Hi Mike, I think that I was differentiating nature from the social, but
when you frame the social as a Homo Sapiens nature I think then that perhaps
there is Nature 1 and Nature 2. Nature 1 being the process of embodiement
during which language is acquired, and Nature 2, the social cooperative,
stage enabled by language and where work (productivity, construction of
reality) enters the picture. The linearity of this process however is
perhaps a little simple and I would think that these are dialectical processes,
(to weave in the question of the existence of individual activity). I
am envisioning multiple processes and a complexe picture, but one where
nonetheless there is a relationship of pre and post-cedence between Nature 1
and Nature 2 with language use shaping the passage. After that perhaps that
both process co-exist as the body continues to change throughout life, and,
as you have pointed out elsewhere, growth also exists beyond the body (in
building, in activity and social interaction). As for Vygotsky's two planes
of development, I still think that what is of the individual would be at the
second intra plane and think that these function both in Nature 1 and Nature 2,
with the difference perhaps that in Nature 1 language acquisition is the
focal activity where as in Nature 2 the activity is beyond the individual
and social as in full pledged participation.
Francoise
Francoise Herrmann
fherrmann who-is-at igc.org