It is interesting that reflection seems to be limited to "private
speech" of talk with yourself. Reflection which is for me
consideration of action can be done in or out action themselves.
The later can be with or without language. When Archimedes
exclaimed "Eureka!" I doubt that he had a verbal account of
his discovery of how to measure the volume of an irregular
solid to determine the purity of a gold crown. Some time ago
I had "similar" Aha-experience when I discovered that to easiest
way to calculate tips in restaurant is to double sale tax (I'm living
near San Francisco where sale tax a bit above 8%). But even
more, recently my family had a vacation in San Diego. We went
to a nice Mexican restaurant and had a great dinner that was
well-served by a waiter. When it was time to pay, without much
thinking, I doubled the sale tax and paid the check. When I gave
a credit card slip to the waiter, I noticed that his face changed,
his smile disappeared, he looked at me with surprise. I read from
his face that I did a mistake. I glanced at my copy of credit card
slip and suddenly realized that the sale tax was awfully small. I
turned to the waiter and acknowledged the mistake. The whole
episode took a few seconds in silence (including my private
speech) but was full of non-verbal communication and
reflection.
I was following the discussion on language and extracted (using
verbal reflection :-) several themes:
1. Oral verbal everyday language seems to have the privileged
function and role in human existence. People in all cultures talk
(some more, some less). Even with current spread of sign
language, we can say that oral verbal language is at least
historically primary and unique in its historic development. Sign
language was invented and developed within human culture using
oral verbal language. The question is what kind of the specific
role and what kind of the privilege oral verbal language has over
other communicative and instrumental means? Could people
develop without language?
2. In our Western culture, the role of language seems to be much
more used in many core sociocultural practices than in many
other cultures. For example, we relay much more on verbal
instruction than on non-verbal one in a comparison with many
Native American peoples.
3. In our Western culture, the role of language seems to be much
more privileged and emphasized in many core sociocultural
practices than in many other cultures. For example, verbal self
presentation seems to be more privileged than all other forms of
self presentation in Western institutions.
4. In our Western culture, many sociocultural practices have been
gotten extremely verbalized. For example, as Foucault
demonstrated in his historic analysis, since the XVII century
sexuality has been extremely verbalized in public domain in
our culture.
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz
----------
From: David Kirshner[SMTP:CIKIRS who-is-at lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, October 13, 1995 1:54 PM
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: Please escuse my ignorance
Eugene,
Piaget's observation of his child opening her mouth as a
way of reflecting on how to remove a chain
from a match box when the opening in the box is not sufficiently large,
is a good example of reflecting without language. But Piaget
presents this as a case of pre-linguistic semiotic activity;
--his daughter is in the final sensorimotor stage prior to
language development. Are there similar cases for someone
who already has acquired language? If we drive automobiles, dance,
paint, etc. skillfully and intelligently, does that mean we do so
"reflectively?" Or we just lost in the semantics about "reflection?"
David Kirshner
Louisiana State University