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Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation

Hi there,
the German word is interesting, because "Wider" means against, opposite, and is used as such in all other composite nouns. There is a "Spiegelung" and the verb "spiegeln." If the construction is as it is in the other words, the "wider" may actually indicate a radical and oppositive difference between the original and that which is reflected, i.e., the Spiegelbild. 

Kant uses "Reflexion"

michael


On 5-Jan-09, at 11:06 AM, Haydi Zulfei wrote:


Martin,
What do you want to explicate ?
You have had this :
[[Reflection (German: Widerspiegelung; Russian: otrazhenie)
"A basic concept of the materialist theory of knowledge and its core - the theory of reflection. The dialectical materialist theory of reflection distinguishes between reflection in inorganic nature, on the one hand, and in living nature and social life, on the other, where it is active and is exercised by highly organised systems possessing an independent force of reaction, such as biological metabolism at the lowest level and the deliberate creative, anticipative and transformative activity of man at the highest. In inorganic nature reflection is the property of things to reproduce, under the influence of other things, such traces, imprints and reactions whose structure accords with some quality of the things that exercise the influence. But these imprints are not utilised by the things themselves. In living nature they are used for self- preservation and self-adaptation, e.g., the irritability of plants and simple organisms. Psychic reflection develops with the appearance and evolution of the nervous system and brain, through which the higher nervous conditioned reflex and psychic activity is exercised, securing the behavioural orientation and regulation of a subject-organism in the environment. The psychic reflection of men and animals has two sides: 1) content and 2) form, i.e., the mode of existence, expression and transformation of this content. Human knowledge differs in quality from the psychic reflection of animals because it is social by nature" (Frolov, 1984: 353).]] Neither Frolov was out of his senses in giving the definition nor Charles Tolman . What else do you want ? You can come up with your critical points on the definition and we will then understand what your original idea is . Reading the first line takes you right to your destination . 
You have read many times and times :
*Ideality is the subjective reflection of the objective world* . Your reasons why this is not true/practically logical # formally logical , the latter you renounced recently . My problem is the *genesis* or *genetics* of *culture* . It's everything ; but where does it come from ? You think I'm too alien to this idea I've not got my answer so far ?? BTW *reflection as you do know *does have effect* but that's what entails from *reflection* ; That effect is ultimate *reification* , the endpoint of one round of *ideality* , at the level of analysis . 
With Very Best Wishes
Haydi





--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 3:10 AM

Thanks, Ed. I'm reading the dictionary definition of 'reflection,'
and
there's nothing even close to 'having an effect.' But I've
surfed around and
the word is indeed translated as reflection. Does your Russian dictionary 
provide any more detail?

Martin



On 1/4/09 9:12 PM, "Ed Wall" <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:


Martin

        It appears the root is more or less

                         отрaжáть (отрaзить)


and, at least according to my dictionary, has the sense of  reflecting
or having an effect. However, my qualifications are dated.

Ed

On Jan 4, 2009, at 7:01 PM, Martin Packer wrote:


At the end of last year several of us were trying to figure out
whether
'reflection' is a good term to translate the way Vygotsky and
leontiev wrote
about 'mental' activity. Michael Roth pointed out that the

German

word that
Marx used was Widerspiegeln rather than Reflektion (see below). I
don't
think anyone identified the Russian word that was used. I still
haven't
found time to trace the word in Vygotsky's texts, English and
Russian. But
an article by Charles Tolman suggests that the Russian term was
'otrazhenie.'  Online translators don't like this word:

can any

Russian
speakers suggest how it might be translated?

Reflection (German: Widerspiegelung; Russian: otrazhenie)
Tolman, C.W. (1988). The basic vocabulary of Activity Theory. Activity 
Theory, 1, 14-20.

Martin

On 10/25/08 12:40 PM, "Wolff-Michael Roth"

<mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:



Hi Martin,

Marx does indeed use the term "widerspiegeln" in the

sentence you

cite.

Das Gehirn der
Privatproduzenten spiegelt diesen doppelten gesellschaftlichen
Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten nur wider in den Formen, welche im
praktischen Verkehr, im Produktenaustausch erscheinen - den
gesellschaftlich
nützlichen Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten also in
der Form, daß das Arbeitsprodukt nützlich sein muß, und zwar

für

andre - den gesellschaftlichen Charakter der Gleichheit der
verschiedenartigen
Arbeiten in der Form des gemeinsamen Wertcharakters
dieser materiell verschiednen Dinge, der Arbeitsprodukte.


But the Duden, the reference work of German language says that

there

are 2 different senses. One is reflection as in a mirror, the

other

one that something brings to expression. In this context, I do not
see Marx draw on the mirror idea.

For those who have trouble, perhaps the analogy with mathematical
functions. In German, what a mathematical function does is
"abbilden," which is, provide a projection of, or

reflection, or

whatever. You have the word Bild, image, picture in the verb. But
when you look at functions, only y = f(x) = x, or -x gives you

what

you would get in the mirror analogy. You get very different things
when you use different functions, log functions, etc. Then the
relationship between the points on a line no longer is the same in
the "image", that is, the target domain.

We sometimes see the word "refraction" in the works of

Russian

psychologists, which may be better than reflection. It allows you

to

think of looking at the world through a kaleidoscope, and you get

all

sorts of things, none of which look like "the real

thing."


Michael





On 25-Oct-08, at 9:01 AM, Martin Packer wrote:

Michael,

Here's one example from Marx, and several from Leontiev, if we

can

get into
the Russian too.

"The twofold social character of the labour of the individual
appears to
him, when *reflected* in his brain, only under those forms which

are

impressed upon that labour in every-day practice by the exchange

of

products." Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, section 4.

" Activity is a non-additive unit of the corporeal, material

life

of the
material subject. In the narrower sense, i.e., on the

psychological

plane,
it is a unit of life, mediated by mental *reflection*, by an

*image,*

whose
real function is to orientate the subject in the objective

world."

Leontiev,
Activity & Consciousness.

" The circular nature of the processes effecting the

interaction of

the
organism with the environment has been generally acknowledged. But
the main
thing is not this circular structure as such, but the fact that

the

mental
*reflection* of the objective world is not directly generated by

the

external influences themselves, but by the processes through which
the
subject comes into practical contact with the objective world, and
which
therefore necessarily obey its independent properties,

connections,

and
relations." ibid

" Thus, individual consciousness as a specifically human form

of the

subjective *reflection* of objective reality may be understood

only

as the
product of those relations and mediacies that arise in the course
of the
establishment and development of society." ibid

Martin
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