Geraldine,Personally, I think it is a hopeless task to take a complex process like "consciousness" and draw an absolute line between consciousness and not-consciousness; there are always higher and lower forms. Drawing the animal/human line is just as difficult. There is a process around the use of artefacts which is associated with the characteristically human forms of consciousness, but while recognizing the absolutly distinctive nature of *this* kind of activity, we cannot then still draw a sharp line.
that's how I see it anyway, Andy geraldine.mcdonald@clear.net.nz wrote:
Dear Andy, Mike and others Please forgive me if this issue has already been dealt with.In his study "The origin of intelligence in the child" in which Piaget studied his own three children from birth he stated that he was studying behaviour uncontaminated by "training, apprenticeship or chance". His observations ceased at the sixth stage of practical intelligence, the invention of new means through mental combinations. In his study of the babies' actions on objects he identified behaviour which he interpreted as mental representation of problems which the children wished to solve. When Lucien failed to retrieve a toy using a familiar action - probably pulling on his blanket - he invented a new way to get the toy. Piaget thought that this behaviour marked the beginning of consciousness and that it involved reflection on contents of mind. If so it is one that higher animals can achieve. The situations P. described certainly involved cultural artefacts in the form of things like toys and blankets but these were used in a way determined by the baby rather than the artefacts. Perhaps Piaget's "consciousness" needs another name. What appears most striking is the change in the character ofconsciousness once language comes into use. Geraldine McDonald ----- Original Message Follows -----Well, as I see it, we can't have joint artifact-mediated action as the unit of analysis for thinking, and then have something different for a thought-form or unit of social life or whatever ...Andy Mike Cole wrote:sounds like paraphrase of Sfard to me. But still reading and thinking. mike On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:04 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: Mike Cole wrote: One of these is her suggestion that a concept is " a word or other signifier WITH ITS DISCURSIVE USE (my emphasis). That complicates identifying words and concepts and moves us toward a Wittgensteinian notion of word meaning. My take is that a concept is a word (or phrase or other symbol) + the actions in which it is realized, so it is constantly re-instantiated every time a word is used. The artifact is just the universal. A concept is not real or alive until the universal isidentified with particular actions by individuals. Thinkof the Rossetta stone. Under what circumstances were those hieroglyphs concepts? Peirce had things to say about this. Andy I also think that reading the Davydov materials posted by Andy is important because VVD was quite critical of Vygotsky'snotion of concept.Indeed, this discussion is extremely important. Give me another 24 hours. ...-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://www.erythrospress.com/Orders: http://www.erythrospress.com/store/main.html#books _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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