I just want to provide a brief comment about Vygotsky's example of water as
a unit of analysis. If I remember it correctly, Vygotsky says that molecule
is the smallest unit analysis of water. By saying that he did not mean, in
my view, to say that it is useless to study atoms out of which molecule of
water consists of. However, one shouldn't be surprised when elements (i.e.,
H and O atoms) do not react at all like water.
My personal objection to Vygotsky/Hegel's almost positivistic reasoning is
that unit of analysis is relative to the purpose of the analysis rather than
simply rooted in the phenomenon or approach. In my view, there is no such
thing as "right" or "wrong" unit of analysis in general. Like there is no
"right" or "wrong" move in chess in general. Only in the context of
research purpose, some choices become better than other against values and
priorities embraced by the researcher.
I do not think that "individual" is a wrong unit of analysis per se
especially if your research goal to study the individual is unique (e.g.,
biography). However, in my view, individual is a wrong unit of analysis (in
Vygotsky's/Hegel's terms) when researcher's goal is to understand why
minority kids fail in school. Activity system can be more appropriate unit
of analysis in this case.
In my view, the specificity of the unit of analysis should not be limited
only by research goals but also by practical goals of the researcher (e.g.,
getting grant, improving schools), discourse of the academic and
non-academic communities, and so on. I think such construct as "unit of
analysis" has no less practice-based ecology than any other human
constructs.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Wertsch [mailto:jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 1998 12:09 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: reduction, isolation, action
>
>
> This is an interesting distinction between isolationism and reductionism.
> Perhaps we should accept the former while continuing to resist the latter?
>
> Jim
>
> On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Bill Barowy wrote:
>
> > John's insights into emergent properties and dynamics of the
> complex system
> > in relation to 'unit of analysis' helped me gather enough
> courage to look
> > at chapter 2 of Mind as Action. My reaction to what I am
> finding there is
> > delight with some reconciliation of my own struggles and further
> > understanding of action as the unit of analysis.
> >
> > At first read, the quote by Vygotsky about water being irreducible to
> > hydrogen and oxygen struck a sour note with me. I wanted to
> edit the last
> > line to read 'He will never succeed in explaining the characteristics of
> > the whole by [only] analyzing the characteristics of its elements."
> > because of course it helps to know that water is composed of
> hydrogen and
> > oxygen and this does make all the difference in the world - it
> is water not
> > carbon dioxide for example, which is what you would get if you combined
> > carbon and oxygen. I wanted to add "and he would not succeed unless he
> > also analyzes its elements", but who am i to criticize publically and
> > sociall the words of Vygotsky or Wertsch? Especially because
> one author is
> > present?
> >
> > Well, semiosis be damned unless I can. :-) Vygotsky most
> likely did not
> > know of the process of molecular 'building up' - starting with a
> > description of isolated atoms and watching their structures gradually
> > transform, in response to each other, as one (analytically) brings them
> > together, until finally they make up each other as the
> molecule, with a new
> > structure and continuous degrees of difference in structure, from those
> > *practically* isolable to individual atoms and those completely
> considered
> > molecule and indivisible.
> >
> > Jim introduces 'isolation' which allows the process I am interested in
> > preserving, and does not carry the end-of-the-line sense that
> 'reduction'
> > does. Isolation becomes viable because it is like what Catalina Laserna
> > calls 'zooming in' - you focus more tightly for a while, always with the
> > perspective in mind that this is a piece of a bigger picture. So with
> > this, I will continue to think about the 'building up' of
> complex dynamics,
> > tentatively termed action, in the modeling I am doing, and must get back
> > to, and also revisit another method, thought-experiment, which
> may be also
> > isolationist in nature, I now realize, not reductionist.
> >
> >
> > Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
> > Technology in Education
> > Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
> > Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
> > http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
> > _______________________
> > "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart
> from yourself
> > and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
> > [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
> >
> >
> >
>