Re: A question of selves

nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Fri, 27 Oct 2000 07:07:45 -0500

Paul,

Yes, the experiential body, or the athletes drive is internal as in coming
from inside the organism. But, just because its internal does not mean its
biological. As Vygotsky said on several occasion, and El'konin said with
his stage theory, the internal is about revolution not evolution. I think
the internal was central to Vygotsky but that was situated in Hegelian
contradictions, which for at least Vygotsky was not biological.

I very much agree with the notion of an "embodied self" and that there is
an internal, but for me that is not synonomous with the biological. I
think, in particular, U.S. culture operates on the belief that if its
internal its biological. I think a cultural-historical explanation of the
internal would be somewhat different. In this sense, I found Vera's
explanation of creativity in *Notebooks of the Mind* as a gift to culture
very important.

I guess my point is as a species we never have access to the biological,
because what we see as the biological is cultural-historical.
Neuropsychology points to the brain as a dynamic organ in which connections
are made through early childhood and beyond. In that sense, the question
for me is do we see the brain as a cultural-historical organ, or the
cultural-historical as a biological process? The latter seems like a very
dangerous approach.

/\ / /\ | /-----
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Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu

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"Pedogogics is never and was never politically indifferent,
since, willingly or unwillingly, through its own work on the psyche,
it has always adopted a particular social pattern, political line,
in accordance with the dominant social class that has guided its
interests".

L.S. Vygotsky
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----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Dillon <dillonph who-is-at northcoast.com>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 10:48 PM
Subject: Re: A question of selves

> Nate,
>
> I'm wondering how much the notion of "reduction to the biological" means
> "reduction to the science of biology" with all of its mechanistic
> implications. As I read Lakoff he is discussing the experiential body,
the
> body that feels exhilaration when racing down a ski slope and is
overwhelmed
> with disgust and loathing when confronted with situations that offend the
> sensibilities, to mention some extremes. Certainly there are biological
> processes associated with these experiences and perhaps theseexperiences
> presuppose a certain kind of biological basis. The latter of course
being a
> major theme of popular confrontation with the cybernetic universe from
> "Terminator" to "The Matrix".
>
> The achievement of the athlete is clearly a biological phenomena but the
> question of reducing it to a description biological is generally
recognized
> to be to be incomplete (even if possible). The body is the part of the
> world in which a self knows itself and everything else. The recognition
> that selves are cultural-historical products doesn't eliminate the fact
that
> we know ourselves as embodied in this sense. Surely biology the science
has
> something to say about this state of affairs just as we accept that
physics
> can tell us about the properties of matter thereby allowing us to control
> the flow of electrons on micronic scales thereby allowing this message to
> come to you.
>
> I read Lakoff's notion of the embodied self as pointing to an
understanding
> of how our existence as biological organisms provides materials for the
> creation of the metaphors that, to apply a CHAT interpretation, we use
as
> artefacts.
>
> Paul H. Dillon
>
>
>
>
>
>