[Xmca-l] Re: Passions, (Projects?) and Interests

Sat Jan 12 13:16:44 PST 2019

Well, as we know, the ideas that Vygotsky is tussling with in this chapter
(The Development of Interests in the Transitional Age, CW Volume Five) are
not his. "Quasi-Bedurfnisse", for example, is from Lewin, and “temporary
needs”, which lives on in the form of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, is
probably from Max Wertheimer, who taught both Maslow and Lewin. Vygotsky
spends a whole section of this chapter criticizing Lewin (section 4).

Section 2 is the temporary needs section. Vygotsky introduces Thorndike,
for whom interests are simply a byproduct of skills. You take a four year
old, make the child practice the piano for three hours a day, and in a
couple of years the child will develop the feel for music that Vygotsky
thinks should be the goal of musical education. Just as the James-Lange
theory of emotion derives emotion from action instead of the other way
around, the Thorndike theory starts with skill and derives
interest--interest is inherent in the practice of a skill.

Then Vygotsky introduces McDougall (an anti-Darwinian who was appalled by
the democratic implications of Thorndike). McDougall shows that, pace
Thorndike, interest isn't inherent in the practice of a skill. If I start
saying the the alphabet ("a, b, c...") I may find that I feel an "interest"
in finishing it ("...x, y, z"). If you interrupt me at the letter "k", I
might feel...well, interrupted, and somehow frustrated. An experimenter
might then jump to Thorndike's conclusion. But suppose the experimenter
sets me the task of discovering whether "k" is the tenth letter of the
alphabet or the eleventh letter. Now, if you interrupt me at "k" I feel
nothing at all. For McDougall--and for Vygotsky--this shows that interest
is NOT intrinsic to skill at all, but instead inheres in the motive for
which the skill developed in the first place (1998: 5)

Wait a minute. It's easy to see why McDougall finds this example
convincing: he wants to show that interests and mechanisms of behavior are
separable: the former are congenital and the latter are not (but, as a
Lamarckian and a racist with very strong aristocratic tendancies, McDougall
believes that BOTH are inheritable!)

But why does Vygotsky like this stuff? Neither saying “x, y, z” nor finding
out if “k” is the tenth or the eleventh letter of the English alphabet has
anything to do with the creative, free will we see when an adolescent
chooses a profession or a partner, and that is the “need” that Vygotsky is
really writing about here: it's "temporary" only in the sense that it is
culturally given rather than biologically so.

I can think of three reasons why Vygotsky might like the experiment:
methodological, theoretical, and purely polemical. Methodologically,
Vygotsky often takes gedankenexperimenten like this as exercises in
abstraction. Sure, they lack the rich empirical content of clinical or
classroom data, just as an everyday concept lacks the rich empirical
content of everyday life. But for that very reason they will give you a
conclusion in a purified, rarified logical form, just like a scientific
concept does. (Note that Vygotsky argues, on p. 10, that the key to the
problem of interests was found by the noted experimentalist G.W.F.
Hegel!) That’s why Vygotsky is willing to use the “selection reaction” in
HDHMF, even though there is no actual selection in it. That’s why Vygotsky
gives us an imaginary account of how gesture develops from an action in
itself to an action for itself. It’s not an empirical experiment but a
logical, Hegelian, one.

Theoretically, I think that Vygotsky really DOES believe that interests are
separable from the mechanisms of behavior. Otherwise, mediated action in
general would be impossible. Otherwise, we could never ask a child to learn
a skill for eight hours a day with no actual sensuous outcome for years on
end, and we couldn’t ask children to repress their sexual impulses for a
whole decade untli they can afford “big car”, “big house”, “big rings” (as
BTS put it).

Negatively, Vygotsky is not trying to prove that McDougall is right. He’s
only trying to prove that Thorndike is wrong, and McDougall’s “temporary
need” is sufficient for that purpose.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New in *Language and Literature*, co-authored with Fang Li:
Mountains in labour: Eliot’s ‘Atrocities’ and Woolf’s
alternatives
Show all authors

https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947018805660

On Sun, Jan 13, 2019 at 3:46 AM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:

> As we know, Vygotsky juggles a large number of ideas. If one wants to
> arrive at a Vygotskian view of these ideas, then one needs to relate them.
> In isolation they are vague and slippery. Together they are still vague
> where Vygotsky remained undeveloped, hence I would say one needs to go
> beyond Vygotsky's writings to see how the significant fragments that
> Vygotsky presents fit together. This, for me, is a side effect, I have not
> set out to explain Vygotsky.
>
> Fundamentally, cognition is about the coordination of action. Needs,
> however one frames them, are addressed through action. Successful
> realisation of needs arise through relating to the world, to society, to
> family, to artefacts etc. These coordinations and relations are achieved
> through what we call knowledge and the fundamental, developmental, features
> of this knowledge is that they become reorganised. Knowing how to find out
> is epistemological knowledge. Shifts in one's personal epistemology also
> entails shifts in one's ontology.
>
> There is no single cultural "epistemological form" this is quite obvious
> from the first volume of Vygotsky. From my position, epistemological forms
> are developmental. Culture can support and hinder this aspect. From my
> position, focusing upon culture as a universal medium is abstracting away a
> great deal concerning personal meanings. In my paper I introduce a model of
> epistemological forms which helps to make all the relations that the theory
> touches upon more tangible, albeit simplified.
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
> On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 at 17:43, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
>> I know this may sound obtuse, Huw. But the concept of need in both LSV
>> and ANL has always
>> seemed very slippery to me. Presumably a long term need is to obtain
>> enough food, shelter......
>> but that involves social transactions that are culturally mediated.
>> Reproduction is a species need in one way and
>> I guess my felt need to check out how Arsenal is faring is short term.
>> But its long term equivalent? Seems more than epistemic/ontological. I am
>> not sure where sexual interests fit in.
>>
>> Can this be explained in a manner that this struggling person can
>> understand?
>>
>> mike
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 8:49 AM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Vygotsky likens them to temporary needs.
>>>
>>> Huw
>>>
>>> On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 at 00:36, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ah, so interests are the affective ingredient that accompanies the
>>>> point of.view?  A subjtive object?
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 3:58 PM James Ma <jamesma320@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Interests have much to do with intentionality - and there is always a
>>>>> subjective angle from which the object (interests) is viewed - I don't
>>>>> recall coming across Vygotsky alluding to this.
>>>>> To illustrate my point, I use the term "evidentiality" (which in
>>>>> linguistics refers to statements being explicitly marked to show the source
>>>>> of the speaker's information, e.g. "I witnessed this"). It goes without
>>>>> saying that privileged access bears on one's interest (a state of being
>>>>> interested, or an act of taking an interest, in something). Thus, one
>>>>> person's interest is always a "secondary evidential" from another person's
>>>>> viewpoint, in which case another person has to make inference through sense
>>>>> perception, mediated by contextual factors (e.g. interpersonal, ideational
>>>>> and textual).
>>>>>
>>>>> James
>>>>>
>>>>> *_______________________________________________________*
>>>>>
>>>>> *James Ma  Independent Scholar *
>>>>> *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
>>>>> <https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa>   *
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 11 Jan 2019 at 16:48, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So interests are curiosity, Huw?
>>>>>> Didn’t “Psychology of Art” have something to to do with Emotions,
>>>>>> David?
>>>>>> 10 Volumes (!) of LSV! Wow.
>>>>>> Mike
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 5:58 AM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For Vygotsky, interests are intentions.  Although he recognises that
>>>>>>> Lewin's structural theory is inadequate with regard to discerning the
>>>>>>> essence of interests, his own writings in that chapter focus upon
>>>>>>> developmental patterns of interests, and he does not get around to being
>>>>>>> explicit about what is behind interest -- what is really driving it. To a
>>>>>>> certain extent this is answered with the social situation of development,
>>>>>>> but unless one reads between the lines there is a great deal of vagueness,
>>>>>>> such as with reference to psychological functions.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have a rather large theoretical paper I am completing on this to
>>>>>>> compliment some empirical work. What I state is that it is epistemology
>>>>>>> (and ontology) that is the interest behind interest.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>> Huw
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, 11 Jan 2019 at 12:08, Moises Esteban-Guitart <
>>>>>>> moises.esteban@udg.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That's an interesting question that I asked myself when I read
>>>>>>>> EDUCATIONAL
>>>>>>>> PSYCHOLOGY by Vygotsky "from one interest of the child’s to a new
>>>>>>>> interest
>>>>>>>> —that is the rule” (Vygotsky, 1926/1997a, p. 86). My conclusion was
>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> it depends on the biographical moment (see pp. 393 to 396 document
>>>>>>>> attached). By the way, in his "Educational Psychology" he wrote on
>>>>>>>> sex too
>>>>>>>> ("Education on the sex instinct", pp. 71-77), however I didn't
>>>>>>>> explore
>>>>>>>> this.
>>>>>>>> m
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> > David,
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > I would imagine the reference to interest relates to the STUDENTS'
>>>>>>>> > interest: meaning that whatever way it is approached it needs to
>>>>>>>> be
>>>>>>>> > introduced from and in relation to the students' current
>>>>>>>> > knowledge/interest/developmental stage as opposed to being
>>>>>>>> imposed in a
>>>>>>>> > decontextualised way.
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > At least I think that's what's going on here...
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Julie
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >> Sorry, Rob. I mean fifteen hours a year. The government has
>>>>>>>> itinerant
>>>>>>>> >> specialists who lecture from school to school. There is even a
>>>>>>>> bus for
>>>>>>>> >> visiting the provinces.
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> In contrast, Vygotsky says:
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> a) No class with ONLY sex education--since anatomical, sexual,
>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> >> sociocultural maturation do not coincide in modern humans, sex
>>>>>>>> education
>>>>>>>> >> is
>>>>>>>> >> not a science of a natural whole, where the object of study is
>>>>>>>> given to
>>>>>>>> >> us.
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> b) No classes WITHOUT sex education--since sex education is
>>>>>>>> simply
>>>>>>>> >> learning
>>>>>>>> >> how to be with people who may be of sexual interest, all classes
>>>>>>>> must
>>>>>>>> >> have
>>>>>>>> >> some form of sexual "enlightenment".
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> c) No sex education without INTEREST. But what, exactly, is
>>>>>>>> interest?
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>> >> Sangmyung University
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> New in *Language and Literature*, co-authored with Fang Li:
>>>>>>>> >> Mountains in labour: Eliot’s ‘Atrocities’ and Woolf’s
>>>>>>>> >> alternatives
>>>>>>>> >> Show all authors
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947018805660
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >> On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 5:40 PM robsub@ariadne.org.uk
>>>>>>>> >> <robsub@ariadne.org.uk>
>>>>>>>> >> wrote:
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >>> Fifteen hours a week???
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> I hope it's not all practicals - the teachers would be
>>>>>>>> exhausted.
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> In the UK nowadays the very inadequate thing we do in schools
>>>>>>>> is called
>>>>>>>> >>> Sex and Relationship Education. The "and Relationship" bit was
>>>>>>>> tacked
>>>>>>>> >>> on
>>>>>>>> >>> some time in the 90s or maybe early 2000s, if I recall rightly.
>>>>>>>> They
>>>>>>>> >>> missed
>>>>>>>> >>> a trick there - they should have put it the other way round
>>>>>>>> >>> "Relationship
>>>>>>>> >>> and Sex Education". A very large lump of the population go into
>>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>>> >>> tabloid
>>>>>>>> >>> induced panic as soon as they hear the word "sex", especially
>>>>>>>> when
>>>>>>>> >>> related
>>>>>>>> >>> to children, and then fail to hear the "and relationship" it.
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> Rob
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> On 11/01/2019 07:14, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> Last July in Geneva, I got into a bit of a tiff with my hosts
>>>>>>>> over
>>>>>>>> >>> whether
>>>>>>>> >>> or not Vygotsky had a theory of emotion. The commonplace
>>>>>>>> position,
>>>>>>>> >>> taken
>>>>>>>> >>> by
>>>>>>>> >>> almost all high Vygotskyans including my francophone friends,
>>>>>>>> is that
>>>>>>>> >>> Vygotsky spent too much of his life developing a theory of
>>>>>>>> thinking and
>>>>>>>> >>> intellect, complexes and concept formation, and when he turned
>>>>>>>> his
>>>>>>>> >>> attention to the lower and higher emotions, that dark side of
>>>>>>>> the moon,
>>>>>>>> >>> it
>>>>>>>> >>> was too late. He worked out a kind of prolegomena, in the form
>>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>> >>> "Teaching
>>>>>>>> >>> on the Emotions" (or "Study of the Emotions" or perhaps "The
>>>>>>>> Doctrine
>>>>>>>> >>> of
>>>>>>>> >>> the Emotions"--you can read what he did in Volume 6 of the
>>>>>>>> Collected
>>>>>>>> >>> Works). And the rest was silence.
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> Here in Korea we are bringing out our tenth volume of
>>>>>>>> Vygotsky's works
>>>>>>>> >>> (see attached cover, with blurbs from Renee Van der Veer and
>>>>>>>> Irina
>>>>>>>> >>> Leopoldoff-Martin). It's all about sex education, which is a
>>>>>>>> very
>>>>>>>> >>> important
>>>>>>>> >>> topic here in Korea, because we have fifteen hours of sex
>>>>>>>> education a
>>>>>>>> >>> week
>>>>>>>> >>> mandated by the government, but the ministry of education has
>>>>>>>> more or
>>>>>>>> >>> less
>>>>>>>> >>> withdrawn the downloadable materials for this, not for the usual
>>>>>>>> >>> reasons
>>>>>>>> >>> but instead because of criticism from Human Rights Watch (it is
>>>>>>>> >>> terribly
>>>>>>>> >>> sexist, homophobic, and just plain ignorant).
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> Vygosky's view is that sex education (which he calls "sexual
>>>>>>>> >>> enlightenment") has to be integrated into ALL subjects (so for
>>>>>>>> example
>>>>>>>> >>> the
>>>>>>>> >>> test of a good sex enlightenment programme would be one that
>>>>>>>> ensures
>>>>>>>> >>> equal
>>>>>>>> >>> participation of boys and girls in math and physics), it has to
>>>>>>>> start
>>>>>>>> >>> as
>>>>>>>> >>> soon as preschoolers enter primary school, and it has to be
>>>>>>>> >>> INTERESTING.
>>>>>>>> >>> In
>>>>>>>> >>> other words, instead of the "sex education without sex"
>>>>>>>> programme we
>>>>>>>> >>> have
>>>>>>>> >>> here in South Korea, we need non-sex education...but with a
>>>>>>>> good deal
>>>>>>>> >>> of
>>>>>>>> >>> sex.
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> All of which has got me thinking about the problem my Geneva
>>>>>>>> friends
>>>>>>>> >>> set
>>>>>>>> >>> before me. I think that Vygotsky really DOES have a theory that
>>>>>>>> unites
>>>>>>>> >>> passions and interests. It's like that book by Hirschmann on
>>>>>>>> how the
>>>>>>>> >>> unity
>>>>>>>> >>> of passion and interest gave rise to capitalism, but instead it
>>>>>>>> is all
>>>>>>>> >>> about how passions, shared projects, and interests give rise to
>>>>>>>> sexual
>>>>>>>> >>> love, and it is more or less right before we would expect to
>>>>>>>> find it:
>>>>>>>> >>> in
>>>>>>>> >>> the Pedology of the Adolescent, right before the chapter on
>>>>>>>> concept
>>>>>>>> >>> formation, which shows how complexes (which are categories for
>>>>>>>> others)
>>>>>>>> >>> become concepts (categories for themselves). This is the
>>>>>>>> chapter on
>>>>>>>> >>> interests, which explains how passions (which are sensations in
>>>>>>>> >>> themselves)
>>>>>>>> >>> become interests: that is, emotions for themselves. (There is
>>>>>>>> already a
>>>>>>>> >>> passable translation of this in Volume Five of the CW). The
>>>>>>>> only thing
>>>>>>>> >>> is
>>>>>>>> >>> there is a need for a transitional form--a feeling with others.
>>>>>>>> Andy's
>>>>>>>> >>> idea
>>>>>>>> >>> of the Project?
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>> >>> Sangmyung University
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> New in *Language and Literature*, co-authored with Fang Li:
>>>>>>>> >>> Mountains in labour: Eliot’s ‘Atrocities’ and Woolf’s
>>>>>>>> >>> alternatives
>>>>>>>> >>> Show all authors
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>> https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947018805660
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Dra. Julie Waddington
>>>>>>>> > Departament de Didàctiques Específiques
>>>>>>>> > Facultat d'Educació i Psicologia
>>>>>>>> > Universitat de Girona
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Moisès Esteban Guitart
>>>>>>>> Dpt de psicologia
>>>>>>>> Director - Institut de Recerca Educativa -
>>>>>>>> Facultat d'Educació i Psicologia
>>>>>>>> Universitat de Girona
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Grup de recerca "Cultura i Educació" (GRC  2017SGR19)
>>>>>>>> https://culturaieducacio.cat
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Responsable a la Universitat de Girona del Postgrau
>>>>>>>> Interuniversitari en
>>>>>>>> Psicologia de l'educació MIPE-DIPE http://mipe.psyed.edu.es/ca
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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