Re: [xmca] Aristotle's PRACTICAL philosophy as providing historicalperspective

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Michael
You wrote,
this strikes me as a fundemental difference, the idea that there is an
object that can be focused on rather than the way a system of actors and
reactors shapes an object at any particular time based on their
relationships, and that the object itself changes as relationships in the
field changes.

This is a "difference" that seems promising to explore further.  Question:
Can the "object" be focused on as "primary" OR can the "system of actore and
reactors which SHAPE an object be "primary"  OR is this a false dichotomy
and it is only the "perspective" that can be focused on as "primary"
depending on the particular STANCE of the observer.   This leads be back to
Anna Stetsenko's current term she's coines "Transformative Activist
STANCE".  I'm sure these 3 words and their relationships were clearly
chosen.  She has an article she titled *From Relational Ontology to
Transformation Activist Stance on Development and Learning: Expanding
Vygotsky's CHAT project.

More to come

Larry




On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:

> Hi Denise and Mary and whoever else is part of this conversation,
>
> I have been thinking about something and I guess Denise's well thought out
> comment spurred me to action, or to become part of the activity, or
> whatever.  The thought occurred to me a week or so ago watching the video of
> Yrjo Engestrom at the LEM (thank you to the person who posted it),  Andy was
> right that it is interesting to watch, a lot of back and forth.  But it
> really made me think about what CHAT actually is.  At the end of the video
> Engestrom strongly differentiates Argylis' Action Science from CHAT.
>  Whereas he says that Action Science focuses on interwoven relationships (A
> Field in Lewin's analysis I suppose, or a transactional set of
> relatioinships for Dewey) that CHAT focuses on the object (am I getting this
> right?)  I was mulling over this until this moring when Denise was writing
> about the object, understanding its relationship in the world and the
> activity system.
>
> This strikes me as a fundemental difference, the idea that there is an
> object that can be focused on rather than the way a system of actors and
> reactors shapes an object at any particular time based on their
> relationships, and that the object itself changes as relationships in the
> field changes.  It is reminiscent both of the debate Dewey was having with
> Russell, who claimed that objects to exist separate from relationships in
> the world and that meanings can be culled from them, and with Santayana who
> claimed that you could grasp a better understanding of objects if you had an
> understanding of their history.
>
> Where Lewin, Dewey, Mead and even Friere all agree I think is that we
> create the things that we use in the moment based on our relationships with
> each other.  That the issues we deal with change when we change the
> relationship structure, and there is no way to separate an idea such as
> objects from this.  Objects may or may not exist, but does it really matter
> if what they basically are are manifestations of our interrelationships.
>  Perhaps to take a conversation I recently had with each other about
> homelessness.   People treat others in certain ways, create a set of symbols
> for them based on where they are in the social group or the field.  An
> individual is hard working in a lower middle class job and taking care of
> his family, he is the salt of the earth, the backbone of society.  He is
> labeled that way and he sees himself that way.  That same person loses his
> job because the factory shuts down, unemployment insurance runs out, the
> bank forcloses on his home, his family is scattered, society interacts with
> him in a completely different way, and the individual begins to believe that
> by being homeless he does have less worth (but really what has changed about
> him) agreeing with the society who is labeling him.  The empowerment comes
> from recognizing that these are labels created by society for society,
> created by the system of relationships.
>
> In the 1930s Tom Joad was a hard scrabble man trying to protect those he
> loved, but with little future or true value.  In the 1970s Tom Joad was an
> iconic hero rallying against the unfairness of society.  In the 2000''s,
> well nobody really talks about Tom Joad anymore.
>
> So here is my question.  Does CHAT take a view antithetical to this whole
> systems of relationships idea?
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Denise Newnham
> Sent: Sat 5/14/2011 2:44 AM
> To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Aristotle's PRACTICAL philosophy as providing
> historicalperspective
>
>
>
> Dear Mary et al
>
> I enjoyed your argument (Mary) and yes it is so important as in this way of
> working the researcher and the practitioners are a team in the real sense
> of
> the term, discovering and finding solutions together through redesigning
> the
> activity. Obviously in sensitive subjects such as HIV, poverty, refugees,
> third world education etc etc this approach allows the participants to
> retain their dignity and empowers them.
>
> I beg to differ though on the methods used part...In the DWR methodology
> there is a continual back and forward movement between theory and practice.
> An ongoing questioning on behalf of the interventionist researcher and the
> practitioners about the theory of the object and how this is to be
> transformed. There are several methods within the process and they are at
> the level of actions, as Mike said earlier on in this discussion. These
> methods are like a tool box one does not make use of a hammer when a screw
> driver is needed and sometimes it is even finer as one type of a hammer
> does
> not suffice for all situations. Or for that matter use a saxophone to play
> the oboe partition in "Vivaldi's 5 concerti per oboe". The various methods
> have been carefully designed in relation to the theory and are not
> "decorations on a Christmas tree". All together this makes up the
> methodology which is at the level of the activity. Without an internal- to-
> the- activity- analysis of the contradiction and its double binds, that
> have
> been created historically between the nodules of the activity system, and
> the correct stimulus first or second (double stimulation)to transform the
> moment of tension that arises, the whole process becomes senseless. As
> Ilyenkov, 1982 said 'to comprehend a phenomenon means to establish its
> place
> and role in the concrete system of interacting phenomena in which it is
> necessarily realized, and to find out precisely those traits, which make it
> possible for the phenomenon to play this role in the whole'
>
> And now back to my concepts...
>
> Denise
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Mary van der Riet
> Sent: vendredi 13 mai 2011 13:58
> To: lpscholar2@gmail.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Aristotle's PRACTICAL philosophy as providing
> historical
> perspective
>
> Dear Jay, Larry, Christine et al
> I really appreciated your post Jay, because it highlighted all the
> difficulties of Soft;vs hard' research practice. And I have been
> following the discussion on method/methodology. I wanted to make a few
> points.
> As a researcher trying to work with CHAT, there really is no clear
> method, because it is a set of epistemological/ontological assumptions
> about human behaviour. If you are going to use it as an approach one has
> to draw from the wealth of research methods that exist in the social
> sciences. The trick is to match these methods with the CHAT assumptions.
> For example, how does one get at an 'historical' account of a
> phenomenon? Can you use historical records, or biographies or oral
> history? For me these operate on the level of 'methods', to achieve the
> 'methodology'.
> In HIV research which is heavily biased towards quantitative predictive
> research designs, there has been a shift towards understanding
> 'context', but it is treated primarily as a variable. I argued in
> my thesis that one of the things a CHAT analysis does is it 'produces'
> context. It provides a way of working with he many interwoven processes
> which mediate behavior.
> On the point raised by Jay, there is a lot of politics in research
> funding. I have recently been fortunate to receive a grant for Change
> Lab/interventionist research  in my doctoral study site, a rural,
> poverty-stricken context in SA. It was not easy to propose such a study
> (which I called rather vaguely 'activity theory and behavior change
> research') which has no defined outcome and follows broad questions
> about practices. The grant is from our national research fund which
> tends to prefer clear hypothesis driven quantitative designs. I wonder
> how much the current ethos in SA contributed to granting the funding.
> There is  strong emphasis on community involvement and "participation'
> of research participants in research concerning the poor and vulnerable,
> for ethical and political reasons. Sometimes participation is just
> involving the local chief in a meeting and in presenting the findings to
> the community. I argued that the CL approach combined with participatory
> research has the potential to be participatory in ways that conventional
> research is not. Where else do participants engage in analysis of data
> which profoundly affects their lives?
>
> Mary
>
>
>
>
> Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
> Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209
>
> email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
> tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809
>
> >>> Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> 05/13/11 08:27 AM >>>
> Jay
>
> I appreciate your reply as it gives some validation to my questions
> about
> *perspectives* or *forms* of awareness such as Aristotle's 3 *modes* of
> intelligence.  He suggests each form is a valid way of constructing
> knowledge but makes a value statement that phronesis is the most
> fundamental.  If we are skillful at constructing *theory* [episteme] or
> PRODUCING *techne* but don't engage with *value-knowledge*, then
> Aristotle
> suggests we will remain adrift.  Philosophical hermeneutics as a
> tradition
> is exploring this mode of knowledge.
>
> Anna Stetsenko seems to me to be clearly engaging in explicit phronetic
> social research which takes a strong *collaborative* value STANCE within
> cultural historical narratives.  Mike has mentioned she is
> representative of
> a particular approach within CHAT which also includes Vladimer Zinchenko
> and
> Dot Robbins, among others. [others think she is moving beyond CHAT]
> Stetsenko, Zinchenko, and Robbins are including *motivation* and
> *subjectivity* as concepts within cultural historical perspectives. I'm
> wondering if their perspective of CHAT can link up with Aristotle view
> of
> *episteme*,   *productive techne* [art & craft],  and *phronesis*  as
> contrasting FORMS of  intelligence?  This linking may lead to a way to
> bridge across various traditions that are engaging with issues of value
> and
> power within evolving historical consciousness.
>
> The statement that we have a "prejudice against prejudice" captures the
> value of embracing uncertainty and inquiry as a *disposition* that can
> be
> developed which embraces historical consciousness.
>
> I have a particular question if "historical consciousness" requires a
> narrative form and if narrative as a particular form of communication is
> central to phronesis [as historical]
>
> Larry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > Christine and all --
> >
> > Important observations about the relationships among progressive modes
> of
> > research praxis, dominant paradigms, and policy aims in this thread!
> >
> > Doing genuinely collaborative-participatory research is really not
> easy for
> > many reasons, including both the problems of including the very
> different
> > cultures of academic researchers and of participants oriented to their
> own
> > practice, needs, and goals AND the conflict between the nature of the
> system
> > we create in such studies and the dominant paradigms of planned,
> controlled
> > research.
> >
> > Someone who has done a pretty good job I think on both counts is
> Michelle
> > Fine at City U of NY Grad School, a former colleague whose work I much
> > admire.
> >
> > But I am rather conflicted about some of the paradigm assumptions. I
> don't
> > happen to believe that there are useful general laws about social
> systems.
> > They are not the kind of objects of study about which such laws are
> > possible, primarily because what usually turns out to matter about
> them are
> > more their differences rather than their similarities (as opposed to
> the
> > ways in which natural science's objects are defined, so that
> similarities
> > matter more than differences). Social systems are in this sense a bit
> more
> > like literary texts. So there are ways of not having to start from
> scratch
> > in understanding a new one, but not ways that rely on general laws of
> their
> > behavior. More like check lists of things to pay attention to, and of
> > possible or frequent kinds of connections seen before. Weak
> similarities,
> > embedded in strong differences (the uniqueness, individuality, and
> > unpredictability of real complex systems).
> >
> > The methods of controlled research depend on predictability, and on
> the
> > dominance of similarity over difference. They have their uses in
> social
> > science and psychology, but they don't get one very far, and in
> particular
> > they don't enable social engineering. Which may be a good thing! As
> someone
> > like Latour might note, academic disciplines, and indeed all
> organized,
> > historically long-lived institutionalized activity systems work at
> making
> > things seem and sometimes even be more predictable and regular than
> they
> > would be "in the wild". But when their norms are violated, when
> objects of
> > study are defined in new ways, when systems under study combine things
> that
> > do not normally combine, or combine them in new ways (e.g. combining
> > researcher culture and practitioner culture), the predictability and
> the
> > illusion of control and regularity quickly evaporates.
> >
> > The pursuit of general laws is not a good route to the practical
> knowledge
> > and wisdom needed to make our way toward a better society. We cannot
> afford
> > to be misled by superficial generalizations when we are dealing with
> real,
> > particular communities and their problems. We need particularist
> research
> > that adds to our capacity to help out in the next particular case.
> >
> > So how do you write a grant proposal, or a dissertation, or even a
> journal
> > article about such studies? The dominant future-oriented genres are
> hardest:
> > they expect predictability when what you're going to learn depends
> mainly on
> > the aspects you can't predict and which will come as a surprise to
> you. The
> > retrospective genres are easier, you can say what happened, and even
> what it
> > probably means, but you can't meet the dominant expectation for broad
> > generalizations, for universal laws, or even for findings people can
> count
> > on seeing again in every new instance. What you can do is add to the
> > checklist of phenomena, to the toolkit of methods, to our collective
> > capacity to generate helpful hypotheses and potentially insightful
> theory.
> > Theoretical models in this view are just little boats bobbing on the
> waves
> > of particularity. They are not the currents that drive those waves.
> Research
> > communities should aim to make good theoreticians, not general
> theories.
> > Because very good research program has to create its own local theory.
> Good
> > luck with yours! :-)
> >
> > JAY.
> >
> >
> > Jay Lemke
> > Senior Research Scientist
> > Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> > University of California - San Diego
> > 9500 Gilman Drive
> > La Jolla, California 92093-0506
> >
> > Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
> > School of Education
> > University of Michigan
> > Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> > www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke> <
> http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/~jaylemke> >
> >
> > Professor Emeritus
> > City University of New York
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 6, 2011, at 9:17 AM, christine schweighart wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Dear Andy,
> > >
> > > Thanks for being so frank, it helps ! Research proposals  which
> 'begin'
> > having engineered access and manipulated various threads hide this
> really
> > important observation. Not that this 'engineering '  is wrong
> necessarily,
> > but it can be a  blind spot ripe for many kinds of influences ,
> including
> > funding and prestige, to go through the back door in the context of
> >  agreements and  publications.   Things happen for the 'prestigious'
> in
> > ways that they might not otherwise- of course.
> > > I tried to 'begin' to enter academic research practice 'officially'
> > without doing this - probably too naively, with a notion that I would
> find
> > out what the  thresholds and ' advantages of belonging to a research
> > community and its costs' were,  perhaps I rather hoped to rediscover a
> > reaffirmation of  collaboration in academic research practice, which
> had
> > seemed to be eroded in my teaching settings..... I remember thinking
> that if
> > I failed to gain access to research in an educational context, it
> would
> > still reveal something important to discuss about the nature of
> academic
> > practice. I now think this might be one value which sits in the
> 'costs' -
> > one that is not upheld as much as it might need to be- in many
> instances.
> > > Learning about  the timing of what to propose and how to align that
> to
> > personal preferences and sacrifices  in morals, is as much part of the
> > inter-generational project as writing and polishing research products
> (
> > appearing in many researcher conferences and communities). I get the
> feeling
> > that the two are related (a need for frankness in relation to the
> process of
> > doing and writing about research). Anyway for my part, hearing this
> > acknowledged takes a bit of the edge out of an opaque boundary area,
> makes
> > it easier to live with..
> > > Christine.
> > >
> > __________________________________________
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