[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Sat Aug 15 20:10:19 PDT 2020
Francine, you are completely right that Vygotsky's use of
words is inconsistent and evolves over time.
How should we deal with this?
I don't believe there is any way to definitively settle
disputes over the meaning of the various passages.
Interpretation is inescapable. But my approach is this:
Vygotsky saw himself as a Marxist and although, as I have
argued, he had little direct knowledge of Hegel, he aligned
himself with that wing of Marxism which was "Hegelian." I
see this as evidenced by his change of opinion c. 1930 on
the meaning of "true concept," in his frequent citation of
Lenin's /Philosophical Notebooks/, and his allusions to
Hegel, his declaration about Psychology needing its own
/Capital/ and in general I find this proves to be a
satisfactory frame for interpretation of Vygotsky, inclusive
of the fact that within the terms of this frame he sometimes
makes mistakes.
This approach is helped by having people like Ilyenkov who
/are/ careful about their use of words, and /have/ read
Hegel, etc., as assistants in reading Vygotsky. Plus you
have to add what I have referred to as a "generous" reading
of Vygotsky. Vygotsky is in the process of building the
frame from which he can be read. But he is not building that
frame alone.
This approach obviously doesn't help everyone and will not
definitively close any dispute about Vygotsky's meaning, but
it /is/ a valid approach and it works for me.
So it is in that context that I say that "consciousness" is
a very broad term for Marxists, inclusive of the totality of
mental processes in an organism. The verb "to be conscious
/of/" is a different concept, as is the adjective in
"/conscious/ awareness." These are distinctions which are
far from being unique to Vygotsky. But I would generally
look elsewhere in the same paradigm to get clues on their
meaning, though sometimes it is necessary to look at
contemporaneous usage among non-Marxist Psychologists.
It's never simple. But not impossible.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!UDLXqNKChotxPqKt3KuFt7ZohSOuV45cbrng0blGdeR_zYamLIrW_l857v1oc1qfSPx4xQ$ >
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!UDLXqNKChotxPqKt3KuFt7ZohSOuV45cbrng0blGdeR_zYamLIrW_l857v1oc1qTyh0yGA$ >
On 16/08/2020 12:10 pm, Larry Smolucha wrote:
> >From Francine:
>
> I don't usually enter into these philosophical debates on
> XMCA - but we have crossed each other's paths.
>
> There is no concordance to Vygotsky's writings (as we have
> for Freud's).
> As I recall there was an XMCA project to create a
> dictionary of Vygotsky's terminology.
> Simply to have a dictionary of Freud's terminology, would
> be of limited use without a concordance to track his use
> of the terms as his theory evolved.
> The same with Vygotsky.
>
> And*there is theoretical continuity throughout Vygotsky's
> writings* despite claims to the contrary. To understand
> Vygotsky's use of the word consciousness, it is necessary
> to look at /Consciousness as a Problem in the Psychology
> of Behavior/ (1925).
> Reading /only/ the very last passage in /Thinking and
> Speech/, you could come to the */erroneous/* conclusion
> that for Vygotsky any/living being /without language is
> not conscious (i.e. is unconscious).
>
> The problem here is that the word /conscious/ has multiple
> meanings (usages).
> We can rule out the medical determination of a patient
> being conscious versus unconscious.
>
> I would argue that Vygotsky used the word consciousness to
> mean consciously directed
> functions (behavior, perception, thought, emotion, will,
> imagination, and memory).
>
> The proof is in the very quote that he used from Marx's
> /Das Kapital/ of how the spider constructs a web by
> instinct, but the "architect raises the structure in his
> imagination before he erects it in reality."
>
> There is also an interesting lineage between Ribot and
> Janet's concept of /the unconscious/, that carried over
> into Freud's use of the term, and over to Vygotsky's and
> Luria's theory of the prefrontal cortex's role in
> consciously directed /functions/. In 1925, Vygotsky was
> thinking along the same lines as Freud's concept of
> /consciousness/ as a /function/ of the Ego. He even cited
> Freud's example of the Ego as a rider on a horse (the Id).
>
> There are other papers between 1925 and 1934, where
> Vygotsky discussed /the problem of consciousness/ - but
> enough said for now.
>
> In regard to scientific concepts, I didn't think that
> Piaget thought scientific concepts were necessarily
> learned in school. Didn't he think that concrete and
> formal operations develop from activities involving
> /natural/ objects in the world? Either independently or
> with peers?
>
> In regard to The Development of Scientific Concepts in
> Childhood (1986, p. 167) Vygotsky stated "Elsewhere we
> have already discussed the role played by functional
> interactions in mental development. . . mental development
> does not coincide with the development of separate
> psychological functions, but rather depends on changing
> relations between them . . . the development of the
> interfunctional system."
>
> Hence Vygotsky didn't take a reductionist approach to
> development of conscious awareness, as the result of
> thinking in terms of scientific concepts. Conscious
> awareness enters through the gate opened up by scientific
> concepts but /that doesn't mean it is the only/ /gate/.
>
>
> __
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole
> <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 6:06 PM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters
> through the gate" (a Participation Question)
> I was not being ironic, David
> If scientific concepts are required for conscious
> awareness (as specified in the quotation I was asked to
> respond to) and people who
> have not been to school do not acquire Piagetian concepts
> related to formal operations (for example) or other
> measure of "thinking in
> scientific concepts) if seems to follow that they have not
> achieved conscious awareness.
>
> LSV writes about non-literate, indigenous, peoples that
> they are capable of complexes, but not true concepts (I
> think the use of the term.
> "scientific" is not helpful here). Luria interprets his
> data on self-consciousness that are a part of the same
> monograph as his work on syllogisms,
> classification, etc among Uzbekis who had experienced
> various degrees of involvement in modern (e.g. Russian)
> forms of life as evidence for
> what might be termed "lack of conscious awareness I am not
> sure."
>
> mike
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 3:31 PM David H Kirshner
> <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
>
> Maybe I missed an ironic intention, Michael, but on
> August 11 Anthony asked about the meaning of a couple
> of paragraphs from /Thinking and Speech/.
>
> *Here is the passage in question*, from/Thinking and
> Speech/, Ch. 6, pp. 190-1:
>
> "To perceive something in a different way means to
> acquire new potentials for acting with respect to it.
> At the chess board, to see differently is to play
> differently. By generalizing the process of activity
> itself, I acquire the potential for new relationships
> with it. To speak crudely, it is as if this process
> has been isolated from the general activity of
> consciousness. I am conscious of the fact that I
> remember. I make my own remembering the object of
> consciousness. An isolation arises here. In a certain
> sense, any generalization or abstraction isolates its
> object. This is why conscious awareness – understood
> as generalization – leads directly to mastery.
>
> /Thus, the foundation of conscious awareness is the
> generalization or abstraction of the mental processes,
> which leads to their mastery/. Instruction has a
> decisive role in this process. Scientific concepts
> have a unique relationship to the object. This
> relationship is mediated through other concepts that
> themselves have an internal hierarchical system of
> interrelationships. It is apparently in this domain of
> the scientific concept that conscious awareness of
> concepts or the generalization and mastery of concepts
> emerges for the first time. And once a new structure
> of generalization has arisen in one sphere of thought,
> it can – like any structure – be transferred without
> training to all remaining domains of concepts and
> thought. Thus,/conscious awareness enters through the
> gate opened up by the scientific concept/."
>
> Mike’s reply, in total was:
>
> I understand that to mean that humans who have not
> achieved scientific/real concepts do not have
> conscious awareness.
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Mike
>
> David
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> *On Behalf
> Of *Martin Packer
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 4:36 PM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters
> through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
> David,
>
> Are you saying that either Mike Cole or Lev Vygotsky,
> or both, are claiming that 5-year old children (for
> example) lack conscious awareness of the world they
> live in?
>
> Puzzled...
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On Aug 14, 2020, at 9:16 PM, David H Kirshner
> <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
>
> Andy,
>
> That “any ‘actual’ concept is the intersection or
> merging of both the scientific and spontaneous
> path,” speaks to their complementarity, making
> them akin to Type 1 and Type 2 processing I
> referred to in my post.
>
> But they’re also hierarchically related, since
> according to Mike’s interpretation of a Vygotsky’s
> passage cited by Anthony a few days ago, “humans
> who have not achieved scientific/real concepts do
> not have conscious awareness.”
>
> I do not question Vygotsky’s genius. What I do
> question is the coherence of the interpretive
> frames that have evolved from his work. As Michael
> observed in a recent post, “like the writer he
> wanted to be he [Vygotsky] used phrases and ideas
> less as truths and more to move his narrative
> forward.” What I always wonder in eavesdropping on
> XMCA is whether the issues we discuss are
> resolvable, or is the theoretical backdrop to our
> conversation so heterogeneous as to make the
> possibility of resolution illusory.
>
> David
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>>*On
> Behalf Of*Andy Blunden
> *Sent:*Friday, August 14, 2020 10:32 AM
> *To:*xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:*[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters
> through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
> No David, as I said, the term "scientific concept"
> as it is understood nowadays, tends to mislead.
> The distinction for Vygotsky is entirely, as you
> say,/developmental/, and it is not a
> categorisation either (as in putting things into
> boxes), and nothing to do with "sophistication."
> "Scientific concept" refers to the path of
> development that begins with an abstract
> (decontextualised) concept acquired through
> instruction in some more or less formal
> institution. "Spontaneous concept" refers to the
> path of development which begins with everyday
> experience, closely connected with immediate
> sensori-motor interaction and perception, i.e., it
> begins from the concrete, whereas the "scientific"
> is beginning from the abstract.
>
> Any "actual" concept is the intersection or
> merging of both the scientific and spontaneous
> path. For example (1) everyday life is full of
> ideas which have their source in institutions, but
> have made their way out of the institutional
> context into everyday life. On the other hand, for
> example (2) any scientific concept worth its salt
> has made its way out of the classroom and become
> connected with practice, like the book-learning of
> the medical graduate who's spent 6 months in A&E.
>
> I admit, this is not clear from Vygotsky's prose.
> But here's the thing: when you're reading a great
> thinker and what they're saying seems silly,
> trying reading it more generously, because there's
> probably a reason this writer has gained the
> reputation of being a great thinker.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Hegel for Social Movements
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fnam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com*2F*3Furl*3Dhttps*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fbrill.com*2Fview*2Ftitle*2F54574__*3B!!Mih3wA!XxSEPVIR0yRJgFaNSBm_i4WM3CddjlgSG_ngNcugdSCaXGC-tM-WRY9GIob6WVqti5Nn5Q*24*26data*3D02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7Ca67ad4b8e1054ad0908108d840677d4e*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637330160531086326*26sdata*3DklbbGOD961jWAJJ2y9AC4ITYXCnaDGFBvC0IbUJKVVs*3D*26reserved*3D0__*3BJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!Xj5wWxgfwuTDZiCehf_tnNDlXD6gP8BpwnjrYGS24qDQcMEd3gC6xhsU3N_JiNLOorai4A*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4c9f97baa48249eab87b08d841637595*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637331242718851133&sdata=W*2FK*2BTbTCBGe1eDIjlq4*2BhdhmoNfNxW11ayTlKsOia*2FA*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUqKioqKioqKioqKioqJSUqKioqKioqKiUlKiUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!WoFSvqRItZRFG-Wb6AmS0wx0inVUDXaV3gD2ZV6rpV81b-0KImklvCD1pGLY8v7_UV-zxA$>
> Home Page
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fnam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com*2F*3Furl*3Dhttps*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fwww.ethicalpolitics.org*2Fablunden*2Findex.htm__*3B!!Mih3wA!XxSEPVIR0yRJgFaNSBm_i4WM3CddjlgSG_ngNcugdSCaXGC-tM-WRY9GIob6WVoUDL1M-A*24*26data*3D02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7Ca67ad4b8e1054ad0908108d840677d4e*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637330160531096322*26sdata*3DUFQ8UqQhHon5sIjNEsW88BFc3G*2FEZq0s1nUehQfL3W4*3D*26reserved*3D0__*3BJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!Xj5wWxgfwuTDZiCehf_tnNDlXD6gP8BpwnjrYGS24qDQcMEd3gC6xhsU3N_JiNLEfO6ohg*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4c9f97baa48249eab87b08d841637595*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637331242718861146&sdata=hQHaTHs78nCNPgn9gG2NkTNb*2BHrhTO8uhtoAzo5bpdE*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUqKioqKioqKioqKiolJSoqKioqKioqJSUqKiUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!WoFSvqRItZRFG-Wb6AmS0wx0inVUDXaV3gD2ZV6rpV81b-0KImklvCD1pGLY8v77et7hHw$>
>
> On 15/08/2020 1:14 am, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
> Thanks for your accessible example, Michael.
>
> Vygotsky’s scientific / spontaneous
> distinction between types of concepts has
> always struck me as such an unfortunate
> solution to the problem of differential
> sophistication in modes of reasoning. I’m sure
> this problem must have deep roots in classical
> and contemporary philosophy, even as it is
> reflected in cognitive psychology’s Dual
> Process Theory that at its “theoretical core
> amounts to a dichotomous view of two types of
> processes…: type 1—intuitive, fast, automatic,
> nonconscious, effortless, contextualized,
> error-prone, and type 2—reflective, slow,
> deliberate, cogitative, effortful,
> decontextualized, normatively correct” (Varga
> & Hamburger, 2014). What externalizing this
> distinction as different kinds of cognitive
> products (this or that kind of concept) seems
> to do is distract/detract from the
> sociogenetic character of development. Surely,
> a sociogenetic approach seeks to interpret
> these different forms of reasoning as
> differential discursive practices, embedded in
> different cultural contexts (Scribner, Cole,
> etc.). But talking about different kinds of
> concepts seems like the wrong departure point
> for that journey.
>
> David
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>*On
> Behalf Of*Glassman, Michael
> *Sent:*Friday, August 14, 2020 7:03 AM
> *To:*eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity<xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:*[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness
> enters through the gate" (a Participation
> Question)
>
> Hi Andy, Henry, Anna Lisa,
>
> Let me start by saying that this is completely
> restricted to the way conscious awareness is
> used in Thinking and Speech. If it is use
> differently in other places this perspective
> may be wrong. To my mind (with the proviso
> that my mind if often wrong) Vygotsky is using
> the idea of conscious awareness for a specific
> purpose. To differentiate the role of
> spontaneous concepts with non-spontaneous
> concepts. Spontaneous concepts are based
> initially in affective memory and they give
> energy and motivation to many of our
> activities. However we are not consciously
> aware of them. To go back to chess, I am at
> the pool and my friend comes up to me and says
> “Chess?” I say yes. I have no conscious
> awareness of the concept of chess in my life,
> why I say yes so easily why it may be a way to
> make a social connection between me and my
> friend. It is residue of my affective memory
> (I don’t know how much Vygotsky was using
> Ribot when making this argument). We are
> playing chess and I remember that my brother
> showed me the non-spontaneous/scientific
> concept of the bishop’s gambit. As this point
> in my life I have to think about it and
> whether I want to use it. I must summon the
> intellectual functions of memory and attention
> as I think about the use of the bishop’s
> gambit. This then is conscious awareness of
> the scientific concept. I used the bishop’s
> gambit and win the game and I applaud myself.
> I got home and tell my brother, the bishop’s
> gambit was great, thanks. I am mediating the
> scientific concept of the bishop’s gambit with
> my everyday concept of playing chess. Voila,
> development!!!!
>
> I don’t know if Vygotsky uses conscious
> awareness differently elsewhere.
>
> Michael
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>>*On
> Behalf Of*Andy Blunden
> *Sent:*Thursday, August 13, 2020 11:51 PM
> *To:*xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:*[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness
> enters through the gate" (a Participation
> Question)
>
> Henry, my aim was just to introduce Annalisa
> and whoever to the scientific way that the
> terms "conscious awareness" and
> "consciousness" are used in CHAT. I say
> "scientific" in the sense that in CHAT we have
> a system of concepts and associated word
> meanings which have, if you like, conventional
> meanings. There is nothing wrong with
> "automatic and controlled processing" and
> "ballistic processing" but so far as I am
> aware these terms were not in Vygotsky's
> vocabulary. I could be wrong of course and I
> am sure I will be rapidly corrected if this is
> the case.
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> IAngelus Novus
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFgnQRyK9kw$>The
> Angel's View of History
>
> It is only in a social context that subjectivism and
> objectivism, spiritualism and materialism, activity and
> passivity cease to be antinomies, and thus cease to
> exist as such antinomies. The resolution of the
> theoretical contradictions is possible only through
> practical means, only through the practical energy of
> humans. (Marx, 1844).
>
> Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!UDLXqNKChotxPqKt3KuFt7ZohSOuV45cbrng0blGdeR_zYamLIrW_l857v1oc1p2h-uuxg$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFglySosYvA$>
> Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFgkzDUEbGA$>
> Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu
> <http://lchc.ucsd.edu>.
> Narrative history of LCHC: lchcautobio.ucsd.edu
> <http://lchcautobio.ucsd.edu>.
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20200816/e7817e8f/attachment-0001.html
More information about the xmca-l
mailing list