[Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth

[Andy Blunden]

So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings
before there was culture. And I gather you do not count
tools as units of culture.
Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word
"meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill?
Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers
/some/ explanation for the existence of human life.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> Hi Bill,
> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that
> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this
> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every
> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two
> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the
> relation between two people before you see it in individuals...
>
> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species
> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where
> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that
> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct
> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for
> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when
> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for
> building anything like "meaning?"
>
> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before
> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis).
>
> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened
> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup
> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists
> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness.
> Personality*).
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all
>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying
>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and
>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can’t be reduced to individual
>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words,
>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the
>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal
>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a
>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real
>> deal is an integrated thinking body.
>>
>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they
>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist.
>>
>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether
>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice,
>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative
>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers under
>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of “what works”.
>>
>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See
>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories
>>
>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting
>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's
>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something
>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke’s enactivism
>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list could
>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to develop
>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. As
>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no
>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn.
>>
>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to
>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied
>> learning theory.
>>