Re: [xmca] LCA:Complementarity

From: Wolff-Michael Roth (mroth@uvic.ca)
Date: Mon Jul 11 2005 - 21:07:45 PDT


Hi Barbara, Mike (you can get people to react, even though they are
into different things!):

In German, you can make a difference between a material object
(Gegenstand) , and an object of activity, thought (Objekt), though the
distinction is not so clear, as Gegenstand is also used sometimes in
the same sense as Objekt (according to the standard German dictionary,
the DUDEN).

I am currently reading HEGEL's Phenomenology of Spirit, because I am
interested in the aspects that MARX took on, and to get a better
understanding of subject and object. HEGEL is quite clear on the matter
of what consciousness can know, it is not the object in itself but only
in the way the object is presenting itself to consciousness. This is
why, I think, Leont'ev writes about the object as existing twice, once
as material entity--it has to be because of his grounding in
dialectical materialism--and another time in consciousness that is, in
terms of the vision, that toward which action is directed--which is
always toward what is given to consciousness, and materially, through
our bodies.

I am not sure this helps at all, but it does not make sense to speak of
the object, any object, independent of the activity and the subject,
for which it is an object. Even the subject has to appear twice, given
in its materiality that is the ground and source of all thought, and
once to consciousness, which becomes aware of the Self as
being-for-consciousness of the in-itself.

Michael

Well,

On 11-Jul-05, at 8:01 AM, Mike Cole wrote:

> I am unsure of the answer to your question, Barbara. I can help more
> with Russian than with German. I expect that
> either Yrjo, who was an advisor to Kirsten's thesis or Wolf-Michael
> Roth can provide a better answer than I could.
> And thanks for asking! I do not understand if, ask Yrjo has written.
> "the activity is the context"  one can make a distinction
> between " object, and object embedded in activity."
>  
> Lets hope we can get some help!
> mike
>
>  
> On 7/11/05, Barbara Crossouard <bcrossouard@macdream.net> wrote: Mike
>>
>> As one of the silent readers so far, I'm encouraged by your appeal
>> below for questions..  In trying to engage wtih activity theory, I
>> discovered recently the distinction between object, and object
>> embedded in activity, which I understand is related to the German
>> concept of Gegenstand. Not being a German speaker however, I am
>> trying to work out if I have any handle on the distinction. I should
>> say that although I came across gegenstand in Leont'ev, it didn't
>> mean anything to me in his text, and it's only by reading Kirsten
>> Foot (2002) Pursuing the Evolving Object, in MCA vol 9 issue 2, that
>> I picked up on the distinction to any extent.
>>
>> To check my understanding, I am wondering if what Ruqaiya raised in
>> general terms below about developing an academic identity, if this
>> can be related to gegenstand for example, where an academic
>> progressively develops both within a conceptual framework at the same
>> time as contributing to it in a dialectic way, and if for me at the
>> moment, as a doctoral student lurking at the edge of this, and
>> looking for a way of conceptualising what I'm researching, if that
>> might be an instance of an evolving object. Is that the way this
>> distinction might be applied - would appreciate any comments.
>>
>>  It seems this distinction is important in the formation of activity
>> systems, but I don't often see it raised, as Kirsten also points out
>> in her article.
>>
>> Barbara
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 14:27 06/07/2005, you wrote:
>>> Phillip-- Seems to me that it is simply axiomatic that we cannot
>>> fully understand a system we are inside of.
>>> Yesterday several of us at LCHC discussed the need, once we are
>>> through all the papers, to double back
>>> and try to summarize the major points that have emerged with general
>>> agreement and to identify (potential)
>>> points of disagreement. Given our different languages of description
>>> (passim Ruqaiya via Bernstein) finding
>>> REAL disagreements is likely to be difficult because we will
>>> constantly be confusing concepts that are derived
>>> from somewhat different theoretical approaches and will not catch
>>> the differences. But it is worth a try.
>>>
>>> Ruqaiya-- We do not disagree about the restrictions of Luria's
>>> central asian work so far as I can tell. You have
>>> made the point convincingly that the interpersonal uses of 
>>> language/mind are underplayed in the Russian
>>> cultural-historical tradition as represented in the readings we have
>>> discussed and that is certainly true of
>>> Luria's central asian work.
>>>
>>> By coincidence. I was thinking of  all of Luria's work on
>>> neurolinguistics and the followups of that work by
>>> Akhutina and others when, our of the great byte bucket in the sky, I
>>> received a note from Tanya Akhutina
>>> this mornig about another matter. Given that many of those most
>>> knowledgeable about SFL are more or
>>> less unavailable in the next couple of weeks it seems impossible to
>>> consider adding to the readings for
>>> now. We need to get a more comprehensive overview of what we have
>>> collectively learned, or produced (at
>>> least that would be my priority). But we WILL return to this topic,
>>> in January if not before, when we have
>>> another course on mediational theories of mind, and when we do, we
>>> need to open up the issue of how to advance
>>> the idea of developing the ideas of complementarity that have been
>>> in this discussion. (I am still made uneasy
>>> by the slippage in AALeontiev's work regarding language and
>>> activity, but that may be my shortcoming. Perhaps
>>> an effort at summarizing will reveal a fuller picture; perhaps a
>>> more extensive discussion of Landolf and Thorne will
>>> help, I am unsure).
>>>
>>> Anyway,  at LCHC there will be some efforts in this direction and
>>> help from ALL would be appreciated. What questions
>>> do those who have been silent have?  Questions are so helpful in
>>> revealing areas of understanding and differences in
>>> interpretation or simply holes in what we are talking about.
>>>
>>> Off to other matters for a while.
>>> mike
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/5/05, ruqaiya hasan < Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au> wrote:
>>> yes Mike, you are right, but there is a slippage here. Most of the
>>> experiments in Luria concerned concept formation, classification,
>>> and/or
>>> (syl)logical reasoning; these are often also cited as the prime
>>> examples of
>>> higher mental function -- which is what might explain the slippage,
>>> though
>>> not quite excuse it! I will certainly be more careful with my
>>> formulation
>>> next time.
>>>
>>> Yes, I like this listserve precisely for the reason that it opens up
>>> different orientations to the same problem -- that's great and I
>>> certainly
>>> hope that I am learning from it. One thing that might perhaps be
>>> already
>>> available somewhere information about which might help is a Readings
>>> Advice
>>> section (preferably for people like me a graded list!) which might
>>> guide one
>>> into understanding the vocabulary (what Bernstein used to call "the
>>> language
>>> od description"). Something of that kind would help me immensely
>>> with the
>>> concept of activity.
>>>
>>> I use "politics of academia" as another expression referring to
>>> roughly what
>>> Bourdieu called "appropriation of intellectual capital". There is
>>> also what
>>> Bernstein's phrase"formation of pedagogic identity"; we learn
>>> through one
>>> theory and may be 'the least effort principle' persuades us to stay
>>> within
>>> those safe boundaries.
>>>
>>> Ruqaiya
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Mike Cole" < lchcmike@gmail.com>
>>> To: "ruqaiya hasan" < Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au>
>>> Cc: "eXtended Media, Culture, Activity" < xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 9:10 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] LCA:Complementarity
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Ruqaiya-
>>>
>>> It is only late in the day that I have time to get to xmca. Perhaps
>>> in time
>>> for your morning cofee?
>>> Anyway, the passage about Luria I was referring to is the following:
>>> With
>>> regard to his Uzbek subjects Luria suggested that the absence of
>>> higher
>>> mental functions was due to
>>> the lack of schooling in his subjects, as if the lack of schooling,
>>> ie
>>> failure to 'benefit' from official
>>> pedagogy.
>>>
>>> Yes, Ochs at least (I only have a couple of the books here)
>>> references
>>> Halliday. But he does not appear
>>> to be a key figure in her fermament. Nor, desipte Gordon's gentle
>>> urging,
>>> has he been one in mine. A number of
>>> the criticisms fairly levelled at Vygotsky could easily be sent my
>>> way as
>>> well, I am sure.
>>>
>>> It seems to me that one important function of an enterprise such as
>>> this
>>> (eXtended mind, culture and activity)
>>> sort of discussion group is the cross-polination of ideas that it
>>> affords.
>>> And the acdemic politics are greatly
>>> muted by the highly distributed nature of the discussion -- very few
>>> of us
>>> have, or care to have, control over the
>>> academic fates of those with whom we are conversing. But we know we
>>> don't
>>> know, even if it is that we don't
>>> know what it is that we don't know that we should know. And to those
>>> who are
>>> in it as a matter of politics, good luck
>>> to them. They would almost certainly be better of at the moment
>>> studying how
>>> to do research on education that
>>> wins the approval of our education bureaucracies or learning how to
>>> conduct
>>> fmri studies of undergraduates solving
>>> math problems.
>>>
>>> I think that the set of article laid before us provide a lot of
>>> opportunities for learning. Whether we avail ourselves of
>>> the opportunity or not is pretty much up to the participants.
>>>
>>> On to the rest of the days xmca thoughts.
>>> mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/4/05, ruqaiya hasan < Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Hello Mike
>>> > yes I am in total agreement with you. If something I wrote gives
>>> the
>>> > impression that Luria thought his Uzbek subjects did not have
>>> 'higher
>>> > mental
>>> > functions' then that is a bad piece of writing by me, for which
>>> apologies.
>>> > In fact I can't quite recall but somewhere I have expressly quoted
>>> Luria
>>> > as
>>> > attributing the results to the educational experience of the
>>> subjects (may
>>> > be in Reading picture reading: a study in ideology and inference
>>> in Foley
>>> > (ed) Language, Education and Discourse. London: Continuum 2004).
>>> And I
>>> > also
>>> > share your "scepticism about the enthusiasm for schooling that
>>> Luria
>>> > espoused". I guess I was arguing more that knowing the careful
>>> thinking of
>>> > both Vygotsky and Luria, it is to be doubted that they would have
>>> > attributed
>>> > the Uzbek results to absence of higher mental function; I was
>>> particularly
>>> > keen to bring into the debate that the "symbolic" function of
>>> language as
>>> > envisaged by Vygotsky is a function that every normal human has;
>>> if that
>>> > is
>>> > the quality of language essential to semiotic mediation then all
>>> of us
>>> > have
>>> > this experience; if there are distinct orders of semiotic
>>> mediation (shall
>>> > we say Bernstein's codes) then it is only reasonable to ask that
>>> they and
>>> > their etiology be identified nonambiguously. Has this been done?
>>> >
>>> > On Ochs and Schiefflin, I guess their work post-dates Halliday's.
>>> Are
>>> > their
>>> > many references to Halliday in their work? SFL linguists typically
>>> like to
>>> > have an explicit analysis of language along with statements
>>> relating
>>> > language to culture, cognition etc. So that maybe one reason for
>>> the
>>> > absence
>>> > of reference to Ochs and Schiefflin's work. On another tack, I
>>> have often
>>> > thought it would be great to have someone doing their doctoral
>>> research on
>>> > "the politics of academic referencing"!
>>> >
>>> > Ruqaiya
>>> >
>>> > ----- Original Message -----
>>> > From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
>>> > To: "eXtended Media, Culture, Activity" < xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 3:18 AM
>>> > Subject: [xmca] LCA:Complementarity
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Bruce tells me that my problems with receiving xmca messages has
>>> been
>>> > fixed.
>>> > We'll see.
>>> >
>>> > Based on my readings of Wells, Halliday, and Hasan, I find the
>>> proposal
>>> > for
>>> > the complementarity
>>> > of LSV, Halliday, and Bernstein compelling. This past winter I
>>> conducted a
>>> > graduate class where
>>> > we read Jim wertsch's 1985 book on Vygotsky and the Social
>>> Formation of
>>> > Mind
>>> > which Ruquaiya
>>> > refers to in her first article in the readings. Jim focuses there
>>> on
>>> > discourse and propositional referentiality
>>> > and his commentary seems important background for actually working
>>> out a
>>> > unified cultural historical
>>> > approach that incorporates contemporary work on lexiocgrammar. But
>>> I do
>>> > not
>>> > know how to bring that
>>> > into a discussion that is already packed with things to read.
>>> >
>>> > I also believe that the work of Ochs and Schiefflin, who make a
>>> strong
>>> > case
>>> > for the idea that the acquisition
>>> > of language is simultaneously acquisition of the sociocultural
>>> order into
>>> > which children are born needs to be
>>> > brought into the discussion. It seems to fit very well with
>>> Halliday's
>>> > emphases but does not seem to been
>>> > into the discussion by SFL folks, or at least, not in my limited
>>> reading.
>>> > Does anyone else think this work
>>> > relevant?
>>> >
>>> > There is one point on which I think Ruqaiya errs in her discussion
>>> of
>>> > Luria's Central Asian work (if I understand her
>>> > characterization correctly) and it is important to get straight in
>>> seeking
>>> > to deal with issues of cultural historical variation
>>> > in thought. It is not the case that Luria claimed that Uzbeki
>>> peasants
>>> > lack
>>> > higher psycholgical functions. All humans
>>> > are said to have higher psychological functions by virtue of the
>>> fact that
>>> > their thought and action is mediated by
>>> > culture. Rather, as Wertsch discusses, LSV and ARL believed that
>>> one must
>>> > include an analysis of evolution/development
>>> > of cultural means as a cultural historical process. They use the
>>> term
>>> > "rudimentary" mediational means, for example, in
>>> > connection with what they referred to as "primitive peoples."
>>> > Specifically,
>>> > Luria believed that traditional central asian
>>> > peasants used functional graphic modes of mediation which were
>>> superceded
>>> > by
>>> > taxonomic logical modes of mediation
>>> > associated with literacy, schooling, and involvement in industrial
>>> modes
>>> > of
>>> > life.
>>> >
>>> > I have my quarrels with Luria's conclusion and share scepticism
>>> about the
>>> > enthusiasm for schooling that Luria espoused. But
>>> > it is not correct, in my view, to believe that he attributed only
>>> > elementary
>>> > (not culturally mediated) forms of mental life
>>> > to Uzbeki peasants.
>>> >
>>> > This issue may not be central to the question of the
>>> complementarity of
>>> > the
>>> > views of Halliday and Vygotsky, but it certainly
>>> > touches directly on questions of Bernstein/Luria/LSV connections,
>>> so I
>>> > wanted to raise it here. I still have Ruqaiya's second paper to get
>>> > through and look forward to others comments on this work.
>>> > mike
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>> >
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>>> >
>>>
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