of a meme. On the one hand, I can see that applauding, validating and encouraging a meaning potential changes that meaning potential and that change can serve to make it less potent as well as more. On the other, I can also see that it is only by changing that meaning potential can it potentially become socially powerful enough to get Kaepernick's job back. Once that happens, though, we still need a semantic code which will get some white cop to think twice before he pulls the trigger. David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Hi all, > > I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with > getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile I copy > her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can answer to "all" > when responding to this. > > Hello XMCAers, > > First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to > include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much appreciated. I > am excited to jump into this conversation and respond to what has already > been said. I was originally thinking I would pose some questions I am > interested in exploring, but some of them are already coming up. That said, > I am also eager to talk about the young people's responses to the program > that appear near the end of the article and their sense of themselves as > performers. > > I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I have to > say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first became aware of > the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a decade after its founding. > It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a thousand > young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised less than > $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have learned of > the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it was founded off of > a sense of optimism--although what has been built generates optimism in the > people who visit it and hear about it. > > > The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora > Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the devastation > of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. The All Stars Talent > Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was founded by community > organizers who had been working with adults in the community to create a > union of welfare recipients and were looking for something for their young > people to do. It was founded in order to create something positive, > prosocial, and creative that the young people could own. Fred Newman used > to say that it had all the characteristics of a gang, but without the > negativity. The All Stars was and is independent of the politically > controlled social welfare agencies that existed across the city. As its > grown its retained those characteristics. So while I think it has produced > optimism, politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. I > think it was a more actively political choice to build something that was > not a protest move, but a creative one--relating to the people in the > community, and later the business people, as builders and creators of > activities that were not controlled or dominated by the existing > institutions and their assumptions about who people are. > > I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps > code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human ability to > move around and about newness. If that is the case then I think the All > Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as tapping into that human > ability to do that and creates environments where that is cheered, > supported, and validated. While I actually do value the particular > "languages" the youth and business people learn, what I think is more > critical is that they learn that they can learn them. > > Carrie > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > Graduate School of Education > Rutgers University > www.gse.rutgers.edu > www.eastsideinstitute.org > www.performingtheworld.org > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Kellogg > Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the the > word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I think > almost everybody will immediately see the links with the criticisms made of > Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). > > ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a conception > of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that the greater or > lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the world can be judged > from his language. A person who only speaks a dialect or who understands > the national language in varying degrees necessarily enjoys a more or less > restricted and provincial, fossilized and anachronistic perception of the > world in comparison with the great currents of thought which dominate world > history. His interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and > economic, and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign > languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one must > at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be translated > into the language of another great culture that is, one great national > language which is historically rich and complex can translate any other > great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a dialect cannot do the > same thing.? > > Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: > International. pp. 59-60 > > Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, Sardu, > which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like Cantonese in > relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier and purer offshoot > of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In contrast, black English really > is a dialect, and what Gramsci is saying here simply isn't true, either of > black English or dialects generally. > > A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not defined by > the region as we usually think: that's why black people speak (more or > less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English in > America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend to > mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to what > Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the eighteenth > century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of any language > could not express everything that the language (the dialect-complex) had to > express. In fact, that's how speakers of minority dialects, including black > people, became bidialectal, and it is also why the distinctions of dialect > tend to be phonological rather than lexicogrammatical or semantic. > > There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by the > USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: Academese is not > restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English is spoken in every > cockpit on earth. These varieties are called registers (if you are a > Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar (the > morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open class to > closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed about their > variation is probably true: they can only translate certain meanings and > not others. > > Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings that > are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't > think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special code. > Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their work > in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand everything > they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do linguistics in a wide > variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy speak any dialect but > Australian, and I have heard him on a wide variety of topics, > from household matters to Heglian ones. > > We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because child > development (and even national development) invariably involves learning > new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has to be tackled > in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) of the semantic > code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids need the semantic > code of bankers about as much as bankers need the code of black kids: like > a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers and their codes just need to > be abolished. > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of the All > > Starts program is to begin. > > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe we > > could start? > > > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is > staggering. > > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the sorts of > > activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's ISCAR > > address, what is being described here is an institution that raised 10 > > million dollars in 2015 and involves > > a lot of teenagers/young adults. > > > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing > seemed > > like a way to address Delpit-style > > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an imagined > > future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to think about > the > > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the need to > > think about how newness comes into the world. > > > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with the > > cases that Yrjo talked about. > > > > mike > > > From Peg.Griffin@att.net Wed Sep 27 18:29:19 2017 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 21:29:19 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: References: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <00b801d337f9$35687960$a0396c20$@att.net> and Eric Reid? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin-kaepernick-football-protests.html -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:41 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond As we speak, there is a specific public performance with a highly concrete meaning spreading across the USA. It originated with a single black man, who refused to stand during the national anthem as long as the country singing it refused to enforce the laws against murder against white policemen who take black lives with impunity. That man, Colin Kaepernick, later adapted the public performance himself, softening and blunting it. Partly his adaptation was an attempt to make it more active and less passive, but it was also in response to the criticism that he was dishonoring the military by refusing to stand. Refusal to stand is now "taking a knee", which is how solidiers sometimes commemorate the dead. But now the semantic content of the act has changed: from outright refusal to a sign of respect for American imperial ambition and its miserable cannon fodder. Mind you, this adaptation didn't save Kaepernick from being fired, but it did mean that "taking a knee" could spread. As it spreads, it is cheered, applauded, validated and encouraged, and it becomes powerful enough to challenge the most powerful man in the present American onagrocracy. He calls for firing all persons who take a knee, and the gesture is transformed again: it now becomes an anti-presidential gesture. Some people have complained that the original meaning of the performance has become hopelessly diluted, and of course they are completely right. We can see this from the social consequences: Kaepernick lost his job, but those who followed him (which now include the NFL bosses Trump called upon to do the firing) simply became part of a meme. On the one hand, I can see that applauding, validating and encouraging a meaning potential changes that meaning potential and that change can serve to make it less potent as well as more. On the other, I can also see that it is only by changing that meaning potential can it potentially become socially powerful enough to get Kaepernick's job back. Once that happens, though, we still need a semantic code which will get some white cop to think twice before he pulls the trigger. David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Hi all, > > I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with > getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile I > copy her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can answer to "all" > when responding to this. > > Hello XMCAers, > > First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to > include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much > appreciated. I am excited to jump into this conversation and respond > to what has already been said. I was originally thinking I would pose > some questions I am interested in exploring, but some of them are > already coming up. That said, I am also eager to talk about the young > people's responses to the program that appear near the end of the > article and their sense of themselves as performers. > > I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I have > to say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first became > aware of the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a decade after its founding. > It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a > thousand young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised > less than > $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have > learned of the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it > was founded off of a sense of optimism--although what has been built > generates optimism in the people who visit it and hear about it. > > > The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora > Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the > devastation of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. The > All Stars Talent Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was > founded by community organizers who had been working with adults in > the community to create a union of welfare recipients and were looking > for something for their young people to do. It was founded in order to > create something positive, prosocial, and creative that the young > people could own. Fred Newman used to say that it had all the > characteristics of a gang, but without the negativity. The All Stars > was and is independent of the politically controlled social welfare > agencies that existed across the city. As its grown its retained those > characteristics. So while I think it has produced optimism, > politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. I think it > was a more actively political choice to build something that was not a > protest move, but a creative one--relating to the people in the > community, and later the business people, as builders and creators of > activities that were not controlled or dominated by the existing institutions and their assumptions about who people are. > > I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps > code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human ability > to move around and about newness. If that is the case then I think the > All Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as tapping into that > human ability to do that and creates environments where that is > cheered, supported, and validated. While I actually do value the > particular "languages" the youth and business people learn, what I > think is more critical is that they learn that they can learn them. > > Carrie > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of > Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu > www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Kellogg > > Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the > the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I > think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the > criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). > > ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a > conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that > the greater or lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the > world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks a > dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees > necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, > fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison > with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His > interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, > and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign > languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one > must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be > translated into the language of another great culture that is, one > great national language which is historically rich and complex can > translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a dialect cannot do the same thing.? > > Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: > International. pp. 59-60 > > Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, > Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like > Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier > and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In > contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is > saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects generally. > > A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not > defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people > speak (more or > less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English > in America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend > to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to > what Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the > eighteenth century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of > any language could not express everything that the language (the > dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of > minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and it > is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological rather than lexicogrammatical or semantic. > > There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by > the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: > Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English > is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are called > registers (if you are a > Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar > (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open > class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed > about their variation is probably true: they can only translate > certain meanings and not others. > > Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings > that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't > think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special code. > Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their > work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand > everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do > linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy > speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide > variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. > > We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because > child development (and even national development) invariably involves > learning new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has > to be tackled in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) > of the semantic code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids > need the semantic code of bankers about as much as bankers need the > code of black kids: like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers > and their codes just need to be abolished. > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of > > the All Starts program is to begin. > > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe > > we could start? > > > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is > staggering. > > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the > > sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's > > ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that > > raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of > > teenagers/young adults. > > > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing > seemed > > like a way to address Delpit-style > > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an > > imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to > > think about > the > > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the > > need to think about how newness comes into the world. > > > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with > > the cases that Yrjo talked about. > > > > mike > > > From ablunden@mira.net Thu Sep 28 07:55:19 2017 From: ablunden@mira.net (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:55:19 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hegel's Headstand In-Reply-To: References: <4a76c063-90f7-24bc-1e47-e405203abbfc@mira.net> Message-ID: David, see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm "It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon its head": ... and in the footnote: Hegel in the Philosophy of History, speaking of the French Revolution: ?Thought, the concept of law, all at once made itself felt, and against this the old scaffolding of wrong could make no stand. In this conception of law, therefore, a constitution has now been established, and henceforth everything must be based upon this. Since the Sun had been in the firmament, and the planets circled around him, the sight had never been seen of man standing upon his head ? i.e., on the Idea ? and building reality after this image. Anaxagoras first said that the Nous, Reason, rules the world; but now, for the first time, had men come to recognize that the Idea must rule the mental reality. And this was a magnificent sunrise. All thinking Beings have participated in celebrating this holy day. A sublime emotion swayed men at that time, an enthusiasm of reason pervaded the world, as if now had come the reconciliation of the Divine Principle with the world.? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 26/09/2017 7:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: > In any case, it's not in Philosophy of Right, although > there Hegel does write about the French Revolution at some > length and with considerable asperity. > > Gramsci is essentially a linguist and not a sociologist. > That explains his sensitivity to "bookish" modes of > expression as opposed to conversational registers in Hegel. > > Anyway, we can see from this little example from Chapter > Two of Thinking and Speech just what Vygotsky meant by > "mastering the whole of Marx's method" and "writing > psychology's Capital" rather than simply stitching quotes > together. > > In the pedology (end of Early Childhood, and also the > passage on the omnirelevance of speech at the end of > Crisis at One), Vygotsky refers to Marx with a certain > apophasis, to say that he could cite Marx here--but it > would be out of context and people might assume that it is > sufficient proof of what he wants to say about > speech--still, it would show the penetrating quality of > Marx's method. That's what he's doing in Chapter Two: > citing Marx by not citing him. Gramsci does a lot of that > too. > > David Kellogg > > On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:11 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > While it is possible that Hegel said that, I don't > know where and I haven't heard that before. I must > have missed it in Gramsci. > > Marx was about 11 when Hegel died, so he never heard > Hegel speak personally, but he was immersed in a > milieu of Left Hegelians in a Germany in love with > Hegel until 1841, when Marx was about 22. So he > certainly has a "conversational" familiarity with Hegel! > > andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 25/09/2017 6:01 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >> Andy: >> >> Gramsci has this, on p. 232 of the Complete Prison >> Notebooks, Vol.1, New York: Columbia University >> Press, 1975. >> >> ?In studying Marx?s Hegelianism one should remember >> (especially given Marx?s eminently practical-critical >> character) that Marx participated in German >> university life very shortly after Hegel?s death, >> when there must still have been a most vivid memory >> of Hegel?s ?oral? teachings and of the passionate >> discussions about concrete history which these >> teaching generated?that is, discussions in which the >> historical concreteness of Hegel?s though must have >> stood out much more clearly that it does in his >> systematic writings. Some of Marx?s assertions, it >> seems to me, should be considered in special relation >> to this ?conversational? vivacity: for instance, the >> statement that Hegel ?has men walking on their >> heads?. Hegel really does use this image when dealing >> with the French Revolution; he writes that at a >> certain time during the French Revolution (when the >> new state structure was organized) ?it seemed? that >> the world was walking on its head or something of the >> sort (c.f.). I think that Croce asks (search the >> reference) from where Marx derived this image; it >> certainly is in one of Hegel?s books (perhaps the >> Philosophy of Right, I don?t remember). However, it >> seems to me that, given the persistence with which >> Marx returns to it (I think that Marx repeats the >> image; check), it seems to me that at a certain time >> it was a topic of conversationi: it really seems to >> have sprung out of conversation, fresh, spontaneous, >> so little ?bookish??. >> >> The editor of the book remarks that Gramsci seems to >> have in mind the ?Postface? to the second edition of >> Capital. However, this is simply the Marx, not the >> Hegel: it?s the passage Lenin (and Vygotsky) referred >> to ?Sie steht bei ihm auf dem Kopf. Man muss sie >> umst?lpen, um den rationellen Kern in der mystischen >> H?lle zu entdecken.? While reading this over, I >> realized that Vygotsky, in Chapter Two of Thinking >> and Speech where he cites this passage in Lenin, >> cites it for good reason. The whole chapter is >> essentially doing to Piaget what Marx did to Hegel. >> Vygotsky, more than anyone alive at that time, >> understood Piaget's extraordinary contribution, and >> what Marx says of Hegel could easily have been said >> by Vygotsky of Piaget: "Die Mystifikation, welche die >> Dialektik in Hegels H?nden erleidet, verhindert in >> keiner Weise, dass er ihre allegeminen >> Bewegungsformen zuerst in umfassander und bewusster >> Weise dargestellt hat." Having admitted that Piaget >> was the first to present the child's thinking in its >> general form of motion in a comprehensive and >> conscious manner, Vygotsky then goes on to stand >> Piaget on his head, by inverting >> "autism-->egocentrism-->social speech" to "social >> speech-->egocentric speech-->inner speech". >> David Kellogg >> > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Sep 28 14:51:46 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 06:51:46 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: <00b801d337f9$35687960$a0396c20$@att.net> References: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> <00b801d337f9$35687960$a0396c20$@att.net> Message-ID: And Eric Reid! Thanks, Peg. (I particularly liked the part that went "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead". This from James, the younger brother of Jesus who tried to keep the Christian movement from "going Roman" under Paul.) David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Peg Griffin wrote: > and Eric Reid? > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin- > kaepernick-football-protests.html > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:41 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > As we speak, there is a specific public performance with a highly concrete > meaning spreading across the USA. It originated with a single black man, > who refused to stand during the national anthem as long as the country > singing it refused to enforce the laws against murder against white > policemen who take black lives with impunity. That man, Colin Kaepernick, > later adapted the public performance himself, softening and blunting it. > Partly his adaptation was an attempt to make it more active and less > passive, but it was also in response to the criticism that he was > dishonoring the military by refusing to stand. > > Refusal to stand is now "taking a knee", which is how solidiers sometimes > commemorate the dead. But now the semantic content of the act has changed: > from outright refusal to a sign of respect for American imperial ambition > and its miserable cannon fodder. Mind you, this adaptation didn't save > Kaepernick from being fired, but it did mean that "taking a knee" could > spread. As it spreads, it is cheered, applauded, validated and encouraged, > and it becomes powerful enough to challenge the most powerful man in the > present American onagrocracy. He calls for firing all persons who take a > knee, and the gesture is transformed again: it now becomes an > anti-presidential gesture. > > Some people have complained that the original meaning of the performance > has become hopelessly diluted, and of course they are completely right. We > can see this from the social consequences: Kaepernick lost his job, but > those who followed him (which now include the NFL bosses Trump called upon > to do the firing) simply became part of a meme. On the one hand, I can see > that applauding, validating and encouraging a meaning potential changes > that meaning potential and that change can serve to make it less potent as > well as more. On the other, I can also see that it is only by changing that > meaning potential can it potentially become socially powerful enough to get > Kaepernick's job back. Once that happens, though, we still need a semantic > code which will get some white cop to think twice before he pulls the > trigger. > > David Kellogg > > > > On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with > > getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile I > > copy her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can answer to > "all" > > when responding to this. > > > > Hello XMCAers, > > > > First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to > > include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much > > appreciated. I am excited to jump into this conversation and respond > > to what has already been said. I was originally thinking I would pose > > some questions I am interested in exploring, but some of them are > > already coming up. That said, I am also eager to talk about the young > > people's responses to the program that appear near the end of the > > article and their sense of themselves as performers. > > > > I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I have > > to say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first became > > aware of the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a decade after > its founding. > > It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a > > thousand young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised > > less than > > $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have > > learned of the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it > > was founded off of a sense of optimism--although what has been built > > generates optimism in the people who visit it and hear about it. > > > > > > The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora > > Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the > > devastation of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. The > > All Stars Talent Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was > > founded by community organizers who had been working with adults in > > the community to create a union of welfare recipients and were looking > > for something for their young people to do. It was founded in order to > > create something positive, prosocial, and creative that the young > > people could own. Fred Newman used to say that it had all the > > characteristics of a gang, but without the negativity. The All Stars > > was and is independent of the politically controlled social welfare > > agencies that existed across the city. As its grown its retained those > > characteristics. So while I think it has produced optimism, > > politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. I think it > > was a more actively political choice to build something that was not a > > protest move, but a creative one--relating to the people in the > > community, and later the business people, as builders and creators of > > activities that were not controlled or dominated by the existing > institutions and their assumptions about who people are. > > > > I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps > > code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human ability > > to move around and about newness. If that is the case then I think the > > All Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as tapping into that > > human ability to do that and creates environments where that is > > cheered, supported, and validated. While I actually do value the > > particular "languages" the youth and business people learn, what I > > think is more critical is that they learn that they can learn them. > > > > Carrie > > > > > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of > > Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu > > www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of David Kellogg > > > > Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > > > "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the > > the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I > > think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the > > criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). > > > > ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a > > conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that > > the greater or lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the > > world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks a > > dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees > > necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, > > fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison > > with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His > > interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, > > and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign > > languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one > > must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be > > translated into the language of another great culture that is, one > > great national language which is historically rich and complex can > > translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a > dialect cannot do the same thing.? > > > > Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: > > International. pp. 59-60 > > > > Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, > > Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like > > Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier > > and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In > > contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is > > saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects > generally. > > > > A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not > > defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people > > speak (more or > > less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English > > in America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend > > to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to > > what Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the > > eighteenth century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of > > any language could not express everything that the language (the > > dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of > > minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and it > > is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological rather > than lexicogrammatical or semantic. > > > > There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by > > the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: > > Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English > > is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are called > > registers (if you are a > > Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar > > (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open > > class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed > > about their variation is probably true: they can only translate > > certain meanings and not others. > > > > Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings > > that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't > > think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special > code. > > Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their > > work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand > > everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do > > linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy > > speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide > > variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. > > > > We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because > > child development (and even national development) invariably involves > > learning new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has > > to be tackled in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) > > of the semantic code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids > > need the semantic code of bankers about as much as bankers need the > > code of black kids: like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers > > and their codes just need to be abolished. > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of > > > the All Starts program is to begin. > > > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe > > > we could start? > > > > > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is > > staggering. > > > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the > > > sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's > > > ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that > > > raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of > > > teenagers/young adults. > > > > > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing > > seemed > > > like a way to address Delpit-style > > > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an > > > imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to > > > think about > > the > > > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the > > > need to think about how newness comes into the world. > > > > > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with > > > the cases that Yrjo talked about. > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Fri Sep 29 06:25:10 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:25:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: References: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> <00b801d337f9$35687960$a0396c20$@att.net>, Message-ID: <1506691510016.43749@iped.uio.no> David, I did also liked Reid's quotation of James, which nicely connects to our other discussion on 'unit of analysis', and also to the idea that to perform is to become. Carrie, thanks for nicely introducing your work. I can see that, beyond the code-switching issue, you've been particularly interested in that there is learning that you CAN do switch coding. I was thinking that this like the coming forth of new "I cans" (as in Husserl I can) that open with/as performing. So, if I read your study adequately, it is a question of empowerment, of agency and emancipation, right? But then again, I was wondering whether this aspect of agency is not also tightly tied to that of need and necessity, and then, to that of volition and motive. For, I can, but, do I want? I was thinking that, for the kids to actually perform in a way that brings some new horizon of action and being, there must have been some form of need met; and the same goes for the bankers. Otherwise, would not that it be a 'fake' acting, 'fake' in the double sense of not just pretending but also a pretending that does not change you at all? I think this fakeness is precisely the one that the participant 'Trevor' explicitly talks about. In fact, Trevor speaks about the difference between uncofmortable vs not being so. That to me appeals to corresponding (being in agreement with) a need. But if the above makes sense, then it hardly can be said that the kids were somehow experiencing and finding (or not) met the business persons' needs, and the opposite (or did they?). We need, I guess, to examine what needs and how they emerge as the practice of All Stars, not as a hybrid of kids + business women and men, as a switching from one need to the other. And if so, then, are we still talking about code-switching, as David was suggesting, or is this more of a code generating? Or code and motives and needs have nothing to do with each other? Lots of questions! Thanks for the read! Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: 28 September 2017 23:51 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond And Eric Reid! Thanks, Peg. (I particularly liked the part that went "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead". This from James, the younger brother of Jesus who tried to keep the Christian movement from "going Roman" under Paul.) David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Peg Griffin wrote: > and Eric Reid? > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin- > kaepernick-football-protests.html > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:41 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > As we speak, there is a specific public performance with a highly concrete > meaning spreading across the USA. It originated with a single black man, > who refused to stand during the national anthem as long as the country > singing it refused to enforce the laws against murder against white > policemen who take black lives with impunity. That man, Colin Kaepernick, > later adapted the public performance himself, softening and blunting it. > Partly his adaptation was an attempt to make it more active and less > passive, but it was also in response to the criticism that he was > dishonoring the military by refusing to stand. > > Refusal to stand is now "taking a knee", which is how solidiers sometimes > commemorate the dead. But now the semantic content of the act has changed: > from outright refusal to a sign of respect for American imperial ambition > and its miserable cannon fodder. Mind you, this adaptation didn't save > Kaepernick from being fired, but it did mean that "taking a knee" could > spread. As it spreads, it is cheered, applauded, validated and encouraged, > and it becomes powerful enough to challenge the most powerful man in the > present American onagrocracy. He calls for firing all persons who take a > knee, and the gesture is transformed again: it now becomes an > anti-presidential gesture. > > Some people have complained that the original meaning of the performance > has become hopelessly diluted, and of course they are completely right. We > can see this from the social consequences: Kaepernick lost his job, but > those who followed him (which now include the NFL bosses Trump called upon > to do the firing) simply became part of a meme. On the one hand, I can see > that applauding, validating and encouraging a meaning potential changes > that meaning potential and that change can serve to make it less potent as > well as more. On the other, I can also see that it is only by changing that > meaning potential can it potentially become socially powerful enough to get > Kaepernick's job back. Once that happens, though, we still need a semantic > code which will get some white cop to think twice before he pulls the > trigger. > > David Kellogg > > > > On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with > > getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile I > > copy her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can answer to > "all" > > when responding to this. > > > > Hello XMCAers, > > > > First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to > > include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much > > appreciated. I am excited to jump into this conversation and respond > > to what has already been said. I was originally thinking I would pose > > some questions I am interested in exploring, but some of them are > > already coming up. That said, I am also eager to talk about the young > > people's responses to the program that appear near the end of the > > article and their sense of themselves as performers. > > > > I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I have > > to say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first became > > aware of the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a decade after > its founding. > > It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a > > thousand young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised > > less than > > $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have > > learned of the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it > > was founded off of a sense of optimism--although what has been built > > generates optimism in the people who visit it and hear about it. > > > > > > The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora > > Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the > > devastation of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. The > > All Stars Talent Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was > > founded by community organizers who had been working with adults in > > the community to create a union of welfare recipients and were looking > > for something for their young people to do. It was founded in order to > > create something positive, prosocial, and creative that the young > > people could own. Fred Newman used to say that it had all the > > characteristics of a gang, but without the negativity. The All Stars > > was and is independent of the politically controlled social welfare > > agencies that existed across the city. As its grown its retained those > > characteristics. So while I think it has produced optimism, > > politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. I think it > > was a more actively political choice to build something that was not a > > protest move, but a creative one--relating to the people in the > > community, and later the business people, as builders and creators of > > activities that were not controlled or dominated by the existing > institutions and their assumptions about who people are. > > > > I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps > > code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human ability > > to move around and about newness. If that is the case then I think the > > All Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as tapping into that > > human ability to do that and creates environments where that is > > cheered, supported, and validated. While I actually do value the > > particular "languages" the youth and business people learn, what I > > think is more critical is that they learn that they can learn them. > > > > Carrie > > > > > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of > > Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu > > www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of David Kellogg > > > > Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > > > "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the > > the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I > > think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the > > criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). > > > > ?(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a > > conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that > > the greater or lesser complexity of a person?s (60) conception of the > > world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks a > > dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees > > necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, > > fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison > > with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His > > interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, > > and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign > > languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one > > must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be > > translated into the language of another great culture that is, one > > great national language which is historically rich and complex can > > translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a > dialect cannot do the same thing.? > > > > Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: > > International. pp. 59-60 > > > > Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, > > Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit like > > Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an earlier > > and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. In > > contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is > > saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects > generally. > > > > A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not > > defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people > > speak (more or > > less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white English > > in America is not confined to any particular region. But dialects tend > > to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. So contrary to > > what Gramsci says, even after the national homogenizations of the > > eighteenth century there was absolutely no reason why any dialect of > > any language could not express everything that the language (the > > dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of > > minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and it > > is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological rather > than lexicogrammatical or semantic. > > > > There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined by > > the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: > > Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller English > > is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are called > > registers (if you are a > > Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the lexicogrammar > > (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a cline from open > > class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and what Luria believed > > about their variation is probably true: they can only translate > > certain meanings and not others. > > > > Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings > > that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I don't > > think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a special > code. > > Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their > > work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand > > everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do > > linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy > > speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide > > variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. > > > > We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because > > child development (and even national development) invariably involves > > learning new registers and codes. So I think the real problem that has > > to be tackled in Carrie's article is the development (not switching) > > of the semantic code. The problem, for me, is that I think black kids > > need the semantic code of bankers about as much as bankers need the > > code of black kids: like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers > > and their codes just need to be abolished. > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of > > > the All Starts program is to begin. > > > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so maybe > > > we could start? > > > > > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is > > staggering. > > > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the > > > sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's > > > ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that > > > raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of > > > teenagers/young adults. > > > > > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a framing > > seemed > > > like a way to address Delpit-style > > > critiques of the schooling of kids of color. Linking this to an > > > imagined future of fluid identities seems like an optimistic way to > > > think about > > the > > > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the > > > need to think about how newness comes into the world. > > > > > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up with > > > the cases that Yrjo talked about. > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Fri Sep 29 06:56:04 2017 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:56:04 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] blackness of black and white supremacy Message-ID: <1506693362571.10726@iped.uio.no> Just read this 'long read' in The Guardian on white supremacy and American Presidency and thought it was interesting. Not long ago I heard here in xmca others also talking about the blackness of Obama and really resonated with some of what is in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/29/we-should-have-seen-trump-coming From Peg.Griffin@att.net Fri Sep 29 08:47:29 2017 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:47:29 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond In-Reply-To: <1506691510016.43749@iped.uio.no> References: <1506544119853.7223@iped.uio.no> <00b801d337f9$35687960$a0396c20$@att.net>, <1506691510016.43749@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <01a501d3393a$42831690$c78943b0$@att.net> Thanks for the article (and the years and depth of all the work}, Carrie and the All Stars. Although I realize you made the link I am about to on a different thread, Alfredo, I think it belongs here, too. It might be helpful -- maybe necessary-- to consider that entities with different breadth and depth can perform "as if." Perhaps, for instance, the performer can have the history and diversity of a country. As I contemporaneously read Ta-Nehisi Coates books, I see an opportunity to see such performances. The Guardian link Alfredo provides has a relatively short sample of Coates for those who haven't had a chance to get into his work and here is a longer link in case the shorter doesn't work for some: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/29/we-should-have-seen-trump-comin g?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+20 17&utm_term=245819&subid=21355249&CMP=GT_US_collection PG -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: Friday, September 29, 2017 9:25 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond David, I did also liked Reid's quotation of James, which nicely connects to our other discussion on 'unit of analysis', and also to the idea that to perform is to become. Carrie, thanks for nicely introducing your work. I can see that, beyond the code-switching issue, you've been particularly interested in that there is learning that you CAN do switch coding. I was thinking that this like the coming forth of new "I cans" (as in Husserl I can) that open with/as performing. So, if I read your study adequately, it is a question of empowerment, of agency and emancipation, right? But then again, I was wondering whether this aspect of agency is not also tightly tied to that of need and necessity, and then, to that of volition and motive. For, I can, but, do I want? I was thinking that, for the kids to actually perform in a way that brings some new horizon of action and being, there must have been some form of need met; and the same goes for the bankers. Otherwise, would not that it be a 'fake' acting, 'fake' in the double sense of not just pretending but also a pretending that does not change you at all? I think this fakeness is precisely the one that the participant 'Trevor' explicitly talks about. In fact, Trevor speaks about the difference between uncofmortable vs not being so. That to me appeals to corresponding (being in agreement with) a need. But if the above makes sense, then it hardly can be said that the kids were somehow experiencing and finding (or not) met the business persons' needs, and the opposite (or did they?). We need, I guess, to examine what needs and how they emerge as the practice of All Stars, not as a hybrid of kids + business women and men, as a switching from one need to the other. And if so, then, are we still talking about code-switching, as David was suggesting, or is this more of a code generating? Or code and motives and needs have nothing to do with each other? Lots of questions! Thanks for the read! Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: 28 September 2017 23:51 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond And Eric Reid! Thanks, Peg. (I particularly liked the part that went "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead". This from James, the younger brother of Jesus who tried to keep the Christian movement from "going Roman" under Paul.) David Kellogg On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Peg Griffin wrote: > and Eric Reid? > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin- > kaepernick-football-protests.html > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:41 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > As we speak, there is a specific public performance with a highly > concrete meaning spreading across the USA. It originated with a single > black man, who refused to stand during the national anthem as long as > the country singing it refused to enforce the laws against murder > against white policemen who take black lives with impunity. That man, > Colin Kaepernick, later adapted the public performance himself, softening and blunting it. > Partly his adaptation was an attempt to make it more active and less > passive, but it was also in response to the criticism that he was > dishonoring the military by refusing to stand. > > Refusal to stand is now "taking a knee", which is how solidiers > sometimes commemorate the dead. But now the semantic content of the act has changed: > from outright refusal to a sign of respect for American imperial > ambition and its miserable cannon fodder. Mind you, this adaptation > didn't save Kaepernick from being fired, but it did mean that "taking > a knee" could spread. As it spreads, it is cheered, applauded, > validated and encouraged, and it becomes powerful enough to challenge > the most powerful man in the present American onagrocracy. He calls > for firing all persons who take a knee, and the gesture is transformed > again: it now becomes an anti-presidential gesture. > > Some people have complained that the original meaning of the > performance has become hopelessly diluted, and of course they are > completely right. We can see this from the social consequences: > Kaepernick lost his job, but those who followed him (which now include > the NFL bosses Trump called upon to do the firing) simply became part > of a meme. On the one hand, I can see that applauding, validating and > encouraging a meaning potential changes that meaning potential and > that change can serve to make it less potent as well as more. On the > other, I can also see that it is only by changing that meaning > potential can it potentially become socially powerful enough to get > Kaepernick's job back. Once that happens, though, we still need a > semantic code which will get some white cop to think twice before he pulls the trigger. > > David Kellogg > > > > On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am forwarding Carrie's message, as she's been having problems with > > getting it through. Bruce is soon taking care of that, but meanwhile > > I copy her to this message and anyone wanting to address her can > > answer to > "all" > > when responding to this. > > > > Hello XMCAers, > > > > First of all, let me say thank you to Alfredo and Mike for asking to > > include my article in the XMCA discussion stream. Its much > > appreciated. I am excited to jump into this conversation and respond > > to what has already been said. I was originally thinking I would > > pose some questions I am interested in exploring, but some of them > > are already coming up. That said, I am also eager to talk about the > > young people's responses to the program that appear near the end of > > the article and their sense of themselves as performers. > > > > I was struck by Mike's use of the word optimism in his post and I > > have to say while it spoke to me, it also got me thinking. I first > > became aware of the All Stars back in the early 1990's, about a > > decade after > its founding. > > It was still a relatively small organization. It served about a > > thousand young people a year, only in NYC. The organization raised > > less than > > $100,000 a year and had just hired its first employee. As I have > > learned of the history of the All Stars founding I would not say it > > was founded off of a sense of optimism--although what has been built > > generates optimism in the people who visit it and hear about it. > > > > > > The founders of the All Stars, led by Dr. Fred Newman and Dr. Lenora > > Fulani, set out to create something that was a response to the > > devastation of generational poverty on the Black community in NYC. > > The All Stars Talent Show Network, the first program of the ASP, was > > founded by community organizers who had been working with adults in > > the community to create a union of welfare recipients and were > > looking for something for their young people to do. It was founded > > in order to create something positive, prosocial, and creative that > > the young people could own. Fred Newman used to say that it had all > > the characteristics of a gang, but without the negativity. The All > > Stars was and is independent of the politically controlled social > > welfare agencies that existed across the city. As its grown its > > retained those characteristics. So while I think it has produced > > optimism, politically it was not created out of a sense of optimism. > > I think it was a more actively political choice to build something > > that was not a protest move, but a creative one--relating to the > > people in the community, and later the business people, as builders > > and creators of activities that were not controlled or dominated by > > the existing > institutions and their assumptions about who people are. > > > > I also wanted to say something about code-switching. Perhaps > > code-switching is the word academics use for the amazing human > > ability to move around and about newness. If that is the case then I > > think the All Stars is not so much teaching code-switching, as > > tapping into that human ability to do that and creates environments > > where that is cheered, supported, and validated. While I actually do > > value the particular "languages" the youth and business people > > learn, what I think is more critical is that they learn that they can learn them. > > > > Carrie > > > > > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of > > Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu > > www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of David Kellogg > > > > Sent: 26 September 2017 23:05 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: All Stars and Beyond > > > > "Code" is precisely the right word, although I am not sure about the > > the word "switch". Here's the problem the way Gramsci sees it (and I > > think almost everybody will immediately see the links with the > > criticisms made of Luria after the Uzbekistan expeditions). > > > > "(59) If it is true that any language contains the elements of a > > conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that > > the greater or lesser complexity of a person's (60) conception of > > the world can be judged from his language. A person who only speaks > > a dialect or who understands the national language in varying > > degrees necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, > > fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison > > with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His > > interests will be restricted, more or less corporative and economic, > > and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign > > languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one > > must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be > > translated into the language of another great culture that is, one > > great national language which is historically rich and complex can > > translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. > > But a > dialect cannot do the same thing." > > > > Gramsci, A. (1957). The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: > > International. pp. 59-60 > > > > Ironically, Gramsci is really talking about his own native tongue, > > Sardu, which isn't a dialect of Italian at all but rather (a bit > > like Cantonese in relation to the Chinese of the Tang Dynasty) an > > earlier and purer offshoot of a more ancient language, namely Latin. > > In contrast, black English really is a dialect, and what Gramsci is > > saying here simply isn't true, either of black English or dialects > generally. > > > > A dialect is a variety of language defined by the user. It's not > > defined by the region as we usually think: that's why black people > > speak (more or > > less) the same dialect in Compton and in Queens, and why white > > English in America is not confined to any particular region. But > > dialects tend to mutual intelligibility, particularly in big cities. > > So contrary to what Gramsci says, even after the national > > homogenizations of the eighteenth century there was absolutely no > > reason why any dialect of any language could not express everything > > that the language (the > > dialect-complex) had to express. In fact, that's how speakers of > > minority dialects, including black people, became bidialectal, and > > it is also why the distinctions of dialect tend to be phonological > > rather > than lexicogrammatical or semantic. > > > > There are ALSO systematic differences in language which are defined > > by the USE. These are also not peculiar to any particular region: > > Academese is not restricted to Ivy Leagues, and air controller > > English is spoken in every cockpit on earth. These varieties are > > called registers (if you are a > > Hallidayan) and because they do involve variation in the > > lexicogrammar (the morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, viewed as a > > cline from open class to closed class words) what Gramsci says and > > what Luria believed about their variation is probably true: they can > > only translate certain meanings and not others. > > > > Bernstein has ANOTHER term for the systematic varieties of meanings > > that are the result of this variation in lexicogrammar: code. I > > don't think black English is a register or that it gives rise to a > > special > code. > > Black mathematicians working for NASA are perfectly able to do their > > work in their own dialect, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will understand > > everything they do. I have certainly heard Chinese linguists do > > linguistics in a wide variety of dialects. I have never heard Andy > > speak any dialect but Australian, and I have heard him on a wide > > variety of topics, from household matters to Heglian ones. > > > > We may be monodialectical but we are all multi-registerial, because > > child development (and even national development) invariably > > involves learning new registers and codes. So I think the real > > problem that has to be tackled in Carrie's article is the > > development (not switching) of the semantic code. The problem, for > > me, is that I think black kids need the semantic code of bankers > > about as much as bankers need the code of black kids: like a fish > > needs a bicycle. Maybe some registers and their codes just need to be abolished. > > > > David Kellogg > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:16 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > I am not certain when the conversation of Carrie's description of > > > the All Starts program is to begin. > > > But David noted the article coming up in a recent message, so > > > maybe we could start? > > > > > > I guess my first impression is that the scope of the effort is > > staggering. > > > Apropos of the discussion of social movements in relation to the > > > sorts of activities that dominate xmca empirical work, and Yrjo's > > > ISCAR address, what is being described here is an institution that > > > raised 10 million dollars in 2015 and involves a lot of > > > teenagers/young adults. > > > > > > The "teaching kids to code switch" from black<-->white as a > > > framing > > seemed > > > like a way to address Delpit-style critiques of the schooling of > > > kids of color. Linking this to an imagined future of fluid > > > identities seems like an optimistic way to think about > > the > > > processes set in motion. Linking it to Vygotsky's point about the > > > need to think about how newness comes into the world. > > > > > > I wonder how the strategies used in this work do/do not line up > > > with the cases that Yrjo talked about. > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > From l-salus@northwestern.edu Fri Sep 29 14:34:15 2017 From: l-salus@northwestern.edu (Laura Salus) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 21:34:15 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Faculty positions available at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) Message-ID: <52083a576a9b4915af9f0e2aa0a17e50@chcspmbx05.ads.northwestern.edu> Attached you will find descriptions of two tenure-track positions available in the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. Please forward to any relevant colleagues. Full job descriptions can be found here: http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/common/newsCenter/opportunities/ Laura Salus Executive Assistant to the Dean School of Education and Social Policy l-salus@northwestern.edu 847-491-3828 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ecological Perspectives Ad - NU SESP.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 115037 bytes Desc: Ecological Perspectives Ad - NU SESP.pdf Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170929/031b956a/attachment.pdf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Science and Math in Schools Ad - NU SESP.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 116527 bytes Desc: Science and Math in Schools Ad - NU SESP.pdf Url : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/private/xmca-l/attachments/20170929/031b956a/attachment-0001.pdf From alexander.surmava@yahoo.com Fri Sep 29 16:54:05 2017 From: alexander.surmava@yahoo.com (Alexander Surmava) Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2017 23:54:05 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Object oriented activity and communication References: <946739873.1395270.1506729245941.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <946739873.1395270.1506729245941@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Alfredo, Ivan et al The discussion really becomes more and moreinteresting, touching on the most fundamental categories. But before proceedingto the answers, a short replica apart? (replica aside) :-) Theoretical discussion can be productive only ifit is conducted in the context of a single theoretical approach, based on thegeneral principles accepted in its framework and shared by the debaters. Here,on the XMCA, such a common, unifying conception are usually considered thetheories of Vygotsky, Spinozism or even Marxism. Meanwhile, I am afraid thatthe course of our discussions reveals not just a difference, but a gap in theinterpretation of these concepts. For example, is semiotics compatible with theprinciple of activity, is Spinoza's materialistic monism compatible with theplurality of bases of the theory, that is, it is possible to consider bothobjective activity and communication as the "germ cell" of thetheory. Or maybe for completeness of the theory it is necessary to add to thesetwo principles something third, say - "subjectness"? I am convinced that without answering these andsimilar fundamental questions at the very beginning of our inquiry and withoutanswering them in the most general form, we are doomed to stumble on them atevery next step. But this leads us to another difficulty. Over and over again,returning the conversation to the most basic theoretical grounds, we comeacross the inevitable reproach that instead of discussing a substantivepsychological theory, based on which we can practically solve sociallysignificant problems, let us say, create a consistently democratic educationsystem, we draw everyone to the interesting only for us theoretical verbiageabout imposed on everyone in the teeth psychophysical problem, and the real orimaginary contradictions between Vygotsky and Leontiev. Believe me, it would be much more interestingfor me too to reflect on how to help find the path to education and culture forthe children of poor migrants from Central Asia in Moscow or migrants fromMexico to San Diego. ?Agitprop ? ? ? ? ? ? ?sticks ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?inmy teeth too, and I?d rather ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?compose ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ?romances for you - more profit in it ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? and more charm. But I ? ? ? ?subdued ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?myself, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? setting my heel on the throat ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?of my own song. ??????????????????????????????????? Vladimir Mayakovski ????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ??????????, ? ??? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????? ??????? ???????? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????????. ??? ? ? ? ????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ?? ????? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ??????????????????. ????????????????????????? ???????? ?????????? ??Among other things, such an over and over againforced return to the very foundation makes it difficult to understand eventhese very basics, for it forces us to return to the most abstract level allthe time, literally stuck in abstractions, instead of moving from the abstractto the concrete. Alfredo, you put in your post very interestingquestions about how to understand the principle of interaction as such andabout the relationship of object oriented activity to communication. Withpleasure I will answer them. I will only note in brackets that the detailedanswers to these questions have been formulated by me in my theoretic researchalmost thirty years ago ORIGIN OF LIFE,PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian ???????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????. Since 2006, an article with a brief outline of the principles of the"theory of reflexive activity" is available in English. It was evensent in published in English international journal... but for some strangereason was not published then or later. So, it's easy for me to answer both of yourquestions, especially since I can answer by quoting my old text https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS. But before I start to quote myself :-) I wouldlike to repeat - I completely agree with you that the interaction of thesubject and his object (predmet) should in no case be understood as asymmetrical interaction of two ready-made things. I'm not sure if such a falseapproach should be called a "dualism," the term dualism has in myopinion a fairly precise theoretical meaning that should not be expandedwithout special need, but it is obvious that such a logic of interaction ischaracteristic of the type of interaction that Hegel and Schelling called themechanism and chemism. When it comes to the object oriented activity of aliving organism, we are not dealing with the logic of abstract interaction, butwith the logic of positing, positing of the object (?????? ????????? ????????), or "organic" typeof interaction in the terminology of German classics. In other words,"positing" is also an interaction, but that is its highest,essentially different from the mechanism and the chemism type. Mechanism andchemism are symmetric, in the sense that one can not in principle separate out itsactive and passive side, on the contrary, in organic interaction, in the processof positing of an object one side is active, subjective, while the other ispassive, objective. There are many interesting differences between them, but letus return to this somehow later. In the meantime, the promised quote from mygraduation work of 1988: ?Activeor predmet directed (object oriented) relation can not be possibly comprehendedas interaction of two objects external to each other. For example, the suntaken abstractly, out of touch with the process of life, is neither ?predmet?for a plant, nor for astronomy. It receives a specific predmet qualityexclusively due to spontaneous activity of a green plant (or astronomer)?selecting? the sun as its predmet and ?scrupulously? imitating its celestialmovement with that of the plant leaves (with his telescope). That is to say that living, active or predmetrelation as such is possible only between a living, spontaneously actingsubject and a predmet positioned by its vital activity. Something else againis a stimulating-reactive relation, or a relation of irritability. Firstly, itis not spontaneous on the side of a subject being stimulated. Secondly, it isnot productive since the organism does not determine its predmet but has tosatisfy itself with accidental and therefore indifferent external influence.Thirdly, the response of the organism (if only it is not just a mechanisticaction of an external cause) can be conditioned only by abstract inner natureof the organism itself but in no way by the shape of the external thingindifferent to the organism incidentally coming into contact with its livingsubjectivity. To put it differently, we can find not the slightest trace ofpredmet directedness within a stimulating-reactive relation.? Now about the object oriented activity andcommunication, and it does not matter whether in the verbal form, or in theform of a special Mikhailovsky's "addressing" to another person. Which of these two categories should beconsidered primary and universal, in which of them we have to try to discernthe notorious "germ cell" of human consciousness (psyche) isessentially the main problem that has been and remains the central problem oftheoretical psychology associated with the names of Vygotsky, Leontyev andIlyenkov. To begin with, one preliminary consideration. Ifwe want to build scientific psychology in accordance with the famous Marxistmethod of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, whereas all three mentionedabove thinkers believed that the method of ascent, the method of"Capital", is the only scientifically correct method, to ignore whichmeans to condemn one's own theoretical discipline on vulgarity, then you willhave to choose one thing - either activity or communication. And at firstglance, the answer for any person who wants to be a Marxist is obvious - ofcourse, communication, of course sociality, for it is not for nothing that theclassic coined his famous sixth thesis, stating that ".?the human essenceis no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is theensemble of the social relations.. " And if the construction of a Marxist or, inVygotsky's view, which we fully share, the construction of a purely scientificpsychology consisted only in the need to reconcile the basic propositions oftheoretical psychology with the "correct" ideological quotations fromMarx, then the task ... Then we would again be in an extremely difficultsituation, because the classics left us with different meanings on this topicand with which of them it is necessary to harmonize our theory in the firstplace, and with which in the second, it would still have to be solved byourselves. So in the 1970s soviet psychologists divided on thisissue into two camps clustered around two ?bosses?. A group of Moscow-Kharkovpsychologists, whose leader was AN Leontiev and to which Davydov and Ilyenkov undoubtedlybelonged, was inclined to the primacy of object oriented activity, that is, tothe formulation of the first, second and fifth thesis "Theses On Feuerbach",whereas a group of Leningrad psychologists, led by B.F. Lomov was inclined toformulations of the sixth thesis. In other words, "Muscovites" werefor activity, whereas "Leningraders" were for communication. Here, it is necessary, however, to clarify thatour reference to Marx's Theses on Feuerbach is not a literal reproduction of areal theoretical discussion, but our current reconstruction of its logic. Inreality, such a direct appeal to the texts and the authority of the classics ofMarxism in the 1970s was considered something rather indecent. The end of the discussion between supporters of"activity" and supporters of "communication" is alsocharacteristic. Lomov won a purely bureaucratic victory, convincing theideological authorities that, by organizing the international Vygotskyconference, Davydov was dragging through dangerous Zionist ideas. Davydov wasexpelled from the party and dismissed from the post of director of theInstitute of Psychology, and the dean of Leontief's psychology department wasappointed a well-known adherent of "communication" LeningraderBodalev. Thus, "communication" with the useful people in theideological department of the Central Committee of CPSU won a pure victory overthe supporters of scientific "activity." This concludes all meaningfuldiscussions in Soviet / Russian psychology. To the leadership of the Faculty ofPsychology were no longer allowed ?supporters of any kind of controversialscientific ideas. Davydov's short-term return to the Institute of Psychology ofRAE could not reverse the situation too. Let us return, however, to our sheep, that is,to "communication" and "activity." If we want to make our choice of the initialcategory, without looking back at the academic fashion, then for us as for thematerialists the choice is obvious. We will choose the one of the twocategories from which one can derive the entire diversity of human life,including another, the opposite category. And it is obvious that such aninitial category can only be object-oriented activity, for it is easy to deducecommunication from the latter, which is an attribute property of life. But fromcommunication, addressness, love, empathy and other such spiritually upliftingplots, we will not get life or object oriented activity with the greatestdiligence. And this is not an unsubstantiated assertion,but a fact realized in a theory called the "Theory of ReflexiveActivity", which demonstrates how inner reflexivity and the entireaffective sphere associated with it is first generated by objective activity atthe most basic level, in the evolution of life itself. Then a complex dialecticof the relation of activity and reflexivity in the course of the evolution ofmulticellular organisms is traced. And, finally, it demonstrates how theexternal reflexivity, that is, the relations of individuals, together andpractically producing their own lives, assumes a specifically human character,being a reflexivity, mediating the joint-tool activity of man. We emphasize that in the "Theory ofReflexive Activity" communication and the affective side of life are takennot as initial and independent concepts, of the origin of which no materialistcan say anything meaningful, but as necessarily inherent to object orientedactivity it?s REFLEXIVE side. The concept of reflexivity was introduced by mein my diploma thesis in 1988 and, it seems to me, it is a Marxist theoreticalsolution to the question of the relation of objective activity and"communication". In the same time, reflexive object oriented activity,that is, the active relation of the subject to the object and to itself, is theonly possible "germ cell" of the human, as, indeed, any other,psychology. ?????????????? ???? ?? ????? ?????????? ????? ??? ????, ????? ??????? ???????????????????? ???????, ?????? ???, ??? ????? ??????????? ? ???????? ?????????????????????, ??????? ????????? ? ?? ??????? ??????? ?????????? ????? https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS? ????????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????????? ???????. The format of the Internet chat is not the mostsuitable place for introducing such fundamental concepts, therefore, those whowant to understand the problem of the notorious "germ cell" shouldlook into not too large English text https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS and read it to the end :-). ?????? ????? ?? ??????? ORIGIN OF LIFE,PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian ???????? ?????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????, ???????????? ?? ???????, ??????????????? ??????????? ???????? https://www.avramus.com/app/download/5446025763/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%86+%D0%BF%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B.doc?t=1486819527. Dear Alfredo, Ivan et al The discussion really becomes more and moreinteresting, touching on the most fundamental categories. But before proceedingto the answers, a short replica apart? (replica aside) :-) Theoretical discussion can be productive only ifit is conducted in the context of a single theoretical approach, based on thegeneral principles accepted in its framework and shared by the debaters. Here,on the XMCA, such a common, unifying conception are usually considered thetheories of Vygotsky, Spinozism or even Marxism. Meanwhile, I am afraid thatthe course of our discussions reveals not just a difference, but a gap in theinterpretation of these concepts. For example, is semiotics compatible with theprinciple of activity, is Spinoza's materialistic monism compatible with theplurality of bases of the theory, that is, it is possible to consider bothobjective activity and communication as the "germ cell" of thetheory. Or maybe for completeness of the theory it is necessary to add to thesetwo principles something third, say - "subjectness"? I am convinced that without answering these andsimilar fundamental questions at the very beginning of our inquiry and withoutanswering them in the most general form, we are doomed to stumble on them atevery next step. But this leads us to another difficulty. Over and over again,returning the conversation to the most basic theoretical grounds, we comeacross the inevitable reproach that instead of discussing a substantivepsychological theory, based on which we can practically solve sociallysignificant problems, let us say, create a consistently democratic educationsystem, we draw everyone to the interesting only for us theoretical verbiageabout imposed on everyone in the teeth psychophysical problem, and the real orimaginary contradictions between Vygotsky and Leontiev. Believe me, it would be much more interestingfor me too to reflect on how to help find the path to education and culture forthe children of poor migrants from Central Asia in Moscow or migrants fromMexico to San Diego. ?Agitprop ? ? ? ? ? ? ?sticks ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?inmy teeth too, and I?d rather ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?compose ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ?romances for you - more profit in it ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? and more charm. But I ? ? ? ?subdued ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?myself, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? setting my heel on the throat ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?of my own song. ??????????????????????????????????? Vladimir Mayakovski ????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ??????????, ? ??? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????? ??????? ???????? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????????. ??? ? ? ? ????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???????, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ????????? ?? ????? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ??????????????????. ????????????????????????? ???????? ?????????? ??Among other things, such an over and over againforced return to the very foundation makes it difficult to understand eventhese very basics, for it forces us to return to the most abstract level allthe time, literally stuck in abstractions, instead of moving from the abstractto the concrete. Alfredo, you put in your post very interestingquestions about how to understand the principle of interaction as such andabout the relationship of object oriented activity to communication. Withpleasure I will answer them. I will only note in brackets that the detailedanswers to these questions have been formulated by me in my theoretic researchalmost thirty years ago ORIGIN OF LIFE,PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian ???????? ?????? ???????????? ????????????. Since 2006, an article with a brief outline of the principles of the"theory of reflexive activity" is available in English. It was evensent in published in English international journal... but for some strangereason was not published then or later. So, it's easy for me to answer both of yourquestions, especially since I can answer by quoting my old text https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS. But before I start to quote myself :-) I wouldlike to repeat - I completely agree with you that the interaction of thesubject and his object (predmet) should in no case be understood as asymmetrical interaction of two ready-made things. I'm not sure if such a falseapproach should be called a "dualism," the term dualism has in myopinion a fairly precise theoretical meaning that should not be expandedwithout special need, but it is obvious that such a logic of interaction ischaracteristic of the type of interaction that Hegel and Schelling called themechanism and chemism. When it comes to the object oriented activity of aliving organism, we are not dealing with the logic of abstract interaction, butwith the logic of positing, positing of the object (?????? ????????? ????????), or "organic" typeof interaction in the terminology of German classics. In other words,"positing" is also an interaction, but that is its highest,essentially different from the mechanism and the chemism type. Mechanism andchemism are symmetric, in the sense that one can not in principle separate out itsactive and passive side, on the contrary, in organic interaction, in the processof positing of an object one side is active, subjective, while the other ispassive, objective. There are many interesting differences between them, but letus return to this somehow later. In the meantime, the promised quote from mygraduation work of 1988: ?Activeor predmet directed (object oriented) relation can not be possibly comprehendedas interaction of two objects external to each other. For example, the suntaken abstractly, out of touch with the process of life, is neither ?predmet?for a plant, nor for astronomy. It receives a specific predmet qualityexclusively due to spontaneous activity of a green plant (or astronomer)?selecting? the sun as its predmet and ?scrupulously? imitating its celestialmovement with that of the plant leaves (with his telescope). That is to say that living, active or predmetrelation as such is possible only between a living, spontaneously actingsubject and a predmet positioned by its vital activity. Something else againis a stimulating-reactive relation, or a relation of irritability. Firstly, itis not spontaneous on the side of a subject being stimulated. Secondly, it isnot productive since the organism does not determine its predmet but has tosatisfy itself with accidental and therefore indifferent external influence.Thirdly, the response of the organism (if only it is not just a mechanisticaction of an external cause) can be conditioned only by abstract inner natureof the organism itself but in no way by the shape of the external thingindifferent to the organism incidentally coming into contact with its livingsubjectivity. To put it differently, we can find not the slightest trace ofpredmet directedness within a stimulating-reactive relation.? Now about the object oriented activity andcommunication, and it does not matter whether in the verbal form, or in theform of a special Mikhailovsky's "addressing" to another person. Which of these two categories should beconsidered primary and universal, in which of them we have to try to discernthe notorious "germ cell" of human consciousness (psyche) isessentially the main problem that has been and remains the central problem oftheoretical psychology associated with the names of Vygotsky, Leontyev andIlyenkov. To begin with, one preliminary consideration. Ifwe want to build scientific psychology in accordance with the famous Marxistmethod of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, whereas all three mentionedabove thinkers believed that the method of ascent, the method of"Capital", is the only scientifically correct method, to ignore whichmeans to condemn one's own theoretical discipline on vulgarity, then you willhave to choose one thing - either activity or communication. And at firstglance, the answer for any person who wants to be a Marxist is obvious - ofcourse, communication, of course sociality, for it is not for nothing that theclassic coined his famous sixth thesis, stating that ".?the human essenceis no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is theensemble of the social relations.. " And if the construction of a Marxist or, inVygotsky's view, which we fully share, the construction of a purely scientificpsychology consisted only in the need to reconcile the basic propositions oftheoretical psychology with the "correct" ideological quotations fromMarx, then the task ... Then we would again be in an extremely difficultsituation, because the classics left us with different meanings on this topicand with which of them it is necessary to harmonize our theory in the firstplace, and with which in the second, it would still have to be solved byourselves. So in the 1970s soviet psychologists divided on thisissue into two camps clustered around two ?bosses?. A group of Moscow-Kharkovpsychologists, whose leader was Leontiev and to which Davydov and Ilyenkov undoubtedlybelonged, was inclined to the primacy of object oriented activity, that is, tothe formulation of the first, second and fifth thesis of Marx's "Theses On Feuerbach",whereas a group of Leningrad psychologists, led by Lomov was inclined toformulations of the sixth thesis. In other words, "Moscovites" werefor "activity", whereas "Leningraders" were for "communication". Here, it is necessary, however, to clarify thatour reference to Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach" is not a literal reproduction of areal theoretical discussion, but our current reconstruction of its logic. Inreality, such a direct appeal to the texts and the authority of the classics ofMarxism in the 1970s was considered something rather indecent. The end of the discussion between supporters of"activity" and supporters of "communication" is alsocharacteristic. Lomov won a purely bureaucratic victory, convincing theideological authorities that, by organizing the international Vygotskyconference, Davydov was dragging through dangerous Zionist ideas. Davydov wasexpelled from the party and dismissed from the post of director of theInstitute of Psychology, and the dean of Leontief's psychology department wasappointed a well-known adherent of "communication" LeningraderBodalev. Thus, "communication" with the useful people in theideological department of the Central Committee of CPSU won a pure victory overthe supporters of scientific "activity." This concludes all meaningfuldiscussions in Soviet / Russian psychology. To the leadership of the Faculty ofPsychology were no longer allowed ?supporters of any kind of controversialscientific ideas. Davydov's short-term return to the Institute of Psychology ofRAE could not reverse the situation too. Let us return, however, to our sheep, that is,to "communication" and "activity." If we want to make our choice of the initialcategory, without looking back at the academic fashion, then for us as for thematerialists the choice is obvious. We will choose the one of the twocategories from which one can derive the entire diversity of human life,including another, the opposite category. And it is obvious that such aninitial category can only be object-oriented activity, for it is easy to deducecommunication from the object oriented activity, which is an attribute property of life. But fromcommunication, "addressness", love, empathy and other such spiritually upliftingplots, we will never get life or object oriented activity even with the greatestdiligence. And this is not an unsubstantiated assertion,but a fact realized in a theory called the "Theory of ReflexiveActivity", which demonstrates how inner reflexivity and the entireaffective sphere associated with it is first generated by objective activity atthe most basic level, in the evolution of life itself. Then a complex dialecticof the relation of activity and reflexivity in the course of the evolution ofmulticellular organisms is traced.?And, finally, it demonstrates how theexternal reflexivity, that is, the relations of individuals, together andpractically producing their own lives, assumes a specifically human character,being a reflexivity, mediating the joint-tool activity of man. We emphasize that in the "Theory ofReflexive Activity" communication and the affective side of life are takennot as initial and independent concepts, of the origin of which no materialistcan say anything meaningful, but as necessarily inherent to object orientedactivity it?s REFLEXIVE side. The concept of reflexivity was introduced in my diploma thesis in 1988 and, it seems to me, it is a Marxist theoreticalsolution to the question of the relation of objective activity and"communication". In the same time, reflexive object oriented activity,that is, the active relation of the subject to the object and to itself, is theonly possible "germ cell" of the human, as, indeed, any other,psychology. The format of the Internet chat is not the mostsuitable place for introducing such fundamental concepts, therefore, those whowant to understand the problem of the notorious "germ cell" shouldlook into not too large English text https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS and read it to the end :-). The full Russian text: ORIGIN OF LIFE,PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian ???????? ?????? ???????????? ???????????? Finally short Russian text which corresponds to short English one https://www.avramus.com/app/download/5446025763/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%86+%D0%BF%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B.doc?t=1486819527. Sasha ? ? From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sat Sep 30 23:14:29 2017 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2017 23:14:29 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hegel's Headstand In-Reply-To: References: <4a76c063-90f7-24bc-1e47-e405203abbfc@mira.net> Message-ID: Andy: Thanks for that. In return--this is Gramsci, complaining again that Engels is a radical realist in philosophy.. "The scientific 'experience' (i.e. experiment--DK) is the first cell of the new method of work, of the new form of active union between man and nature: the scientist-experimenter is a 'worker', an industrial and agricultural producer--he is not pure mind--he is also, or rather he is the first instance of, a man whom the historical process has freed from the position of walking on his head in order to let him walk on his feet." Gramsci, Q. (1975) Prison Notebooks, Vol. II New York: Columbia University Press, p. 197. David Kellogg On 9/28/17, Andy Blunden wrote: > David, see > https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm > > "It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon > its head": ... and in the footnote: > > Hegel in the Philosophy of History, speaking of the French > Revolution: > > ?Thought, the concept of law, all at once made itself > felt, and against this the old scaffolding of wrong > could make no stand. In this conception of law, > therefore, a constitution has now been established, and > henceforth everything must be based upon this. Since the > Sun had been in the firmament, and the planets circled > around him, the sight had never been seen of man > standing upon his head ? i.e., on the Idea ? and > building reality after this image. Anaxagoras first said > that the Nous, Reason, rules the world; but now, for the > first time, had men come to recognize that the Idea must > rule the mental reality. And this was a magnificent > sunrise. All thinking Beings have participated in > celebrating this holy day. A sublime emotion swayed men > at that time, an enthusiasm of reason pervaded the > world, as if now had come the reconciliation of the > Divine Principle with the world.? > > Andy > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 26/09/2017 7:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote: >> In any case, it's not in Philosophy of Right, although >> there Hegel does write about the French Revolution at some >> length and with considerable asperity. >> >> Gramsci is essentially a linguist and not a sociologist. >> That explains his sensitivity to "bookish" modes of >> expression as opposed to conversational registers in Hegel. >> >> Anyway, we can see from this little example from Chapter >> Two of Thinking and Speech just what Vygotsky meant by >> "mastering the whole of Marx's method" and "writing >> psychology's Capital" rather than simply stitching quotes >> together. >> >> In the pedology (end of Early Childhood, and also the >> passage on the omnirelevance of speech at the end of >> Crisis at One), Vygotsky refers to Marx with a certain >> apophasis, to say that he could cite Marx here--but it >> would be out of context and people might assume that it is >> sufficient proof of what he wants to say about >> speech--still, it would show the penetrating quality of >> Marx's method. That's what he's doing in Chapter Two: >> citing Marx by not citing him. Gramsci does a lot of that >> too. >> >> David Kellogg >> >> On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:11 PM, Andy Blunden >> > wrote: >> >> While it is possible that Hegel said that, I don't >> know where and I haven't heard that before. I must >> have missed it in Gramsci. >> >> Marx was about 11 when Hegel died, so he never heard >> Hegel speak personally, but he was immersed in a >> milieu of Left Hegelians in a Germany in love with >> Hegel until 1841, when Marx was about 22. So he >> certainly has a "conversational" familiarity with Hegel! >> >> andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> On 25/09/2017 6:01 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> Andy: >>> >>> Gramsci has this, on p. 232 of the Complete Prison >>> Notebooks, Vol.1, New York: Columbia University >>> Press, 1975. >>> >>> ?In studying Marx?s Hegelianism one should remember >>> (especially given Marx?s eminently practical-critical >>> character) that Marx participated in German >>> university life very shortly after Hegel?s death, >>> when there must still have been a most vivid memory >>> of Hegel?s ?oral? teachings and of the passionate >>> discussions about concrete history which these >>> teaching generated?that is, discussions in which the >>> historical concreteness of Hegel?s though must have >>> stood out much more clearly that it does in his >>> systematic writings. Some of Marx?s assertions, it >>> seems to me, should be considered in special relation >>> to this ?conversational? vivacity: for instance, the >>> statement that Hegel ?has men walking on their >>> heads?. Hegel really does use this image when dealing >>> with the French Revolution; he writes that at a >>> certain time during the French Revolution (when the >>> new state structure was organized) ?it seemed? that >>> the world was walking on its head or something of the >>> sort (c.f.). I think that Croce asks (search the >>> reference) from where Marx derived this image; it >>> certainly is in one of Hegel?s books (perhaps the >>> Philosophy of Right, I don?t remember). However, it >>> seems to me that, given the persistence with which >>> Marx returns to it (I think that Marx repeats the >>> image; check), it seems to me that at a certain time >>> it was a topic of conversationi: it really seems to >>> have sprung out of conversation, fresh, spontaneous, >>> so little ?bookish??. >>> >>> The editor of the book remarks that Gramsci seems to >>> have in mind the ?Postface? to the second edition of >>> Capital. However, this is simply the Marx, not the >>> Hegel: it?s the passage Lenin (and Vygotsky) referred >>> to ?Sie steht bei ihm auf dem Kopf. Man muss sie >>> umst?lpen, um den rationellen Kern in der mystischen >>> H?lle zu entdecken.? While reading this over, I >>> realized that Vygotsky, in Chapter Two of Thinking >>> and Speech where he cites this passage in Lenin, >>> cites it for good reason. The whole chapter is >>> essentially doing to Piaget what Marx did to Hegel. >>> Vygotsky, more than anyone alive at that time, >>> understood Piaget's extraordinary contribution, and >>> what Marx says of Hegel could easily have been said >>> by Vygotsky of Piaget: "Die Mystifikation, welche die >>> Dialektik in Hegels H?nden erleidet, verhindert in >>> keiner Weise, dass er ihre allegeminen >>> Bewegungsformen zuerst in umfassander und bewusster >>> Weise dargestellt hat." Having admitted that Piaget >>> was the first to present the child's thinking in its >>> general form of motion in a comprehensive and >>> conscious manner, Vygotsky then goes on to stand >>> Piaget on his head, by inverting >>> "autism-->egocentrism-->social speech" to "social >>> speech-->egocentric speech-->inner speech". >>> David Kellogg >>> >> >> > >