[Xmca-l] Re: concepts and Concept Creep

[David Kellogg]

Anthony:

You will find a MUCH more scientific discussion of conceptual inflation in
Vygotsky's "Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology". See especially
Section 3.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/crisis/psycri01.htm#p300

Why do I say that this discussion is more scientific? Consider any English
expression with more than two adjectives in front of a noun, e.g.

the big black leather handbag
a fat old lady
those two splendid electric locomotive trains

You can see that the farther you are from the noun the more "subjective"
the words are. The closer you get to the noun the more "objective" they
are. Halliday calls the one closest to the noun the "classifier", and the
one that is before it an "epithet".

Your article is simpy making the point that when a particular classifier is
widely used OUTSIDE a conceptual hierarchy (of categories and subcategories
that answer the question "what TYPE of X?") we find it becomes an EPITHET
(of qualities that answer the question "How do I feel about X?"). Vygotsky
is  explaining exactly HOW this happens...and why.  To me, that's what
science really does!

Mike Cole remarks that every pencil carries in its structure a history of
writing. I am not so sure about that--tools are a little opaque to me. But
I know that every nominal group carries in it a kind of history of its
meaning....






David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: 'Commentary: On the originality of Vygotsky's "Thought and
Word" i
in *Mind Culture and Activity*
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1711775
Some free e-prints available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SK2DR3TYBMJ42MFPYRFY/full?target=10.1080/10749039.2020.1711775

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works
Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270



On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 8:45 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have looked (fruitlessly) through the archives for references to
> Australian psychologist Nick Haslam's term, concept creep.
>
> Can anybody point me to a discussion - preferably Vygotskian in nature -
> of "concept creep"?  I imagine the term would be discussed in relation to
> concept-development (and the role of social pressures on word-meaning).
>
> Thank you in advance.
>
> The term is elaborated nicely in this interesting and provocative article
> from Gurwinder Bhogal:
> https://rabbitholemag.com/how-progress-blinds-people-to-progress/
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Anthony
>
>
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