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Re: [xmca] Vygotsky, Saussure, and Wolves with different dreams



The idea of the uncompleted action as the foundation of thinking is what underlies this developmental theory isn't it, Mike?

I am reminded of LSV's argument in his first recorded 1924 speech: "According to reflexology, thought is a speech reflex which is inhibited before it is manifest, and asks 'why it is allowed to study complete speech reflexes ... and why it is forbidden to take account of these same reflexes when they are inhibited?'"

And the idea is found in Dewey and Mead, isn't it, again setting out from the inhibited gesture, and we have today things like sports people practicing in their head before doing a complex action, and neuroscientists verifying that 90% of the brain action associated with the action is present in thinking it.

So the idea that reaching for some thing and not completing it, is a developmental "justification" of the same pragmatic interpretation of thinking. (most metaphysical theories have a "just so" story to explain them) I am inclined to think the general idea came before the observation of children?

The challenging Google book link you gave, Mike, asks us to presume an in-built knowledge that adults will understand pointing, an ability to connect all the dots and an inclination to do this wonderful indirect or mediated action in relation to the moving-black-thing (dog) and the big-face-thing (father) and the hand. I am open to the "truncated gesture" being an invention or mistake of some kind, but I would still like some explanation of where this complex series of actions comes from, some genesis for it. Even if this idea is that it is in the genes, how did it get into the genes?

Can someone with an infant handy tell us if pre-pointing infants reach for and try to grasp things? I don't know. :(

Andy

Mike Cole wrote:
I have raised this issue before and somone (Anna Stetsenko) said that current evidence contradicted me, but i could not find the contradiction in the sources provided, so since it is so central an argument, it may well be worth repeating.

The claim is this:

the development of a gesture [into a word (mc)] as (1) reaching for an object, (2) a reaction arises, but not on the part of the object, but another person, who completes the grasping for the child, and in being directed towards another person, the gesture becomes contracted, and (3) becomes a gesture for oneself. And I think this is as good as any a representation of the Hegel passage I have given the link to.

One relevant article is at the following accessible url. http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2007/06/human-infant-pointing-precursor-to.html

The work of Butterworth on infant pointing, which implicates an important
maturational ("natural line of development") component also needs to be considered. Easy access to this can be found via google using

      The child in the world: embodiment, time, and language in early
      ... - Google Books Result
      <http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DiZLu3UZxV-cC%26pg%3DPA170%26lpg%3DPA170%26dq%3Dinfant%2Bpointing%2Bbutterworth%26source%3Dbl%26ots%3DdNw6epggkB%26sig%3D7rQYEZwltjSF9IAB839enjx3Y8w%26hl%3Den%26ei%3DxwV_SvWLIJKKMe_ogPgC%26sa%3DX%26oi%3Dbook_result%26ct%3Dresult%26resnum%3D4&ei=xwV_SvWLIJKKMe_ogPgC&usg=AFQjCNFQMb2V9y3zehUm62ppY1RZg6zW6g&sig2=tS1cMjgVt_poz1Jq52wZmw>

These results do not negate the role of adult interpretation in the development of early words, or gestures, but they do complicate the picture I think. Easy and repeated repitetation of LSV on this point is not going to be taken serious without us taking seriously contemporary evidence and theoretical claims.

mike

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:

    Mmm, well I had a read of the relevant passage in Hegel again last
    night, Steve, and again modified my opinion of its meaning. Here is
    a link to the point which is the nearest Hegel comes to this relation:

    http://marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sp/ssconsci.htm#SS334

    I find this prettty opaque quite honestly, but I think if you read
    it on the assumption that Hegel is talking about the differentiating
    out of (c) individual consciousness (which is what Hegel meant by
    "psychology") from (a) animalistic action/reaction and (b) the
    collective consciousness of a cultural group, you might just get
    some sense out of it.

    LSV put it this way:

    "All cultural development of the child passes through three basic
    stages that can be described in the following way using Hegel’s
    analysis." (LSV CW v. 4 p. 104) My paraphrase of the rest of the
    paragraph: the development of a gesture as (1) reaching for an
    object, (2) a reaction arises, but not on the part of the object,
    but another person, who completes the grasping for the child, and in
    being directed towards another person, the gesture becomes
    contracted, and (3) becomes a gesture for oneself. And I think this
    is as good as any a representation of the Hegel passage I have given
    the link to.

    -----------

    Vygotsky may have learnt about this passage secondhand from Lewin.
    But everyone knew about the Hegelian phrases "thing-in-itself",
    "thing-for-us" and "thing-for-itself", since these were part of the
    popular discourse around Hegel in Marxist circles. So I presume
    "concept-in-itself," the "concept-for-others" and the
    "concept-for-myself" is a kind of play on these concepts. But
    "concept-for-myself" is just not something you'd find in Hegel. The
    concept is always objective for Hegel.

    -----------

    Now what Vygotsky meant by it:

    "Concept-in-itself" I take to be the unconscious use of words by a
    small child as an indivisible part of an action, a "handle" for a
    thing. This is close to the Hegelian idea, because the child is not
    yet conscious of having a concept or thing-name at all; it is
    indissolubly connected to the object itself.

    "Concept-for-others" I take to mean the use of a word for
    communicative action, e.g. asking an adult for assistance, and it is
    directed at the adult.

    "Concept-for-myself" is the use of language by the child to control
    its own actions, speech growing in, as they say, towards silent
    speech. I don't know if I entirely concur with Kozulin in saying
    this, but the idea you quote from Kozulin is certainly closely
    connnected, because the use of words to achieve intelligent
    *control* of one's own actions is surely closely connected with
    awareness of one's own consciousness (and behaviour). And I think
    you can link LSV and Hegel with (a) and (b) but I can't see it with (c).

    That's where I'm at with all this Steve.

    Andy



    Steve Gabosch wrote:

        Thanks, Andy.  I think I am being a little dense here, because
        now I am uncertain of both what Vygotsky meant, and what Hegel
        meant as well!  LOL

        I get the **sense** of these distinctions, of course, but I
        don't think they are yet registering for me as clear
        **concepts**.  I might even be able to more or less correctly
        answer a question or two about what Vygotsky said on a school
        quiz, but I can tell I would only be doing so on the basis of
        pseudoconceptual reasoning, because I can memorize the genetic
        order that Vygotsky says that the concept-in-itself, the
        concept-for-others and the concept-for-myself appear in the
        child - but not because I really understand **why** they appear
        in that order, or because I understand just **what** these kinds
        of concepts actually are.  I couldn't, offhand, give you clear
        examples of these three kinds of concepts.  Your quote from
        Hegel is helpful, but I have not fully conceptualized Hegel's
        treatment of these ideas, either.  I'm not so sure how I'd get
        very far on a school quiz on that!  LOL

        So let me refine my questions regarding Vygotsky's points.
         First, what did Vygotsky mean by the terms "concept-in-itself,"
        "concept-for-others" and "concept-for-myself"?  Second, what are
        some examples of these kinds of concepts?  Third, why does he
        claim that the first two, as a rule, precede the latter in a
        child's intellectual development?

        For further thought, here are some relevant quotes from the
        paper, from Vygotsky, and from Kozulin.

        Here is what Paula and Carol said (pg 236 in Wolves):

        "It is in this respect that Vygotsky notes that the genetic
        preconditions of the “concept-for-myself” are already present in
        the pseudoconcept in the form of the “concept-in-itself” and the
        “concept-for-others”, because these occur earlier in the child
        than the “concept-for-myself”: he further asserts that this
        sequence is not restricted to conceptual development because it
        occurs as a “rule rather than the exception in the intellectual
        development of the child” (p. 124)."

        Here is the passage by Vygotsky from Alex Kozulin's translation
        of Thought and Language they refer to (pg 124):

        "The concept-in-itself and the concept-for-others are developed
        in the child earlier than the concept-for-myself.  The
        concept-in-itself and the concept-for-others, which are already
        present in the pseudoconcept, are the basic genetic precondition
        for the development of real concepts.  This peculiar genetic
        situation is not limited to the attainment of concepts; it is
        the rule rather the exception in the intellectual development of
        the child." (7)

        In Footnote (7) to the above passage in Thought and Language (on
        page 268),  Kozulin comments:

        "7. Vygotsky's discussion of the phenomenon of pseudoconcepts
        has far-reaching philosophical implications.  First of all, if
        the conscious awareness of one's own intellectual operations
        ("concept-for-me") is only a secondary achievement, which
        follows the practical use of these operations, then the
        individual cannot be considered a self-conscious center of
        activity.  [Note from Steve:  I don't grasp what Alex just
        said.]  The individual appears rather as a "construction" built
        at the crossroads of the inner and outer realities.  Second, the
        phenomenon of functional equivalence between real and
        pseudoconcepts warns us against taking the functional appearance
        of communication for its ultimate content.  The usage of "one
        and the same" words and subsequent "understanding" may be
        illusory.  Such illusion of understanding, based on the
        confusion between functional and essential characteristics,
        constantly emerges in child-adult communication, in the dialogue
        between different social groups, and in contacts between
        different cultures.  For further discussion of this point, see
        Alex Kozulin, "Psychology and Philosophical Anthropology: The
        Problem of Their Interaction," *The Philosophical Forum*, 1984,
        15(4):443-458."

        <end>



        On Aug 4, 2009, at 7:58 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:

            Steve Gabosch wrote:

                What did LSV mean by a "concept-for-myself," (a phrase,
                I understand, is derived from Hegel)?


            Hegel would never have used quite the phrase,
            "concept-for-myself", but the way Vygotsky is using the
            idea: first concept in-itself, then for-others, and only
            last for-myself - i.e., self-consciousness, is quite
            consistent with Hegel's idea. It's really a play on Hegel.

            For example from Hegel's Introduction to the History of
            Philosophy:

            "But consciousness really implies that for myself, I am
            object to myself. In forming this absolute division between
            what is mine and myself, Mind constitutes its existence and
            establishes itself as external to itself. It postulates
            itself in the externality."

            Andy
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