Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced

Paul Dillon (dillonph who-is-at northcoast.com)
Mon, 1 Nov 1999 07:41:22 -0800

Nate,

You wrote:

"I guess for me, I cannot envision "lived organic experience" that would not
be situated in the cultural-historical. "

Two thoughts:

(1) What about hunger, itchy skin, and orgasms (quite important, no?), etc.?
When the 1 month old infant is crying and I feed it and it stops crying, am
I wrong to assume that some experience of its own living existence, some
awareness of the state of its existence was at the basis of its behavior?
How could I possibly assume that its experience was mediated by
cultural-historical relations?

(2) Consider Helen Keller's description of the 'breakthrough' she
experienced when Ann Sullivan succeeded in connecting the word water (whose
letters she traced on Helen's hand while holding it under cool running
water) with the phenomena itself.. This was, in her own words, the first
time she connected the experience of having words traced on her hand and the
phenomena to which they referred:

"Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a
thrill of a returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was
revealed to me. I knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool
something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul,
gave it light, hope, joy, set it free."
(Quoted in White 1960).

What was Helen's experience of water before it was mediated with language?

Paul H. Dillon

-----Original Message-----
From: nate <schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced

>Paul,
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Paul Dillon <dillonph who-is-at northcoast.com>
>To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Monday, November 01, 1999 12:53 AM
>Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced
>
>
>> Nate,
>>
>> The issue I raised concerning "biogical science" and "lived organic
>> experience" doesn't seem to figure in what you write, at least as far as
>I
>> can tell, but I think your position is untenable because you don't
>specify
>> which one you mean or clearly state that you conflate them. The position
>> you take when writing, "I would be more comfortable with saying there
>is a
>> dialectic involved and that it is virtually impossible for us as a
>species
>> to have access to the biological" can be read two ways.
>>
>> Are you saying that that we cannot have access to our organic existence?
>If
>> so then we cannot have access to our inorganic existence. This is a very
>> idealist position. Of course there are many arguments against idealism
>> (e.g, If we don't have access then how do we get a world in the first
>> place?) and I'm not sure you even mean this.
>
>I am saying we cannot access an "organic existence" that would bypass the
>cultural-historical. Not unlike Hegel when he wrote there is no reality
>that by passes mediation by tools. I would argue the world in the 1st
>place is one of mediation.
>
>>
>> But if you mean "biological science" when you write "biological" it also
>> seems to reduce itself to absurdity because biological science is a human
>> artefact so we necessarily have access to it.
>
>We have access to the biological through the mediation of our
>cultural-historical theories of biological science. We don't have a direct
>link with the "biological" that would bypass cultural-historical mediation
>though.
>
>>
>> To me the important question is whether biological science can have
>> objective knowledge of organic existence which is its field of inquiry.
>I
>> side with those who say yes. I also think that the cultural-historical
>> sciences can have objective knowledge of their fields of inquiry. But
>> this doesn't mean at all that the objective knowledge of one is reducible
>to
>> that of the other, or vice versa. Whether the objective knowledge of
>> biological science can link up with the objective knowledge of the
>> cultural-historical sciences is another question. How and when these
>> syntheses occur seems to be a very complex issue involving globally
>extended
>> activity systems. But it seems that such linkages when they do occur
>lead
>> to great advances in the total human knowledge as well as reformulations
>of
>> the "sciences" that preceded them in terms of the new synthesis.
>
>I guess I don't see them as two fields of inquiry. CHAT is not
>psychological, sociological, or biological but rather those are certain
>avenues for CHAT explanation. I think those like Ethel Tobach with an
>emphasis on levels has pointed toward the genetic-biological being
>explained from a CHAT perspective.
>
>I am less inclined to entertain notions of an "objective truth". For me,
>it seems that truth is always intertwined with the cultural-historical. An
>assertion that there is an "objective truth" within a particular ideology
>has been very much the goal of cognitive science. With concepts, we are
>told we must seperate the concept "in itself" from the concept "for
>itself". It is assumed that the logic, essence, or typicality of the
>concept can be seperated from its use in activity.
>
>My understanding of Vygotsky and Elkonin, in particular, is explaining what
>the bourgeois viewed as eternal or biological in a cultural-historical
>manner. Vygotsky accepted Piaget and other theories at the time as having
>a "truth" but sought to explain them cultural-historically. A
>developmental stage progression that was interelated with the activities we
>set up for our younger members because of the division of labor. Yes,
>Vygotsky took things from biology and other diciplines but rarely as is, as
>when he explains what he does and does not mean by internal.
>
>I guess for me, I cannot envision "lived organic experience" that would not
>be situated in the cultural-historical. Earlier you mentioned, "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. To deal with the latter it would assume a level
>of disgust that would somehow transend the cultural-historical. A
>biological disgust that can be severed from the cultural-historical. It is
>this severing I have a problem with, our biological processes, needs etc.
>are transformed into a cultural-historical system.
>
>Nate
>
>> Paul H. Dillon
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nate <schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu>
>> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Date: Sunday, October 31, 1999 9:06 PM
>> Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced
>>
>>
>> >Phil,
>> >
>> >I think both to a degree. First, when I say cultural-historical I see
>it
>> >more as the "system" I am part of and the biological is part of that
>> >system. In development when Vygotsky talked about "revolution" it was
>not
>> >so much the new was an unfolding but "internal" and in relation to the
>> >system. In this sense, the biological is always there but changes
>because
>> >of its relationship within the system. He described this in several
>areas;
>> >language, play, and instruction. In all three the biological is
>> >qualitatively different not because of an unfolding perse, but because
>of
>> >its relationship to the system.
>> >
>> >I also think what we call "natural" or "biological" seems to be very
>> >cultural-historical. This is real strong for me in "developmental"
>> >literature especially the unfolding kind. Jerome Bruner talks about
>this
>> >as the "dialectics of culture" with early cognitive science and the war
>on
>> >poverty. He entertains the notion that maybe science leads culture and
>> >decides against this approach. I would never go so far as to say "a
>result
>> >of", I don't tend to see relationships in that way. I would be more
>> >comfortable with saying there is a dialectic involved and that it is
>> >virtually impossible for us as a species to have access to the
>biological.
>> >
>> >Biology is a very loaded and dangerous term for me. In many ways, like
>> >development, it naturalizes a particular order of things, if its
>cultural
>> >or structural, that leaves a lot of questions unasked. Even something
>> >like Vygotsky's scientific concepts can be found in our genes, I am
>being
>> >somewhat sarcastic, but not totally.
>> >
>> >Nate
>> >
>> >
>> >----- Original Message -----
>> >From: Phil Graham <pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au>
>> >To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
>> >Sent: Sunday, October 31, 1999 5:54 PM
>> >Subject: Re: interfunctionally integrated versus replaced
>> >
>> >
>> >> Nate,
>> >>
>> >> just to clarify:
>> >> At 17:25 29-10-00 -0600, Nate wrote:
>> >> > I don't think it excludes the biological, "I" just don't believe it
>> >exists
>> >> >for us as a species outside of the cultural-historical.
>> >>
>> >> Are you saying that the biological is part of, or a result of,
>> >> cultural-historical?
>> >>
>> >> Phil
>> >>
>> >> Phil Graham
>> >> p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
>> >> http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
>> >>
>> >
>>
>