[Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

Fri May 22 17:19:34 PDT 2020

That really inverts one’s viewpoint. Barbara Rogoff’s views about
inextricability of persons and context in debate with Jaan Valsiner a
couple of decades ago.
Perhaps worth visiting.
Mike

On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 2:45 PM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> But this is not the exact quote. It is only a translation. The exact quote
> is this:
>
>
>
> ("...) daß es nichts gibt, nichts im Himmel oder in der Natur oder im
> Geiste oder wo es sei, was nicht ebenso die Unmittelbarkeit enthält als die
> Vermittlung, so daß sich diese beiden Bestimmungen als ungetrennt und
> untrennbar und jener Gegensatz sich als ein Nichtiges zeigt." (There is
> nothing given, neither in heaven nor in nature nor in mind nor in wherever
> it may be, which is not equally the unmediated contain alongside the
> mediated, so that both of these two determinations (i.e. determining
> something as unmediated or as mediated--DK) prove to be inseparable and
> inextricable, and their contrast (or their opposition--DK) proves nul."
>
>
> What's the difference between the exact quote and the translation? As I
> pointed out to Andy, the translation puts "equally" and "both" in the same
> clause, while the original German has them in two different clauses.
> Compare:
>
> a) Chiaroscuro paintings are both dark and light, and this was equally
> true for Caravaggio as for us.
>
> b) Chiaroscuro paintings are equally both dark and light in Caravaggio's
> time and in our own.
>
> Statement a) is true enough, although as Mike points out it is the
> beginning of a concrete genetic analysis and not the end. But statement b)
> is utterly false: it puts an end to all genetic analysis and abolishes
> development altogether. It says, uselessly, that all paintings are 100%
> dark and 100% light and so the only genetic analysis possible is one of
> changing self-consciousness, either in the painter or the viewer. This is
> an idealist dialectic, and it is certainly not a historical one.
>
> Similarly, it is one thing to say that all psychological functions are
> both mediated and unmediated, and this is equally true for lower functions
> as it is for higher functions. For example, when I look at a painting by
> Caravaggio or a film by Derek Jarman, the rod cells in my retina and my
> optic nerve are mediating the experience as well as my cerebral cortex and
> my biographical knowledge of Caravaggio.
>
> But it's very different to say that all psychological functions are
> equally both mediated and unmediated, or  100% mediated and 100%
> unmediated. In addition to the arithmetical absurdinty, this does not allow
> me to distinguish between lower and higher psychological functions.
>
> (And I do think this is how Andy gets his notion that when two things are
> different we cannot say that one is more developed than the other. Yet
> higher psychological functions do indeed presuppose lower functions but not
> the other way around. Andy calls this difference and not development; I
> call it equally both difference and development.)
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwGw6OKVIA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!UhX3qSLCbdS5rxC7Q9WFIHPghpcB2oEb5UNjVMhBS8xyhYxH_Pn8J--D4dz7kemhahe23g$>
>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works* *Volume
> One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwF7u5bdCA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UhX3qSLCbdS5rxC7Q9WFIHPghpcB2oEb5UNjVMhBS8xyhYxH_Pn8J--D4dz7kelgaaoaZw$>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 2:13 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>
>> And it is worth noting that Hegel wrote this in the 1810s simply on the
>> basis of logical criticism of Kant and Jacobi (a contemporary sharing some
>> views with Descartes). And yet it took more than a century (if I'm not
>> mistaken) to make its way into hard science. Here's how he explains it:
>>
>> § 66
>> That said, we continue to stand by the position that immediate knowing is
>> to be taken as a fact. With this, however, the consideration is directed
>> towards the field of experience, to a psychological phenomenon. – In this
>> respect, it should be noted that it is one of the most common experiences
>> that truths (which one knows very well to be the result of the most
>> intricate and highly mediated considerations) present themselves
>> immediately in the consciousness of someone conversant with such knowledge.
>> Like everybody else who has been trained in a science, the mathematician
>> immediately has at his fingertips solutions to which a very complicated
>> analysis has led. Every educated person has immediately present in his or
>> her knowing a host of universal viewpoints and principles that have
>> resulted only from repeated reflection and long life experience. The
>> facility we have achieved in any sphere of knowing, also in fine art, in
>> technical dexterity, consists precisely in having those sorts of
>> familiarity, those kinds of activity immediately present in one’s
>> consciousness in the case at hand, indeed, even in an activity directed
>> outwards and in one’s limbs. – In all these cases the immediacy of knowing
>> does not only not exclude its mediation; to the contrary, they are so
>> connected that immediate knowing is even the product and result of knowing
>> that has been mediated.
>>
>> Andy
>> ------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Hegel for Social Movements
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!V1lohvu0fySbbUkCcYcJRCbGDu-27I-V6eExTcBvLglpwRB4sUpmOZ-FCZ_JuZI9AVk-hA$>
>> Home Page
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!V1lohvu0fySbbUkCcYcJRCbGDu-27I-V6eExTcBvLglpwRB4sUpmOZ-FCZ_JuZLU_NXvXg$>
>> On 22/05/2020 1:59 pm, mike cole wrote:
>>
>> Both HAVE TO BE present at once, Andy or there is no perception.
>> Mike
>>
>> On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 8:55 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, last week in our Hegel Reading Group we read the section in the
>>> Shorter Logic, following his critiques of Kant and Descartes, Hegel
>>> explains how thought is both immediate *and* mediated, and even over
>>> Zoom I could see the clouds gradually receding from my young students'
>>> eyes. All of a sudden the whole fruitless argument between scepticism and
>>> dogmatism, relativism and historicism, fell away. The most difficult thing
>>> to grasp was how perception was not just immediate and mediated, but both
>>> were essentially present in the same moment, how without the cultural
>>> training of the senses the brain could not make any sense at all of the
>>> nervous stimulation of the organs of sight, etc.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> PS. the exact quote from Hegel is: "there is nothing, nothing in
>>> heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally
>>> contain both immediacy and mediation"
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbegin.htm*0092__;Iw!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwFrjYs9eA$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbegin.htm*0092__;Iw!!Mih3wA!TUMhXu_xWvwV4y6fvpgv4VHU2relV4Y4V5cWZTRpCZSmXSJxKlYezU-yXkbrDDuPh_oxBg$>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> Hegel for Social Movements
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!TUMhXu_xWvwV4y6fvpgv4VHU2relV4Y4V5cWZTRpCZSmXSJxKlYezU-yXkbrDDuiF8_dnA$>
>>> Home Page
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!TUMhXu_xWvwV4y6fvpgv4VHU2relV4Y4V5cWZTRpCZSmXSJxKlYezU-yXkbrDDty4Bji_w$>
>>> On 22/05/2020 9:20 am, mike cole wrote:
>>>
>>> This is a point I have struggled to make for many years, Andy. I didn't
>>> know I was quoting Hegel:
>>>
>>> Hegel:
>>> 'Everything is both immediate and mediated."
>>>
>>> The challenge is to rise to the concrete with this abstraction or its
>>> just la la la.
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 6:42 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Of course, Annalisa, I agree that Science is a moral practice, but that
>>>> is not what is at issue here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Two issues concern me with what you have said: (1) the question of "who
>>>> decides?" and (2) the quantification of development as in "more evolved"
>>>> bringing with it the implication of moral value attached to development.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (1) The discovery of the "social construction of reality" was an
>>>> achievement of the Left, the progressives, with people like the Critical
>>>> Psychologists, the theorists of postmodernism and post-structural feminists
>>>> in the 1970s an 80s, who exposed how taken-for-granted facts along with the
>>>> truths of Science were on closer inspection ideological products of
>>>> dominant social groups. Of course, how reality is *seen *is an
>>>> inseparable part of how reality *is*. This insight led to a range of
>>>> powerful theoretical and practical critiques of all aspects of society.
>>>> Feminists offered an alternative way of interpreting reality as a powerful
>>>> lever for changing that reality by undermining patriarchal structures and
>>>> certainties. So far so good. But today, in 2020, it is not progressives who
>>>> are asking "who decides?" and calling into question the very idea of truth
>>>> and fact: it is Donald Trump and Rudi Giuliani. Quite honestly, this
>>>> outcome was always implicit in the postmodern and poststructuralist
>>>> critique. Or, could I say: "Donald Trump is a more evolved form of Judith
>>>> Butler" if I thought in those terms, which I don't.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hegel takes up this problem with the maxim: "Everything is both
>>>> immediate and mediated." Yes, social interests dominant in a certain social
>>>> domain by definition determine what is true in that domain (though
>>>> remember, every social domain is finite and has its boundaries). But that
>>>> is not just by saying something about an* independently existing*
>>>> reality which can be subject to any number of *alternative*
>>>> representations (as Kant would have it), but rather the dominant social
>>>> interests *determine that reality itself*. They do that both *immediately
>>>> *and *through the ideal representation* of that reality which is *part
>>>> of that reality*. You can't "decide" by a purely discursive moves -
>>>> you have to *change *that reality. You do that with the weapons of
>>>> both theoretical and practical critique.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What this means is that you can study the documents (assuming you
>>>> weren't personally present) of some past dispute and see with your own eyes
>>>> how and why some people formulated new word meanings, and began to use
>>>> these new word meaning(s) in their own communication, and thereby
>>>> facilitated others from using this word meaning, and the relevant concepts,
>>>> in their work, and so on.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (2) As perhaps I have illustrated in my example above that there is no
>>>> implication of "higher" in development. In my own education, it was Sylvia
>>>> Scribner's "Uses of History" (1985) which explained this to me. "Higher"
>>>> implies comparison and comparison in turn implies *interchangeability*.
>>>> For example, if I was considering whether to emigrate to the US or France,
>>>> I might consider public safety as a metric and decide that France was
>>>> superior to the US and make my decision accordingly. Or, I might consider
>>>> job availability for an English-speaking monoglot like me as the metric,
>>>> and decide that the US was superior to France. But to decide that the US is
>>>> superior to France or vice versa without the choice and the relevant metric
>>>> is the moral judgment which neither you nor I find acceptable. They're just
>>>> different.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Understanding word meanings and concepts entails an analysis of *both *how
>>>> the word is used in the field in question, and the history as to how it
>>>> came to be so. Using the concept of "germ cell," I can work my way back and
>>>> forth through an etymological field, forensically, like a detective, until
>>>> I can connect the particular use of the word which emerged as a germ cell
>>>> at some earlier time, in some situation where the implication of choosing
>>>> that word meaning was abundantly clear to all, which allows me to see
>>>> *why* someone felt the need (now forgotten) to introduce the word
>>>> meaning and what it's absence would mean here and now, where it is already
>>>> taken for granted.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My apologies for the unacceptably long message, which is much against
>>>> my own mores, but I don't know how to clarify these issues more succinctly.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> Hegel for Social Movements
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!TLrWUBWNIMJR-d4Rr1HJ5aNy8a9feC14rEE8Y9KK_yg-3NYAubzMD2iHXcVRpSlw_w_wdw$>
>>>> Home Page
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!TLrWUBWNIMJR-d4Rr1HJ5aNy8a9feC14rEE8Y9KK_yg-3NYAubzMD2iHXcVRpSkhfCnwZw$>
>>>> On 20/05/2020 3:51 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Andy,
>>>>
>>>> I suppose the issue about being on a branch of evolution has more to do
>>>> with who decides what the branch is. Is it time? or is it topical? or is it
>>>> based upon the interlocutors?
>>>>
>>>> If we say one word usage is more "evolved" than another, I suppose I am
>>>> just pushing back on that because who decides what is more evolved?
>>>>
>>>> Forgive me, but can we ever say that if something is more "evolved" it
>>>> is actually better? What do we actually mean when we say something is
>>>> evolved?
>>>>
>>>> What if one term lasts over a longer arc of time than another usage? It
>>>> seems if we use the evolution rubric, it would be considered more "fit"
>>>> than the one that is changing over the same period of time.
>>>>
>>>> I do find it helpful that you to bring up the germ cell and how that
>>>> concept pertains to analysis. That makes a lot of sense to me. I'm glad to
>>>> know that to assign the parentheses does entail an ideological move, and
>>>> that that can't be escaped. As long as we know what the ideology is, there
>>>> is transparency in our analysis.
>>>>
>>>> I do think moral evaluations are worth including on all discussions,
>>>> not necessarily to forbid discussions or scientific pursuits, but to use as
>>>> landmarks to keep our bearings. Scientific concepts have a way of not being
>>>> inclusive of contexts (i.e., lived experiences) or being grounded, right?
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps this is what made Vygotsky such a humane and compassionate
>>>> scientific thinker is that he could understand how scientific concepts can
>>>> be abusive tools for oppression. Anchoring them in lived experience shows
>>>> their validity. Would this be a fair statement to you, Andy?
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Annalisa
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on
>>>> behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> <andyb@marxists.org>
>>>> *Sent:* Sunday, May 17, 2020 7:23 PM
>>>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *  [EXTERNAL]*
>>>>
>>>> Annalisa, "where does history start"? Effectively there is no starting
>>>> point, and the choosing of a starting point is always an ideological move.
>>>> Foucault does this to great effect. Ilyenkov deals with this in his book
>>>> "The Abstract and Concrete in Marx's Capital" and explains the need for
>>>> what he calls the "logical-historical method." To short circuit the
>>>> complexities of reading Ilyenkov, in CHAT we rely on the identification of
>>>> the unit of analysis or "germ cell" to anchor our historical investigation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Sociogenesis" is just Latin for "social development," the word I used.
>>>> But if you are going to ascribe a moral value to "evolution" and then
>>>> reject the concept on that basis, you'd better also reject "development"
>>>> and all the "geneses" and evolution of species by natural selection and all
>>>> modern biology while you are at it. Alternatively, you could choose
>>>> *not* to ascribe moral values to scientific concepts, then the whole
>>>> of science is open to you.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> Hegel for Social Movements
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!VTGuGy4gvXj-8N5E9YCj2IevXlVoBhK7UBQ37lx10IRWhO4lMbcXmdD-gzoCEFYW2qyYWA$>
>>>> Home Page
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!VTGuGy4gvXj-8N5E9YCj2IevXlVoBhK7UBQ37lx10IRWhO4lMbcXmdD-gzoCEFZ5oaoZdg$>
>>>> On 18/05/2020 3:25 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Andy (& VO's),
>>>>
>>>> I think that that was my point, that we cannot capture everything in
>>>> the word to describe the theory. And that is because of the limit of our
>>>> language.
>>>>
>>>> Even where genesis actually is, where something starts can be difficult
>>>> to pinpoint. I mean where does History actually start?
>>>>
>>>> These words that you mention phylogenesis, ethnogenesis, ontogenesis,
>>>> are words that are like brackets of a pair of parentheses. Who decides
>>>> where to put them? (And why not sociogenesis?)
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure it's correct to say the choice of a word locates the user
>>>> on a branch of a cultural evolutionary tree, because then that starts to
>>>> mean that one speaker is more evolved than another based on the use of a
>>>> word.
>>>>
>>>> It might be better to say that the choice of a word locates the user to
>>>> a particular context. I could live with that.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Annalisa
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on
>>>> behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> <andyb@marxists.org>
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 16, 2020 9:27 PM
>>>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *  [EXTERNAL]*
>>>>
>>>> You're never going to succeed in formally capturing the full scope of
>>>> the theory in a word, Annalisa. "socioculturahistoricalinguapparatical
>>>> activity theory" still leave out biology and Darwin, which is a part of our
>>>> theory, too.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is sometimes said that human development is the coincidence of
>>>> *four* processes: *phylogenesis *(i.e., evolution of the species),
>>>> cultural development (*ethnogenesis*, the development of technology *and
>>>> *language), *social development* (one and the same culture has
>>>> different classes and political groups side by side) and *ontogenesis *(even
>>>> twins can grow up very differently according to the experiences (
>>>> *perezhivaniya*) they go through). I tried to describe this in:
>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/ontogenesis.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwG5yVvdxA$ 
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/ontogenesis.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXB3YgOwg$>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But if you look into the history of a word what you will inevitably
>>>> find is that at some point (in time and social space) there was some
>>>> dispute, and this dispute was either (1) resolved by both parties agreeing
>>>> and marking this agreement by the coining of a new word meaning or the
>>>> dropping of a word meaning altogether, or (2) there is a split and one or
>>>> both sides of the split adopt a word meaning which distinguishes them from
>>>> the other side (structuralism's favourite trope) or variations on the above
>>>> scenarios.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So the choice of a word tends to locate the user on a branch in the
>>>> cultural evolutionary tree.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> Hegel for Social Movements
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXzee78rQ$>
>>>> Home Page
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXY03UVbw$>
>>>> On 17/05/2020 11:56 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>>>>
>>>> David K & VO's
>>>>
>>>> What pray-tell is an anthropologue?
>>>>
>>>> I am divided (pun intended) about saying that sociocultural = social +
>>>> culture, when they are intertwined holistically. To me, sociocultural
>>>> points to a space in between, or perhaps better said to a context of
>>>> interactions between individuals (who form a society) that are easily
>>>> accepted among them and practiced over time.
>>>>
>>>> We can conceptually parse out the social and the cultural, but don't we
>>>> do that because of the words and not because of the ostensible reality
>>>> going on interactionally? Can we always understand something by dissecting
>>>> it into parts?
>>>>
>>>> Again, this seems to be the limit of language, not of the conceptual
>>>> context or content.
>>>>
>>>> In a sense to use the term "sociocultural" is to grab the tail of the
>>>> tiger. The tail of the tiger is still the tiger, but perhaps a more
>>>> manageable one than to grab its head.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps this is why Vygotskians just call themselves Vygotskians to
>>>> align themselves with the source of the first theories rather than to later
>>>> conceptions and other developments (i.e. Leontiev, etc). Just thinking out
>>>> loud.
>>>>
>>>> Another argument is that if we want to be all inclusive, then we have
>>>> to include tool-use, as it's not the social, the culture, and the history,
>>>> but also the language and tools used. I realize some practitioners would
>>>> say that language is no different than a tool, but I feel language is
>>>> different, even though it may have a similar cognitive response in the mind
>>>> as would using a tool.
>>>>
>>>> Activity suggests tool use, though not always. Consider dance, or
>>>> storytelling, or going for a walk.
>>>>
>>>> How about: socioculturahistoricalinguapparatical activity theory???
>>>>
>>>> Yes! I am writing this a little tongue in cheek. I hope you do not
>>>> mind.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Annalsia
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on
>>>> behalf of David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 16, 2020 6:14 PM
>>>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *  [EXTERNAL]*
>>>> It's a very domain-specific umbrella, like those cane-brollies that go
>>>> with a bowler. "Sociocultural" is strongly preferred used in second
>>>> language acquisition, thanks to the influence of Merrill Swain, Jim Lantolf
>>>> and Matthew Poehner; I have never seen "cultural historical" used in this
>>>> literature. But "cultural-historical" is similarly preferred in psychology
>>>> and anthropology, thanks to the influence of J.V. Wertsch, Mike
>>>> Cole, Martin Packer and Andy Blunden; that's really why we are having this
>>>> discussion on what "socio-cultural" might mean on a list largely populated
>>>> by roving psychologists and nomadic anthropologues.
>>>>
>>>> Interestingly, the Francophones prefer "historico-cultural", using the
>>>> argument that you can understand the process without the product but not
>>>> the product without the process. I stopped using "sociocultural" because I
>>>> thought it was redundant, but now I am really not sure of this: it seems to
>>>> me that the relationship is a similar one--you can study society as process
>>>> without studying its cultural product (e.g. as demographics, economics,
>>>> statistics) but you can't really study culture without some understanding
>>>> of the process of its formation.
>>>>
>>>> There was a similar disagreement in systemic functional linguistics
>>>> between Halliday and Jim Martin over the term "socio-semiotic". Martin said
>>>> that it was redundant, because there couldn't be any semiotic without
>>>> society. Halliday rather flippantly replied that ants had a society without
>>>> a semiotics, and at the time it seemed to me that this was a non
>>>> sequitur, first of all because ants don't really have a society in
>>>> our sense (precisely because there is no such thing as an ant history
>>>> separate from phylogenesis on the one hand and ontogenesis on the other)
>>>> and secondly because ants most definitely do have a semiotics, albeit one
>>>> based on chemistry and not perception as ours is.
>>>>
>>>> It seems to me, in retrospect, that the relationship between the
>>>> semiotic and the social is much more like the relationship between the
>>>> social and the biological, or even the biological and the chemical. The
>>>> semiotic is a certain level of organization that the social has, but there
>>>> are other levels, just as biology is a certain kind of chemical
>>>> organization which does not exclude other, nonbiological ways organizing
>>>> chemicals, and chemistry is a kind of physical organization which doesn't
>>>> exclude sub-chemical organizations.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps we can think of the relationship between culture and society in
>>>> the same way?
>>>>
>>>> David Kellogg
>>>> Sangmyung University
>>>>
>>>> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
>>>> Outlines, Spring 2020
>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwGw6OKVIA$ 
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!QwnjuGWv1M4ZX6kMNV7A1nO46fLjKXBSeMFcdiKYZQb3gv2FV78Tq_DhJK9vM5IH1niRwQ$>
>>>>
>>>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
>>>> Works* * Volume One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwF7u5bdCA$ 
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QwnjuGWv1M4ZX6kMNV7A1nO46fLjKXBSeMFcdiKYZQb3gv2FV78Tq_DhJK9vM5JySLOtJA$>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 8:28 AM David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 4. As an umbrella term for any sociogenetic approach.
>>>>
>>>> Isn’t that its current usage?
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <
>>>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On Behalf Of *Annalisa Aguilar
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 16, 2020 3:31 PM
>>>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Andy, and VO's,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What fascinates me is that the word "sociocultural" has a lot of
>>>> different facets in terms of how the word was used in different contexts.
>>>> It seems there are three I've been able to pick out.
>>>>
>>>>    1. as a derisive term in early Soviet history.
>>>>    2. as an empowering term from Latin American voices.
>>>>    3. as a relaxed term of the Marxist "brand" at the height of the
>>>>    Cold War in the US.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure if I've done justice in the manner that I've represented
>>>> that, but it is a well-intended attempt. Are there others?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What I don't understand fully is whether there must be ONE explanation
>>>> how the term came to be, or ONE definition of what it actually means. Can't
>>>> it be polysemantic?  polycontextual?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If that is what's happening, then it makes sense that there would be an
>>>> ongoing controversy about which one is the right definition or reason for
>>>> not using it, depending on the interlocutor.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If we are to talk about who used the term first, and that's where the
>>>> value/authority holds, then all that tells us is that for those who value
>>>> who used the term first. that's where the authority is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If we talk about the emotional attachment of the word as it is used in
>>>> context and that's where the value/authority holds, then that tells us for
>>>> those who value the most personal attachment to the word, that's where the
>>>> authority is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If we talk about how the word was used functionally, where the
>>>> value/authority holds in its efficacy, then all that tells is that for
>>>> those who value whether the word works or not, that's where the authority
>>>> is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure one can put any of one these over the other two (or if
>>>> there are more than that, if there are more). All we can say I suppose is
>>>> whether in a particular context is the word "sociocultural" appropriate or
>>>> not?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I do find that this debate has begun to have its own life, this debate
>>>> over the use of a word. I've begun doubt it will ever cease.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One day the discussion will be how one used to debate about the term,
>>>> first everyone was this way about the word, than they were that way about
>>>> the word, and many large camps were formed in XXXX year to say why the word
>>>> should not be used, but then X years later other large camps formed to say
>>>> it is fine to use the word. I suppose it will only be when the debate
>>>> ceases will it come to pass that the debate will be forgotten. But will
>>>> that cessation solidify the use or non-use of the word?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I understand the reasons for saying "cultural psychology." But for
>>>> those swimming in a culture where behaviorism is considered the soul of
>>>> psychology, adding "cultural" becomes a sad necessity.  Even then, that
>>>> necessity only depends upon how one sees culture, as either as an additive,
>>>> an integral ingredient of psychology, or its basis. I believe I've read on
>>>> the list that one should be able to say "psychology" and just *know* that
>>>> it includes culture. I don't think we are there yet.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Then that would be my argument to use "sociocultural" to understand it
>>>> includes history. CHAT is sort of a defensive term (well, it is an
>>>> acronym). But then... it leaves out "social" and is that OK? We certainly
>>>> should not say sociocultural historical activity theory because that
>>>> acronym is very unfulfilling. What is nice about CHAT though is that to
>>>> chat is an activity of speech, and there is a implied meaning that also
>>>> pertains to Vygotskian theories, and therefore meaningful.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In a sense, it's not the meaning that we are arguing over, but how the
>>>> limitations of our particular language fails
>>>>
>>>> --

"How does newness come into the world?  How is it born?  Of what fusions,
translations, conjoinings is it made?" Salman Rushdie
---------------------------------------------------
Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!Rqn4WDUwUtgmePTcNK-DUgLJQw05GU2dAS4qYx1zCZYLqr4Zcrxcx9HH3WkoWwHud1vERA$ 
Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com
Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu.
Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
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