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Re: [xmca] zpd zbr zedpd and zoped



APologies! The one which got published in "Outlines" is not the one on Urphaenomen. That one is awaiting publication in "Theory & Psychology." But I have it here:

 http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/gestalt.htm

Andy

Andy Blunden wrote:
http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/outlines/article/viewFile/2119/1877

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

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


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--
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*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
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