Re: Semiotic Ecology and Affinities

From: Judy Diamondstone (diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu)
Date: Sun Aug 27 2000 - 04:06:40 PDT


Paul, Alfred will clarify his text much better than I can. But I'm puzzled
about how you arrived at your interpretation, even given Alfred's English
usage. Are you reading with presuppositions?

Judy

At 07:37 AM 8/27/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Alfred,
>
>I couldn't really tell whether you had answered Jennifer's quite direction
>question concerning the mediated v. non-mediated character of perception in
>your proposal for a semiotic ecology. As I understand it, this is not a
>question about compatibility with Gibson by with Vygotsky and the AT
>tradition for which all perception is mediated, the original connection with
>"objectivity" being destroyed in the development of specifically
>characteristic forms of human production. Or was Leont'ev wrote:
>
>" . . . objects are reflected in language and consciousness merged with the
>human needs concretized (objectified) in them. This mergin, however, later
>is destroyed. The inevitablity of its destruction lies in the objective
>contradiction of the production of goods, whivch give rise to the opposition
>of concrete to abstract work and leads to the alientation of human
>activity."
>
>That is, the process that separates human social evolution, from direct
>comparison with any other, non-mediated, form of adapatation to the
>environment.
>
>This is fundamentally the same question I was pointing to when I posted
>concerning your invocation of Kant's schemata:. To me it's obvious that
>you are positing a direct immediate transfer of information from the
>environment to the individual. The conceptual problems with such a position
>are nototrious and I think many of us would like to see those addressed --
>sort of like putting down the foundation before building the walls and roof.
>Is this direct perception/intuition of affinities a process situated in the
>individual "human soul" which is where Kant located them? I felt that you
>had perhaps dismissed these when you wrote, "Naturally there are more of the
>basic and phil-of-science questions; but those can come anytime."
>Nevertheless I think it is important to attain some clarification on this
>issue of direct perception of objective qualities of the environment which
>is not compatible with Vygotsky's psychology or anything else in the AT
>tradition.
>
>Paul H. Dillon
>
>



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