The issue I raised concerning "biogical science" and "lived organic
experience" doesn't seem to figure in what you write, at least as far as I
can tell, but I think your position is untenable because you don't specify
which one you mean or clearly state that you conflate them. The position
you take when writing, "I would be more comfortable with saying there is a
dialectic involved and that it is virtually impossible for us as a species
to have access to the biological" can be read two ways.
Are you saying that that we cannot have access to our organic existence? If
so then we cannot have access to our inorganic existence. This is a very
idealist position. Of course there are many arguments against idealism
(e.g, If we don't have access then how do we get a world in the first
place?) and I'm not sure you even mean this.
But if you mean "biological science" when you write "biological" it also
seems to reduce itself to absurdity because biological science is a human
artefact so we necessarily have access to it.
To me the important question is whether biological science can have
objective knowledge of organic existence which is its field of inquiry. I
side with those who say yes. I also think that the cultural-historical
sciences can have objective knowledge of their fields of inquiry. But
this doesn't mean at all that the objective knowledge of one is reducible to
that of the other, or vice versa. Whether the objective knowledge of
biological science can link up with the objective knowledge of the
cultural-historical sciences is another question. How and when these
syntheses occur seems to be a very complex issue involving globally extended
activity systems. But it seems that such linkages when they do occur lead
to great advances in the total human knowledge as well as reformulations of
the "sciences" that preceded them in terms of the new synthesis.
Isn't this what Vygotsky himself was doing when he discussed the crisis in
psychology in the first part of the century?
Paul H. Dillon
-----Original Message-----
From: nate <schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Sunday, October 31, 1999 9:06 PM
Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced
>Phil,
>
>I think both to a degree. First, when I say cultural-historical I see it
>more as the "system" I am part of and the biological is part of that
>system. In development when Vygotsky talked about "revolution" it was not
>so much the new was an unfolding but "internal" and in relation to the
>system. In this sense, the biological is always there but changes because
>of its relationship within the system. He described this in several areas;
>language, play, and instruction. In all three the biological is
>qualitatively different not because of an unfolding perse, but because of
>its relationship to the system.
>
>I also think what we call "natural" or "biological" seems to be very
>cultural-historical. This is real strong for me in "developmental"
>literature especially the unfolding kind. Jerome Bruner talks about this
>as the "dialectics of culture" with early cognitive science and the war on
>poverty. He entertains the notion that maybe science leads culture and
>decides against this approach. I would never go so far as to say "a result
>of", I don't tend to see relationships in that way. I would be more
>comfortable with saying there is a dialectic involved and that it is
>virtually impossible for us as a species to have access to the biological.
>
>Biology is a very loaded and dangerous term for me. In many ways, like
>development, it naturalizes a particular order of things, if its cultural
>or structural, that leaves a lot of questions unasked. Even something
>like Vygotsky's scientific concepts can be found in our genes, I am being
>somewhat sarcastic, but not totally.
>
>Nate
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Phil Graham <pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au>
>To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Sunday, October 31, 1999 5:54 PM
>Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced
>
>
>> Nate,
>>
>> just to clarify:
>> At 17:25 29-10-00 -0600, Nate wrote:
>> > I don't think it excludes the biological, "I" just don't believe it
>exists
>> >for us as a species outside of the cultural-historical.
>>
>> Are you saying that the biological is part of, or a result of,
>> cultural-historical?
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> Phil Graham
>> p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
>> http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
>>
>