RE: [xmca] Vygotsky on Leading Activity

[Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>]

Steven Mithen's arguments for a mimetic precursor to verbal communication (e.g. 'The Singing Neanderthals') provides another take on this - suggesting that our first efforts to re-present non-present objects and events may have been through mimesis. Using our bodies to represent topics of communication would drive us into discovery of body metaphors which, on Mithen's account, would have already been well engrained in our culture before we began to talk.

Rod

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Lake
Sent: 06 February 2011 12:43
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Leading Activity

Larry P.  Mike and Andy.
I so appreciate these  last postings. Here is a  paragraph from a piece I
wrote in 2006.
Robert Lake


 One man who is rarely mentioned, whose views are strikingly similar to
forward thinkers at the end of the Twentieth century, is Giambattista Vico.
In fact, his work helped to spark the Romantic Movement by influencing the
poets and writers of the late Eighteenth century.  In his work called *New
Science* (1744), he states that "it is noteworthy that in all language, the
greater part of the expressions relating to inanimate things is formed by
metaphors from the human body and its parts and from the human senses and
passions" (p. 405). In Vico's view, this formation of the mind through
language began through metaphorical signs and gestures.  Metaphor became the
primary way  Lof knowing and understanding experience in the world.
 Modell (2003) acknowledges the importance Vico placed on this view by
saying that "metaphor was understood not as a figure of speech, a trope, but
as a vital means of understanding the world" (p. 15). Vico's views sound
remarkably like Dewey (1934), Greene (1995), and others who welcome a
pluralistic epistemology through the portals of the body/mind.

On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 3:29 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Andy
> r
> You wrote,
>
>  "Which discipline should lead, unify, and elaborate the basic concepts,
> principles, and methods, verify and systematise the data of all other
> areas?    You see this question having a similar theme to David Ki's
> account of genres.
>
> In the spirit of this question I want to bring Lakoff & Johnson's
> perspective of 2nd generation cognitive science into the discussion.  This
> perspective is elaborated in their book "Philosophy in the Flesh"
>
> In a section of the book titled "Phenomenology, Functionalism, and
> Materialism: The Issue of Privileging the Metaphysics of Only One Level"
> they elaborate a perspective that suggests we can explain or understand
> reality at more than one level. They suggest there are three frameworks for
> understanding what is "real" 1 Direct  2 Representational 3 embodied.
>
> These alternative frameworks emerged historically.  The Greeks assumed a
> direct relation of the real. In the direct model there is no split between
> ontology [what there IS] and epistemology [what you could KNOW]
>
> With Descartes, a gap opened between mind and world. Ideas became internal
> representations OF external reality that CORRESPONDED to the external world
> and the mind becomes disembodied. In the most popular current version [1st
> generation cognitive science] representations have shrunk to symbolic
> representations or "symbol-system realism" (for example Foder)
> Symbol-system
> realism is a legacy of analytic philosophy.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson suggest with the 2nd generation of cognitive science
> there has been a shift to embodied realism (embodied reason) This
> perspective is an evolution based realism in which our bodies and brains
> accomodate and transform our surroundings.
>
> All three perspective are realist as they accept that the material world
> exists and we can give an account of how we function successfully in the
> world.  The direct and embodied perspective share an assumtion that there
> is
> no mind-body gap whereas the representational view accepts a gap.  However
> the embodied view rejects the premise that we can have absolutely correct
> objective knowledge of the world because our knowledge is constrained by
> the
> limitations of our physical bodies.  Embodied realism assumes a different
> epistemology and rejects the epistemology of direct absolute knowledge of
> the world-in-itself.  Knowledge is therefore relative, but not radically
> relative.  Knowledge is relative to the limited capacity of our bodies,
> brains, and embodied interactions in the world.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson suggest there are DIRECTLY embodied concepts [primary
> basic level concepts, spatial-relations concepts, and event-structure
> concepts] which form the basis of "stable" knowledge.  They also postulate
> the existence of PRIMARY METAPHORS which are the origin and make possible
> the extension of the direct basic level concepts INTO abstract domains.
> The PRIMARY metaphors are highly constrained both by the nature of our
> bodies and brains AND by the interactions in the world.
>
> Embodied realism  recognizes that concepts do change over time, vary across
> cultures, and have multiple structures which reflect social interactions
> and
> social constructions.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson recognize John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as
> anticipating the emergence of embodied realism. Both recognized when we use
> the words "mind" and "body" we are imposing bounded conceptual structures
> artificially on a horizon of fluid processes that constitute our
> experience.  The concepts "subjective" and "objective" are imposed on this
> fluid process.  More recently Varela, Thompson, and Rosch have extended
> understanding of embodied realism with their ENACTIVE notion of experience
> which depend on sensorimotor capacities embedded within biological,
> psychological, and cultural contexts.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson's embodied realism framework is distinguished from these
> other  perspectives in their reliance on empirical neuroscience in their
> understanding of the structuring of experience.
>
>  Lakoff and Johnson suggest there are at least three LEVELS to
> understanding
> the embodiment of concepts. [neural level, phenomenological conscious
> level,
> and a 3rd level they label the cognitive unconscious] The neural level is
> explored through the metaphor of neural structure in electronic, circuitry
> concepts. "Truth" at the neural level shares this common metaphor of
> electronic terms.  Lakoff and Johnson point out that many neural scientists
> make the mistake of assuming they are exploring a "physical" level but
> loose
> sight that they are explaining this physical level in metaphorical terms of
> neural circuitry.
>
> The 2nd phenomenological level is the level at which we speak of the "feel"
> of experience as conscious, and the way things appear to us.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson hypothesize a 3rd level of nonconscious structure
> [phenomenology also posits this level] which makes possible the structure
> of
> consciousness.  This nonconscious level is highly structured but
> inaccessible to conscious awareness.  Lakoff and Johnson suggest that to
> say
> the cognitive unconscious is real is much like saying neural circuitry is
> real.
>
> The 3 levels ARE RELATED.  We would not have spatial-relation concepts
> without orientation-sensitive nerve cells.  We would not have the color
> concepts we have without specific neural circuitry that creates the color
> categories.  The neural level AND experience of the external world together
> significantly determine what concepts develop.
>
> Full understanding from Lakoff and Johnson's perspective requires
> explanations at ALL 3 LEVELS.  No one level is sufficient to explain the
> mind. Many aspects of mind are about the "feel" of experience
> [phenomenological level]  Other aspects of mind can only be explained as
> higher-level patterns which constitute the cognitive unconscious.  All 3
> levels are present. Explanations at all 3 levels are necessary [though not
> sufficient] for adequate accounts of the mind.
>
> Color is an example of levels of explanation.  At the phenomenological
> level
> we perceice colors as being "in" the objects that "are" colored. Grass IS
> green.  This is a phenomenology-first account of truth which privileges
> that
> level over scientific neural circuity truth claims.  The word "green"
> reflects our conscious phenomenological experience of colors inhering in
> objects themselves.  If grass is green then there is greeness in the grass.
>
> However from the neural circuitry level of truth colors do not inhere in
> the
> objects themselves. They are created by our color cones and neural
> circuitry
> together with the wavelength reflectances of objects and local light
> conditions.  "At the neural level, green is a multiplace interactional
> property"  This truth claim contradicts the truth claim at the
> phenomenological level.  These are "distinct" truths at different levels.
> To state both the phenomenological and neural truths requires looking at
> both levels at once. There is NO independent neutral truth beyond
> perspectives.  Each level provides different modes of understanding.
>
> Embodied truth is not subjective truth. Lakoff and Johnson hypothesize we
> all have similar embodied BASIC level and spatial-relation abilities to
> perceive and manipulate [sensori-motor] which explains the structure of
> primary metaphors.  Lakoff and Johnson are advocating a metaphysical
> pluralism of explanations.  They suggest functionalists priviledge the
> level
> of the cognitive unconscious, whereas Husserl privileges the
> phenomenological.  Eliminative materialists such as Churchland privilege
> the
> neural level for all aspects of cognition.  Functioalist developmental
> scholars who study the acquistion of language privilege both the
> phenomenological and cognitive unconscious levels but are silent on the
> neural level.  Lakoff and Johnson recognize the validity of all 3 levels as
> distinct levels of understanding within their version of 2nd generation
> cognitive science.  Although there is NOT ONE correct description there can
> still be MANY CORRECT descriptions, depending on embodied understandings at
> different levels or different perspectives.   Each distinct perspective
> provides a distinct commitment to what is real about that situation. Each
> is
> a version of a commitment to truth.
>
> Lakoff and Johnson take a position that they are PHYSICALISTS in that they
> believe there is an ultimate material basis for what is real.  But they are
> not "eliminativists" who posit that only physically existing "entities" are
> real.  For Lakoff and Johnson entities such as "basic primary metaphors"
> [embodied metaphors] are real.
>
> Andy, I'm not sure where notions of "embodied" realism, mind, and cognition
> fit in your question of "leading" frameworks, but it is one more example of
> the possible usefullness of plural explanations of experience.
>
> Larry
>
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > I have just started re-reading Vygotsky's "Historical Crisis" from the
> > beginning, for the first time for many years (I have looked a cetain
> "hot"
> > topics, but not read it from the beginning for years). There is a pair of
> > insights which he offers which I'd like to remind people of.
> >
> > (1) He says that at different stages in the history of psychology, one or
> > another branch of psychology plays the "leading role." First the
> psychology
> > of the normal adult person, then pathology and then the psychology of the
> > unconscious. He asks: "Which discipline should lead, unify, and elaborate
> > the basic concepts, principles, and methods, verify and systematise the
> data
> > of all other areas?
> >
> > He then goes on to consider the same problem in a slightly different way:
> > "What makes the most diverse phenomena into psychological facts - from
> the
> > salivation in a dog to the enjoyment of a tragedy, what do the ravings of
> a
> > madman and the rigorous computations of the mathematician share?" In
> other
> > words, what is the concept of psychology and its subject matter? He then
> > goes on to look at three competing answers, based on reflections of the
> > proposed leading roles to be given to subjective psychology, animal
> > psychology or psychoanalysis: "For general psychology the three answers
> > mean, respectively that it is a science of (1) the mental and its
> > properties, or (2) behaviour; or (3) the unconscious." This leads very
> > directly to a consideration of the concept of psychology in terms of a
> unit
> > of analysis.
> >
> > Could we give an answer to the question as to which branch of general
> > psychology plays the "leading role" today, in these very
> > historical/objective terms?
> >
> > Andy
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Hegel Summer School: The New Atheism: Just Another Dogma? <
> > http://ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss2011.htm>
> >
> > __________________________________________
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-- 
*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.
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