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

Sat May 23 19:29:25 PDT 2020

Hello David,

I am not confused, I'm just asking for more clarity of definition. Though upon reflection, perhaps really what I'm asking is where you are placing your parentheses.

I didn't really think I was of the New Mexico school of Vygotskians, but maybe I am. If that is how you would like to ID me I don't think I mind. Just do not admonish me that I am late for dinner.

I never was of the understanding that lower and higher functions were separated. And perhaps this confusion of thinking that they are, arises from trying to understand what is lower and what is higher.

Which comes to a revisitation of everyday and scientific concepts. I am not remembering clearly, but I seem to recall Vera saying that scientific concepts as a phrase had its limitations in describing appropriately. I am thinking (but am not certain at the moment) Vera said scientific concepts, while rooted in everyday concepts. where always mediated. Everyday concepts, on the other hand could be mediated or unmediated and are more inclined upon perception (and therefore pre-language).

So we get into whether the word meets its utility.

Sort of like what does "primitive" actually mean.

That's why I asked the questions of Subjects A-D. Just to illustrate a way of thinking about diversity in humans.

I certainly hope we never have to practice intellectual social distancing, that seems horrible.

Though I do appreciate that a person's background cannot but assist upon how that person might interpret the elephant in the room.

I think it may have escaped me where it was said that everything is 100% mediated and 100% unmediated.

Philosophy and psychology are linked, are they not?

I see Philosophers as the jet pilots and Psychologists as the jet mechanics.

Certainly, philosophers can fly too close to the sun, but if they did that fairly consistently, psychologists would be pretty lonesome without them. If only to miss an intelligent a feedback loop about how sound their engines were working.

And yes while philosophers need psychologists, perhaps it is not as much as psychologists need philosophers. I say this only because Plato, Aristotle, Buddha or Sankara thought their thoughts without the aid of psychologists, and so there is a tradition of flying solo, not necessarily coupled so closely to the dynamics of the physical world. Not to say that they fostered un-tethered thoughts, but that the "aerodynamics" was of a more lightweight architecture, not so baroque, byzantine, or modern.

I still do not possess clarity about the assertion of something being mediated and unmediated at once, 100% of the time. Or have I botched the sentence, the chiaroscuro notwithstanding.

Really it seems to pertain to whether or not one accepts that there is an objective reality, that is impossible to perceive unmediated; or that there cannot ever exist an objective reality only for the reason that it cannot be perceived unmediated.

I don't think anyone believes that there is only one subjective reality (mine of course).

It makes far more sense (to me) that that there is an objective reality that, once mediated, becomes a subjective reality, but this is not to throw out the objective reality, Instead they both exist at the same time.

That is why, the object, out there, can be seen more than one way at the same time, in here.

Words come into effect in attempting to communicate the object's existence and properties from one observer to another (even if the second party is just hearing a description of what was observed by the first observing party). The words are always carrying implied meanings.

I am just connecting here, that the word's form, but moreso the implied meanings, reveal contexts negotiated by the cultural milieu, whether Big-C Cultural or little -c cultural.

Perhaps these contexts are the handles of your knife metaphor, which might be simply functional, or shaped into an animal, or present a carved visage that invoke references of Ghengis Khan.

(I'm not sure what you mean by wordings)

But then knowledge, as I understand, occurs when the perceived object of knowledge is consistent with the knowledge of the object (in the mind). and that can only take place if the means of knowledge is adequately unobstructed. The object is mediated perceptually or with words (or both at the same time), in order to be known.

Indeed there is always a feedback check going on, because it's possible that one day we will wake up to see the sky is purple at midday not blue as it once was. Though for now the sky remains blue.

Of course all this is epistemological, but everything, whether philosophical or psychological has for its basis the means of knowing (something), otherwise everything becomes untethered from everything else. I cannot even put to words what sort of reality could exist without there being some basis for it.

In order to detect change, there must be a constant to illumine that there is a change.

Even a fleeting dream is using the material of myself, that upon waking, will disappear, but I am still there, as its basis for existing.

I would also suggest that to insist that there is one way to know something, might be whether that knowing is objective or subjective. If there is more than one way to know an object that would be more about method and efficacy, not whether (or not) there is something to know that exists out there or in here (pointing to myself).

If one insists X is objective knowledge, that would be a cause for so much doubt, because no one can know what is objective knowledge with any certainty. The scientific method is a perpetual question of asking, "Did I turn the thermostat down? I better check."

However if one insists X is subjective knowledge, then one would have to test it and learn of its appropriateness in a particular given context.

You are saying that Andy is conflating philosophical contexts with psychological ones, and his exercise of methods is wronghanded, as they were built for a different context.

However, might you in turn conflating linguistic contexts with psychological ones?

But is there a basis for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological contexts. If so, what is it?

Kind regards,

Annalisa

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Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2020 3:34 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

  [EXTERNAL]

I didn't mean to confuse you, Annalisa. But Andy and and the various philosohers on this list have used expressions that I in turn find very confusing and I suppose I have also confused in my own turn. It is one of the hazards of putting together people from different backgrounds without proper intellectual social distancing.

Here are two statements from philosophy that linguists like me find confusing:

a) Everything is one hundred percent mediated and one hundred percent unmediated.

b) (I)t is argument about the beginnings of philosophy, not psychology, and certainly about the distinction between basic and higher mental functions.

I find the first statement confusing, because it seems to me to rule out  "more" or "less" as applied to mediated and unmediated. This rules out the possibility that children develop more mediated functions (e.g. volitional attention, semanticized perception, logical memory, verbal thinking) on the basis of less mediated functions (involuntary attention, optical/aural perception, eidetic memory, and purely practical intelligence). Andy has now amended this to two separate yes/no questions ("Is objectivity mediated for the subject?" "One hundred percent yes." "Is objectivity unmediated for the subject?" "One hundred percent yes"). By separating it into two different clauses, Andy is reproducing the grammar of the original Hegel in dialogic form, but he is also acknowledging the inadequacy of the translation that he announced he would not discuss because it is too clear.

I find the second statement even more confusing: I am not sure how one can discuss the distinction between basic and higher mental functions without beginning psychology, but you can apply to Andy for details on what exactly he meant.

Vygotsky (and Vera John-Steiner, and the other leading representtive of the New Mexico school which you are associated with) believed in higher and lower functions. This was  common among psychologists at the time, but it was not a way of quantitatively comparing subjects. It was usually interpreted in a dualistic way--like a two story house, with immediate perception on the lower floor (animals and infants) and higher perception on the upper (angels and aduls), immediate attention (like when you hear thunder and jump) on the lower floor and voluntary attention (the ability to listen to somebody's meanings and edit out all the pauses and fillers) on the upper.

Vygotsky pointed out that the two were just as linked as they were distinct (that was what Ruqaiya Hasan always got out of Vygotsky and she was right). Vygotsky also thought that all the rooms in the supposed upper floor were semantically joined through word meanings (because word meaning participates in the formation of all higher functions) creating a unified system. This is not true of lower functions: involuntary attention and practical intelligence are not developmentally linked the way that voluntary attention and verbal intelligence are,  We know that Vygotsky criticized his own early work for seeing the higher and lower functions in the two-story house way and not seeing that the higher functions are systemically linked. A lot of my own interest in systemic-functional linguistics, an approach that has nothing to do with the sentence diagramming you refer to, is about seeing those higher functions as systemically linked through wording (lexicogrammar), and not simply through word meaning (lexis). The latter was Ruqaiya's critique of Vygotsky, and Andy has strongly objected to it as treating Vygotsky as a linguist.

Brabantio: What profane wretch art thou?
Iago: I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs.
Brabantio: Thou art a linguist.
Iago: You are---a philosopher.

(Othello, Act I Scene I, but perhaps my logical/verbal memory misgives me there at the end...)

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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4D2EgQP7w$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!RH6LAnBsef6doJ6EFER3t2j96hvVmo059l2sBPsmjgn5k_DATUUAK4ZP39b0ytp83Zymrg$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
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On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 4:56 AM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu<mailto:annalisa@unm.edu>> wrote:
Hi David and Andy,

When I read this:
"b) Chiaroscuro paintings are equally both dark and light in Caravaggio's time and in our own."

I would have interpreted this to mean that paintings are 50% dark and 50% light. Not 100% dark and 100% light. I suppose this depends upon where one places the parentheses. I can't remember exactly how to diagram sentences, and I would be difficult for me to do that here in an email client,  but what of this:

(Chiaroscura (paintings)) are (equally both) ((dark) and (light)) (in (Carraviagio's (time)) and (in (our (own [time]))).

or

(Chiaroscuro (paintings)) are (equally (both ((dark) and (light))) (in Caravaggio's (time)) and (in (our own ([time]))).

I would never have presumed something could be 100% X and 100% Y unless we were talking about two separate, but joined, entities.

In that case I'd interpret this to mean that the definition of Chiaroscuro paintings no matter what historical period have two types, what might be called white paintings and what might be called black paintings. Say, were there an opposite of Film Noir, called Film Blanc. And these were related paintings because of similar painting methods and composition, and even subject matter, but one is predominantly dark the other predominantly white.

Of course nothing like this does exist in Art History, but it is conceivable to discuss painting genres in just this way.

---

Then, I also wanted to point out that psychological can be biological (as in what the brain and nervous system, etc does to take in perceptual data, and respond accordingly, such as with walking, balancing a cup in one's hand not to spill the contents, or vigilance to protect one's children while walking through a crowded airport).  This include the limbic system, yes?

And psychological can be introspective (I'm not sure whether it is the proper word, forgive me, but I mean the subjective experience of the person who retrieves memories, lays down neuroses to compensate from past traumas, enjoy fantasies or imaginations, or simply possesses a more unobstructed sense of self (than a less unobstructed sense)).

If one can accept this dualism in the human body it is possible for experience to be 100% mediated and 100% unmediated, depending upon which system is being activated and how the two are working in tandem or separately, or whether one is overpowering the other.

Isn't it so?

Also, I have a curious question to ask. What is the dividing line between higher function and lower function? Are there classifications?

Is this scenario possible:

In Subject A there are 20 lower functions and 5 higher functions
In Subject B there are 20 lower functions and 20 higher functions
In Subject C there are 10 lower functions and 20 higher functions.
In Subject D there are 5 lower functions and 5 lower functions

Taking age out of the equation, in that we suppose they are all the same age, and also for control, they have similar environments, caregiving, nutrition, and education, etc. I would ask this:

Does a lower function imply a corresponding higher function? In that lower function 1x will in time with proper environmental inputs develop into the higher function 1X? Or can 2 lower functions only produce 1 higher function?

Or can 3 lower function produce in varying proportions 5-8 higher functions.

Such as function 1ab + 2cd creates function 1ac, 2ac, 1bd, 2abd, 1bcd, 2ad, 1ad, etc.

In Subject A, can we assume that there is potential to develop 15 (or more) additional functions in the subject's future?

In Subject B, can we assume that there can be still further development beyond 20 higher functions that grow out from the original 20 lower ones?

In Subject C, can we assume that superior plasticity has afforded "more" development from less available resources, such as a person with a disabiilty (like blindness, deafness) has developed additional higher functions most others would never develop, say a keen sense of smell, haptic ability, or visual acuity?

In Subject D, can we assume that no further development can occur because there is not enough "material" present in the lower functions for any extended development into higher functions, such as an infant suffering from brain asphyxiation during birth.

Just trying to understand how one is slicing the orange, or peeling it, etc.

Kind regards,

Annalisa

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

  [EXTERNAL]

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.
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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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4DmoFPLpw$ <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<mailto: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

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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<mailto: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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4ARiOix1g$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbegin.htm*0092__;Iw!!Mih3wA!TUMhXu_xWvwV4y6fvpgv4VHU2relV4Y4V5cWZTRpCZSmXSJxKlYezU-yXkbrDDuPh_oxBg$>

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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<mailto: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

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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
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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 <andyb@marxists.org><mailto:andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 7:23 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto: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$>
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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<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 <andyb@marxists.org><mailto:andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 9:27 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto: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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4DESjLt3w$ <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$>
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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<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com><mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 6:14 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto: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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4D2EgQP7w$ <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!SKIoy3c_pSXEuChgB3MjmTbTNOs4jD78QtglW9E7nL6a-XQ0Rj1qFh9FQhQOp4DmoFPLpw$ <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<mailto: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<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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 to convey a meaning with such precision that it thereby to parses away any other inappropriate meaning. I'm just not sure that the project is one that can be achieved successfully, even if it succeeds for an interim.

At the same time I can see why story of the elephant and the blind men also have a part to play in our understandings and assumptions.

Kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________

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 <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2020 7:49 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

  [EXTERNAL]

Annalisa, I have only been talking and writing about Vygotsky and co. since about 2000 and have been openly Marxist since the 1960s (indeed, Vygotsky is core to how I understand Marx) and never had any reason not to be. But it is true that when Mike first went to Moscow, it was at the height of the Cold War, and when he and others first brought Vygotsky's ideas to the USA, there was a lot of resistance to their Marxist content. I think the naming issue only arose as Vygotsky and the others began to build a real following. The issues with the choice of name change over the years, as you say. I prefer" CHAT," but sometimes I use "Cultural Psychology" and sometimes I use "Activity Theory" depending on the context.

Andy

________________________________

Andy Blunden
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On 16/05/2020 4:18 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

Andy, et al,

I sort of came to this a little late in the thread, but I can offer that Vera John-Steiner didn't mind "sociocultural" to describe Vygotskian theory, but as I learn more about the word (thank you Mike), I can see how once a word is utilized with intent of derision, it's hard for the association to be broken.

I think it's that way with words all the time coming and going out of favor, or meanings shifting, like the game of telephone, but across generations and cultures.

Might I contribute to the discussion by asking whether the use of "sociocultural" was also a means of making the theories more available in the West (at least in the US). It seems there was redscare (you are welcome read the double entendre: "red scare" or "reds care", as you like) prevalent, and wouldn't it be useful to remove the Marxist "brand" to access the actual theories on child development? In other words, to depoliticize the science?

I had been a proponent of the use of the word, but as time passes, I can see its problems.

For me, I had preferred the word because historical was always a given for me. In concern of the here and now, the real difficulty I had thought was understanding the social- how interactions between the child and the caretaker/teacher/knowledgeable peer and the -cultural, how the culture impacts thought, those things are more of the micro level, but also sociocultural, how the two also can interact and influence one another and that combined bears its own signature on the mind and its development.  As far as History (capital H) that is sort of difficult to measure when we are talking about child development as there is very little history that a child has, unless we are talking about genetics, I suppose.

Now? I'm fairly agnostic about the term. I respect and am enriched by the discourse in which we now we find ourselves immersed about it so thanks to all for this.

Kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________

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 <andyb@marxists.org><mailto:andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2020 7:24 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>

--

"How does newness come into the world?  How is it born?  Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?" Salman Rushdie

---------------------------------------------------
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Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!WkcWw-Z3AI5QbHQG3kQk977PWXXDiVwBdpwxA8ArenUhjysOeMjqpavdBME_3DBsgnimuA$>
Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu<http://lchc.ucsd.edu>.
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