In answer to your questions (which may be a bit difficult to follow because
I still don't know how to transfer text from one message to another...)
Two phase activities actually comes from Kohler, but it was used by
Leontiev, and I believe to some degree by Vygotsky to help explain
development). The best description I can give I think is that it is
the first separation between thought and object. Up unitl this time
there is no differentiation between thinking and object...the individual
cannot think about the object separately, and therefore is unable to
plan, to use the object for anything but exactly what it is (e.g., to
use a stick as a stick. It is a transitional thinking that will
eventually lead to social historical thinking.
What I meant by particular situation, and particular time and place is
that the child's use ot the stick as horse did not come from a generalized
rule, and it will not lead to a generalized rule. It is a rule specific
to that particular situation...to the child wanting to imagine a horse
and the stick being there to use in imagining the horse. If
he had a friend there at the time, he or she might have used the stick
as a horse as well. But the use of the stick as a horse is syncretic and
not conceptual in nature. There are syncretic rules, any time you
plan you are creating a rule for some period of time. I differentiate
these type of syncretic rules from conceptual rules. In conceptual
rules systems, such as the rules for the game, individuals tie their
rule systems back to some larger orgizational structure. To use
Jay's term they are intermediary rules for meta-rules. I do not think
that very young children are capable of using this type of rule systems.
Finally, I found your example of fantasy quite interesting. But from
a Vygotskian perspective I think it comes dangerously close to the
notion of the fantasy principle preceeding the reality principle,
a basis for Vygotsky's major criticism of Piaget (and which Piaget
later agreed to). In contrastI would say that rules are not transferred
from play to reality, but on a conceptual level they are transferred
from reality (they are necessary for the division of labor) to play.
They are omni-present in our lives because they are omni-present in our
social structures. It seems to me that in Geoddell, Escher and Bach
it might have been more representative of how theory preceedes
empirical proof (some physicists claim this is the only way development
of thinking is possible...perhaps Jay could speak to this). But I
would say this is a very different thing from the play Vygotsky is
describing.
Michael Glassman
University of Houston