[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Alfredo and venerable others,

I hoped to respond to this:

I had posted > "Was it the case that Vygotsky was interested in opening that up for examination (the "that" being positive regard), because it has to do with emotion and affect, and not cognition. Though sometimes it almost feels that he set emotion to the side to deal with later. Or am I wrong about that."

Alfredo responded > To me Vygotsky was pursuing a Spinozist, dialectical materialist approach to the question of affect, and so I don't think your statement "has to do with emotion and affect, and not cognition" would have made any sense to him. What is the relation of affect to thinking and this relation changes would have been closer to the kind of question I would have attributed to Vygotky's line of thinking.

Damasio, who was also inspired by Spinoza, found that affect occurs before cognition, and that we require affect in order to think. So Alfredo, does that then mean Vygotsky put thought before affect, if I am understanding you properly in terms of dialectical materialism, with affect arising after?

Another way to consider what you say is that he considered the *relation* of affect to thinking, which then could include then that affect does impact thinking (because it happens beforehand), and we certainly can vouch for that when we react before thinking things through.

Alfredo, I would appreciate if you might say more what you mean when stating "a Spinozist, dialectical materialist approach" I am not sure I understand what you mean. How Spinozist? How dialectical materialist?

Remember this has to do in relation to positive regard, that Vygotsky was interested in positive regard BECAUSE OF affect, not because of cognition.  I said what I did, perhaps not very clearly, because there is so much on thought and language in Vygotsky's work, but emotions and affect sem peripheral, they don't appear as prominently, and that is why I say it almost seems like something he put off for later.

Kind regards,

Annalisa




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