Re: [xmca] zpd zbr zedpd and zoped

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Thanks very much Steve for raising all the questions you do. We all have
such diverse origins that its hard to keep track of when  we are being
obscure. I will try to respond to some of the questions separately. I see
that Anton has contributed on pedology and Andy on UR and Carol introduces
an interesting, possible compatible, way of thinking about UR, as the common
core.

Andy, isnt your -- Isn't your Outlines essay somewhere accessible? That
would help those who share Steve's uncertainties re urphenomenon and
Vygotsky.
mike

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Ha ha! That's a nice usage, Carol!
> I have no idea how long this adoption of Ur- into English has been going
> on, but it may be wider than I thought.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Carol Macdonald wrote:
>
>> When one of my colleagues discovered some rampant plagiarism in students'
>> essays, he called the core, which was common to them all, the Ur-essay.
>> Carol
>>
>> On 6 January 2011 18:23, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Yes, very helpful, Andy.  Interesting neologism, "Urunit."  Your
>>> explanation gives me an intuitive sense, a place to start - and some more
>>> questions.
>>>
>>> Google translates 'Urphaenomen' as 'primary phenomenon' while Babel
>>> translates it as 'elemental phenomenon'.  One translation could be seen
>>> as
>>> more of a time concept, and the other, spatial, or as you suggest,
>>> cellular.
>>>
>>> A little more googling finds 'Ur-' as possibly meaning a number of
>>> closely
>>> related concepts, both in terms of 'essential units', and also in terms
>>> of
>>> 'genesis'.  A list of English substitutes for the German 'Ur-' includes
>>> the
>>> ones you mention, original and prototypical, and a few others: primary,
>>> elemental, ancient, fore-, primal, greatgrand-, primitive, primeval,
>>> proto-,
>>> and archetypal, in a quick search.
>>>
>>> These kinds of meanings makes this term especially interesting to use in
>>> the dialectical senses you and Mike are giving it.  The mixture of the
>>> simultaneous senses of time and space gives the impression the word has
>>> had
>>> a contradictory evolution.  Ur was also an ancient city in Mesopotamia,
>>> one
>>> of the oldest, became a world famous archeological dig, and is likely the
>>> birthplace of Abraham.  A lot seems to be packed into that two-letter
>>> German
>>> prefix and its history!
>>>
>>> Did Marx, Engels or Hegel use the prefix 'Ur-' in a significant way?
>>>
>>> And who (if anyone knows) introduced terms such as "ur characteristic"
>>> and
>>> "ur model" into English?  What meanings are generally being given to
>>> these
>>> terms?
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jan 6, 2011, at 1:12 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>
>>> I'll respond to your question about the meaning of "ur," Steve.
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Ur-" is a prefix that is used in German, actually. It has been around
>>>> since the year dot in German, but it has become a bit of a fad recently
>>>> for
>>>> English speakers.
>>>> Ur- is a prefix which means original or prototypical. I mostlly know it
>>>> from Goethe's idea of /Urphaenomen/ which is the original of Vygotsky's
>>>> "unit of analysis", should I say, the Urunit? This is because of
>>>> Goethe/Hegel/Marx/Vygotsky's idea that in order to understand some
>>>> complex
>>>> process as a whole (i.e. a /Gestalt/) then you have to begin with the
>>>> simplest unit of it, it's germ or cell. So the reference is to an
>>>> (artefact-mediated) action as the ur- of psychology and cultivated human
>>>> life.
>>>>
>>>> Does that help, Steve?
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Steve Gabosch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ... "Generalizing Dual Stimulation.
>>>>>
>>>>> * The ur characteristic of higher psychologically (culturally mediated)
>>>>> human action is that it operates indirectly, through the environment.
>>>>> * DS method is the ur model of human action incorporates the
>>>>> environment
>>>>> as tools for action.  But it must be generalized into group as well as
>>>>> individual circumstances."
>>>>>
>>>>> Mike urges the non-Russians at the conference to ask their fellow
>>>>> Russian
>>>>> attendees what 'ur' means.
>>>>>
>>>>> So - to our fellow Russian speakers - what does 'ur' mean in Mike's
>>>>> slide?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________
>>>> _____
>>>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Joint Editor MCA: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
> MIA: http://www.marxists.org
>
> __________________________________________
> _____
> 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