Re: Ideal - Ilyenkov

From: jan derry (j_derry@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 02 2000 - 09:30:52 PDT


Nate, I realised that when I responded to Helen I pushed the reply button
and it went to Helen's own email and not XMCA so I have reposted what I
wrote here and because it relates to your concern over 'hierarchy' and
'western culture'.

There are problems with what can be an isolated and localised
characterisation of (western) culture. (Is an Aristotelianism introduced to
western Europe in the twelfth century by a Syrian (Ibn Sina) and an Arab
(Ibn Rushd)'western culture'?)

Helen, I agree with you that that Ilyenkov’s piece is inspiring in the way
that it makes us think about the problem of consciousness quite differently.
I think some of this he draws from Spinoza and like Vygotsky, conceives of
will in a quite different way to that of Descartes. I agree with you that as
a teacher, to be engaged in the development of intellect is a quite
different activity than to be testing ‘capacities’ and transmitting
information.

I’m not sure that using the term language (as solving the problem of
consciousness) does justice to what Ilyenkov meant by the ideal as human
material activity. There is a danger both of understanding the realm in
which we act within - as open to conscious open-ended individual
construction and of misunderstanding that the ‘space of reasons’ (our
‘ideal’ activity laid down in the world over centuries) has a local and
ahistorical character (and thus can be modified at will. This would not be
the case even for a Cartesian will with it’s independence from the
material). The force of Ilyenkov’s point is that the historically developing
‘culture/social consciousness’ is what the individual must reckon with to be
more than an animal responding to ‘organic attractions and needs of the
individual body’(that is to be something more than a biochemical process –
an extension of an environment, and so to have consciousness). Jan

Jan Derry
www.bham.ac.uk/SAT/Derry.html

Helen wrote;
‘I have always had a hard time explaining to friends why "language" is the
phenomenon that solves the problem of consciousness ("How does consciousness
get into people's heads? Is it born into us -- if so, we can test for it and
sort people according to test results. If it is not born into us -- how do
we explain its presence without resorting to magical thinking?") -- why
language is what is material and yet both inside and outside us. I have
seen the light of curiousity die in many eyes when I try to argue that this
is a problem that needs solving -- especially among teachers, because
teachers, at the very minimum, need to have a strategy about how to change
consciousness and assess consciousness (think of the testing industries that
take advantage of our lack of clarity on what is innate and what is
learned).’

One of my first thoughts while reading this article is that it resonated
with
what one of my favorite teachers at Berkeley, Claire Kramsch, who taught
language and culture issues and theory of second language aquisition , used
to
say -- she would say this as part of a conclusion that a certain line of
reasoning would lead to: "Language is co-extensive with culture." And also:
"Language is co-extensive with consciousness." So -- a language, a culture,
extends to the limits of our consciousess; and, what we can know is known to
us
through language and experienced as culture.

Ilyenkov's chapter unpacks the word "language" and helps us see what creates
it
and how we relate to it .

Other ideas in this chapter which I hope others will pick up on and expound:
Ilyenkov walks us up to where we can see that "this specifically human
object..." (page 24, now) -- is "the world of things created by man for man,
and, therefore, things whose forms are reified forms of human activity
(labour)
..." He has already made several lists of what we can include, in addition
to
verbal expression: sculptural, graphic, plastic forms, routines and rituals,
drawings, models, coats of arms, banners, dress, utensils, or money,
including
gold coins and paper money, IOUs, bonds or credit notes...(9). These are
all
the product of socially organized effort, or work... Yes, it takes work to
establish a routine (to work out the regulations, for example, on a piece of
new legislation, which will eventually become the process by which a welfare
recipient will be placed in a job -- "work" creates that routine, which a
year
later, when it is implemented, becomes a set of social relationships which
appear as "reality" when the client walks into the One-Stop and finds out
what
his choices are.

Another, just continuing the same sentence: "The existence of this
specifically
human object -- the world of things created by man for man, and, therefore,
things whose forms are reified forms of human activity (labour) and
certainly
not the forms naturaly inherent in them -- is the condition for the
existence
of conciousness and will.....

That's pretty clear! Ilyenkov doesn't starting talking about how this
"specifically human object" varies from place to place, group to group,
activity system to activity system -- but if it is the condition for the
existence of consciousness and will we can then think about these
differences.
We can also think about how we can BUILD an activity system (like a
classroom)
in order to generate a desired culture of consciousness.

And at the bottom of page 25 (then I will stop): "Consciousness only arises
where the individual is compelled to look at himself as if from the side --
as
if with the eyes of another person, the eyes of all other people..."

>From: "Nate Schmolze" <nate_schmolze@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>To: "Xmca" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Subject: Ideal
>Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 10:11:29 -0500
>
>
>I read the piece a couple times and too found it interesting. Consciouness
>too came to the forefront especially the emphasis on the ideal. Initially
>had mixed reactions, but with Helen's message decided to re-read focusing
>on
>the consciousness question.
>
>Starting on what on my Microsoft reader is page 66 (piece ends on 71),
>there
>were 4 blurbs or quotes that specifically stood out for me. They are all
>from the latter part of the piece that focus on the ideal.
>
>"It is here and only here that there arises the IDEAL plane of life
>activity
>unknown to the animal. Consciousness and will are not the “cause” of the
>manifestation of this new plane of relationships between the individual and
>the external world, but only the mental forms of its expression, in other
>words, its effect."
>
>"Psychology must necessarily proceed from the fact that between the
>individual consciousness and objective reality there exists the “mediating
>link” of the historically formed culture, which acts as the prerequisite
>and
>condition of individual mental activity. This comprises the economic and
>legal forms of human relationships, the forms of everyday life and forms of
>language, and so on. For the individual’s mental activity (consciousness
>and
>will of the individual) this culture appears immediately as a “system of
>meanings”,which have been “reified” and confront him quite objectively as
>“non-psychological”, extra-psychological reality."
>
>"The riddle and solution to the problem of “idealism” is to be found in the
>peculiar features of mental activity of the subject, who cannot distinguish
>between two fundamentally different and even opposed categories of
>phenomena
>of which he is sensuously aware as existing outside his brain: the natural
>properties of things, on the one hand, and those of their properties which
>they owe not to nature but to the social human labour embodied in these
>things, on the other."
>
>"Man acquires the “ideal” plane of life activity only through mastering the
>historically developed forms of social activity, only together with the
>social plane of existence, only together with culture. “Ideality” is
>nothing
>but an aspect of culture, one of its dimensions, determining factors,
>properties. In relation to mental activity it is just as much an objective
>component as mountains and trees, the moon and the firmament, as the
>processes of metabolism in the individual’s organic body."
>
>Now, in regards to a "neutral" question of how consciousness is formed and
>where it exists his arguments of the ideal really make sense to me.
>Staying
>in this "neutral" space for just a moment, where consciousness and we maybe
>could add "cognition" and identity lie is a very practical question as
>Helen
>pointed towards in the field of education.
>
>In the end through this is just a "how question" which philosophers and
>psychologists love. The talk of "man" and "human life activity" gave me the
>strong impression that there is this "one consciousness" which is very
>difficult for me to accept. A definate hierarchy in places in which
>"western culture" is put on top as the more "human".
>
>I think questions like what kinds of consciousness are being formed in this
>or that activity are important ones to ask especially in a field like
>education. So, when Ilyenkov argues "man acquires the ideal plane only
>through mastering historically developed forms of social activity" it
>leaves
>me with a lot of questions. One being there seems to be social activitieS
>and they are often in tension with each other.
>
>I guess the big question for me is the application of the ideal to more
>culturally, socially specific forms of historical activities.
>
>Nate
>
> who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
>Nate Schmolze
>http://members.home.net/schmolze1/
>schmolze1@home.com
>
> who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
>
>
>
>
>
> who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
>Nate Schmolze
>http://members.home.net/schmolze1/
>schmolze1@home.com
>
> who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>

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