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Re: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
Mike--
I know, I'm speaking out of turn. But let me say more. I know exactly what he's getting at, and I completely agree.
Vygotsky is a thieving magpie, a larcenous cuckoo with meanings. I mean (by that ungainly metaphor) that he tends to lay his sense-eggs in the meaning-nests of other psychologists.
Just think of:
a) "aesthetic reaction" (Vygotsky laying the egg of "answerability" in Kornilov's reactological nest)
b) "syncretic heap" (Vygotsky laying the egg of his scheme of concept formation based on Hegel's logic in the nest of Piagetian "syncretism".)
c) "egocentric speech" (verbal thinking laid in Piaget's nest)
d) "pseudoconcept" (the concept-for-others left in the nest of Stern's personalism)
e) "structure" (the distinction between higher and lower psychological functions left in the next of the Gestaltists, who recognize no such distinction)
All of these are words stolen from the lips of others, often others in schools to which Vygotsky is violently hostile. Think of Vygotsky's denunciation of Stern--in Moscow, right to his face!--using phrases from Moliere's "Medecin malgre lui", think of all of those long "prefaces"--to Thorndike, to Lazursky, to Piaget himself--that have the effect of converting the following book to a historical document or a negative example of how to proceed.
The eggs lovingly laid by opponent schools are slyly tipped out for the snakes and rats to devour, and a completely new content is laid down instead. The problem is that a synthesis, for Vygotsky, does NOT mean splitting the difference, or "sewing a cows lips to a horse's head" (as we say in China). It means going in another direction entirely, hence the spiral.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Thu, 10/7/10, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 7, 2010, 7:20 PM
You need to say more for me, Robert. How would that work?
Spirals. Now there is an interesting geometric shape to consider. How did
Bruner deploy it?
mike
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>wrote:
> David,
> Could the dialectical relationship between personal metaphor creation and
> the processes involved in the "assimilation of terminology" provide an
> example of Vygotsky's quest for synthesis between the disparate views of
> early 20th century psychology? Or perhaps to use Bruner's metaphor of the
> spiral staircase........need I say more?
> RL
>
> Robert Lake Ed.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Social Foundations of Education
> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> Georgia Southern University
> P. O. Box 8144
> Phone: (912) 478-5125
> Fax: (912) 478-5382
> Statesboro, GA 30460
>
> "Democracy must be born anew in every generation and education is its
> midwife".
> -John Dewey
>
> >>> David Kellogg 10/07/10 8:07 PM >>>
> Vygotsky's metaphors are many and varied: peas in a sack (child concepts),
> guerrilla warfare vs. prolonged seige (theoretical vs. empirical research),
> and my all-time favorite, "science concepts do not drop into the child's
> mouth like a flock of already roasted-pigeons".
>
> But it seems to me that any discussion of his use of analogy should include
> his discussion of the LIMITS of metaphor. This is in the context of his
> analogy between the learning of scientific concepts and the learing of
> foreign language words, which can be found, in the Minick translation, in
> Volume One, p. 223, of the Collected Works. Here's OUR translation:
>
> "In substance, our analogy always treats the development of two aspects of
> a single and same process by their psychological nature: verbal thinking. In
> the one case, that of the foreign language, what comes into the forefront is
> the external, sonorous, phasal* properties of verbal thinking; in the other,
> the development of scientific concepts, it is the semantic process of the
> same process. For this reason the assimilation of a foreign language
> doubtless requires, even though in a minimal measure, the mastery of the
> semantic aspect of the foreign language, just as the development of
> scientific concept requires, even to a minimal extent, some effort to master
> scientific language, the symbols of science, which intervene in an evident
> fashion during the assimilation of terminology and symbolic systems, such as
> that of arithmetic. For this reason, one might expect from the very
> beginning that we might find the analogy that we are developing here. Yet we
> know
> that the development of the phasal and semantic aspects of language do not
> repeat themselves but follow specific ways, and so we must expect that our
> analogy will prove to be incomplete like any other analogy and that the
> assimilation of a foreign language with respect to the maternal tongue shall
> present resemblances to the development of scientific concepts with respect
> to that of everyday concepts in some determined relations, while in others
> there will be profound differences."
>
> And it seems to me that there's a very SIMPLE explanation for the failure
> of the analogy, too. Every foreign language represents, in the final
> analysis, somebody ELSE'S everyday concepts.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> --- On Thu, 10/7/10, Achilles Delari Junior wrote:
>
>
> From: Achilles Delari Junior
> Subject: RE: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: Thursday, October 7, 2010, 4:37 PM
>
>
>
> Well...
>
> I also remember that in 1929 Vygotsky compared old psychological views with
> the "Comedia del'Arte", because the fixed roles of the psychic functions
> compared to the fixed roles of the characters in that kind of drama... This
> is at the paper "Concrete human psychology" in English it was published at
> Soviet Psychology, 1989, v. 17, n. 2 - but I don't have my copy of the
> English version here anymore.... only a Portuguese version. In the same text
> is present also the metaphor about consciousness as telephonist in contrast
> and complementation to Pavlovian metaphor about brain as telephonic central,
> if I remember well... This same subject was repeatead at the book "The
> history of development of higher mental functions" from 1931 (In Spanish
> edition of the Works, as in Russian, it is the Volume III)... A metaphor
> with trains and rails was used as well, in reflexological discussion, for a
> comparison with Sherrignton's contributions about much more afferent ways
> (rails) than efferent ones... but by memory I don't know more if this is
> at that reflexological text from 1924 or from 1925... (Consciousness as
> problem of behavior psychology). In the Psychology of Art, certainly he also
> repeat the Sherington formulation, but I am not so sure about where was the
> "train metaphor"... If you have interest in this "train" metaphor, I can
> localize the actual sources, for this too...
>
> Best.
>
> Achilles.
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 15:05:08 -0700
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> > From: lchcmike@gmail.com
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >
> > Woa, not so sure about the train track metaphor. The train moves freely
> up
> > and down a pre-scribed
> > track and the only thing that can vary "independently" is speed! Brrrr.
> > mike
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Colette Murphy wrote:
> >
> > > One that I like a lot:
> > >
> > > According to Vygotsky the teacher should be the track upon which the
> train
> > > coaches move freely and independently. The track only gives the coaches
> the
> > > direction of their own movement.
> > > (Vygotsky, A Reawakened Star:
> > > http://www.marxist.com/science-old/vygotsky_501.html)
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > Colette
> > >
> > > Dr Colette Murphy
> > > Senior Lecturer
> > > School of Education
> > > 69 University St
> > > Queen's University
> > > Belfast BT7 1HL
> > >
> > > tel: 02890975953
> > > ________________________________________
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf
> > > Of Robert Lake [boblake@georgiasouthern.edu]
> > > Sent: 07 October 2010 21:15
> > > To: Culture Activity eXtended Mind
> > > Subject: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> > >
> > > Hi Everyone,
> > > I am gathering the use of metaphors in Vygotsky's work for a
> publication
> > > and want to be sure to include as many as possible.
> > > without any knowledge of Russian along with the fact that I have
> > > only recently begun a serious investigation of his work.
> > >
> > > In her essay on Vygotsky on Thinking and Speaking in the Cambridge
> > > companion to Vygotsky,(2007) Vera John-Steiner cites some of Vygotsky's
> most
> > > famous examples, i.e. inner speech as "speech turning inward"; thought
> as a
> > > "cloud shedding a shower of words"; "consciousness is reflected in a
> word in
> > > a word as the sun in a drop of water". (p.151).
> > >
> > > Yes I know "tool" is a controversial example to some people :-).
> > >
> > > Can you folks think of any others ?
> > >
> > > Thank-you in advance for any help with this.
> > > Robert Lake
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Robert Lake Ed.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Social Foundations of Education
> > > Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> > > Georgia Southern University
> > > P. O. Box 8144
> > > Phone: (912) 478-5125
> > > Fax: (912) 478-5382
> > > Statesboro, GA 30460
> > >
> > >
> > > Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
> > > midwife.
> > > -John Dewey.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > xmca mailing list
> > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >
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