[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

Annalisa, I have to admit that I don't fully know the answers to your questions. I do however try to understand some of these issues and I can share some of the main headlines that tend to help me make sense around them.


With respect to the issue of whether affect or cognition comes first, this seems to be the debate that Vygosky begun writing extensively about in his unfinished last work, and his critique, I read Vygotsky arguing that the two opposite positions (affect comes first, affect comes later) is based on a wrong dichotomy splitting psychological (meanings, ideas, cognition) from physiological (visceral, bodily, feelings). Arguing for a Spinozist monist position, Vygotsky seem to be pursuing a psycho-physiciological account in which both aspects are accounted for in their unity. A dialectical materialist position, which seeks to understand phenomena as objective and historical, that is, as having emerged in and through history and not prior to or apart from this history, further demands that this unity is accounted for as having emerged in history. Vygotsky took this genetic approach in all other areas of investigation and I would expect him to also pursue this here. That is why I was commenting on the assertion of affect before or after or without cognition, because I think that for Vygotsky, the interesting thing was to examine how the type of affect that characterizes humans, which is one in which such societal concepts as solitude, dignity, etc... determine emotions. How do emotions develop into this more complex societal phenomena? Leont'ev shows this type of genetic explanation in his analysis of how irritability and sensation (basic features of living beings) emerged from the most simple life forms (Leont'ev, Problems of development of the mind, 1981).

Yes, Vygotsky did not succeed much in carrying forward this investigation on the affects, despite clear statements that this was his goal. I am very excited to see, however, how there is a raise of interest and awareness on this area, and there are a number of articles on this aspect coming up soon in MCA. We should definitely get to discuss some of them.

Alfredo
________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: 13 August 2018 09:27
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day

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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