[Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical

Tue Mar 20 01:17:21 PDT 2018

 You will find interesting discussions of human/language origins here  http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ Generative anthropology [GA] is the work of the American classicist Eric Gans drawing on the work of Rene Gerard (Gans was a student of Gerard). It illuminates Derrida(explicitly) and Vygotsky unknowingly. Here is a snippet:

The sign, as we have noted, is the conversion of a gesture begun in imitation of the model’s appropriative gesture into the “imitation” of the object that was the aim of this gesture. In performing the sign, I abandon my imitation of the other’s original intention of appropriating the object; I turn back from the object we desire in common. In consequence, my situation in performing this gesture is once again compatible with that of the other, whose action can take place simultaneously with mine without any danger of convergence on the object. The two gestures are not parallel as before, they are both directed toward the object, but they no longer seek to remove it from its central position. The object has now become the center of a scene [of language].

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: 19 March 2018 23:37
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical

Oh dear! I had no idea what I was going to open here.

All my lights - Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky - make a qualitative distinction between sign-use and tool-use and Vygotsky made a big deal of the distinction, and for his own reasons, at the time, wrote with some passion against the idea of lumping the two together as "artefact-mediated actions." While I think that the evolutionary origins of these two forms of action are tied up together, I have long been intrigued by the question of which leads which, and whether this is a sensible question at all? Engels was sure that cooperative tool-use stimulated the need for language but I am not so sure. There is a philosophical-type argument which says that by fashioning external objects as proxies for human powers fosters the mental shift required for symbolic speech. But there are lots of things people can do together before they make tools.

But I am interested in the paleontology of this. The changes in the position of the larynx in particular which made speech physically possible for hominids, and on the other hand, the evidence of stone tools. The 150,000-350,000 years ago figure comes from linguistic analysis to do with the rate of phoneme loss, but the descended larynx must presumably predate the use of a universal language by a long time. Some people put the origins of speech-ability back to
2 million years ago, and stone tools go back further. But then again, stone tools didn't develop much at all for millions of years, and the really rapid development in tool-use is very recent, much more recent than the origin of universal languages.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 20/03/2018 2:08 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> So are you completely throwing out the Pragmatist view of language, that is was developed by humans to meet needs within their particular development canals? (pace Waddington). Are you taking a Chomskina view?
>
> As far as Vygotsky, I have a bias as seeing him have strong affiliations with the American pragmatist of the early 20th century.
>
> What would the cultural historical view be (the reason it might be okay to keep the subject line).
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David H Kirshner
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 10:57 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> I hope this question is addressed. 
> Language is different from technology in the sense that it has not been designed by humans (who still struggle to understand it's structures). 
> Of course, a rock which is used as a weapon also has not been designed by humans.
> Still, in picking up a rock to use as a weapon, the wielder is cognizant of its size and shape, and uses it deliberatively and strategically. 
> In some cases, language is used in a similar deliberative and strategic sense to accomplish ends. But as I understand it, the Vygotskian understanding of language as a tool references language in its non-deliberative and strategic deployment, so the usual prescriptions that apply to understanding tools and technologies does not apply.  
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 9:13 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> Isn't spoken language a technology?
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 9:08 AM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> The thing that intrigues me  is that it seems that spoken language pre-dates (at 150-350,000 years ago) the rapid development in technology.
> I thought the migration patterns were pretty well settled by now, and 
> that "hobbit" found in Flores is a diversion),
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 19/03/2018 11:50 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> Somewhere in the discussion of Monica and Fernando's article, 
>> Fernando made the remark that history does not know "ifs". Similarly, 
>> Monica implied at one point that large technological changes must be 
>> taken as given; they are not something over which humans have 
>> control. But even if we accept the "Out of Africa" story which this 
>> article undermines, we are left with the apparently conscious 
>> decision of early hominids to leave the home continent, something none of the other great apes ever determined upon.
>> Vygotsky remarked that rudiments of all four forms of higher 
>> behavior--instinct, enculturation, creativity, and free will that is 
>> none of these--appear even in infancy. So it appears that free will 
>> was always part of anthropogenesis, and consequently that 
>> history--including present history--knows nothing but ifs. We just 
>> don't see the others because we are sitting in one of them.
>>
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>>
>> Recent Article in *Early Years*
>>
>> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises, and 
>> the child’s first interrogatives 
>> <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
>>
>> Free e-print available at:
>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 7:33 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> This synoptic story of the current state of research on human 
>>> origins seems relevant to the cultural-historical folks around.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/human-evolution-
>>> australia-asia/?utm_source=SAPIENS.org+Subscribers&utm_
>>> campaign=1b31c25316-Email+Blast+12.22.2017&utm_medium=
>>> email&utm_term=0_18b7e41cd8-1b31c25316-199570669
>>>
>
>
>