Nate,
I'm not sure to what the "danger" might be. There are several issues at
play here. (1) the relationship between the size of the brain and cultural
phenomena; (2) the processes by which biological functions are replaced by
cultural/historical ones; (3) the relationship between new and old forms in
a dialectical process; (4) the need to distinguish ontongeny from
phylogeny
The problem being that the ideal as the internalized form of the external
activity
is only possible if the ideal already presents itself to the individual as
an objectively
existing aspect of the world (reality) -- the chicken and egg. The mere use
of tools provides
the possibility of seeing the tool and the object of the activity that uses
the tool as "other" than
it is. My main point about the length of time that hominids used tools
(especially the long Acheulian
period) being that the tool-mediated environment that is framed or
concretely abstracted by the tool . . . clearly the "platform" capable of
being conscious, ie, participating
in the forms of social consciousness especially those that include langauge,
fig
A digression: We are always at a disadvantage since we have no agreed upon
date at which a language capable of transmitting concepts first appeared.
Whenever I begin to think about this, the relationship between poetry and
conceptual analysis always comes to mind, Plato throwing the poets out of
the Republic because the power of poetic speech was similar to that of
magnets and did not rely upon the Idea. Nevertheless, everything would seem
to point to poetic processes as one of the primary roots of conceptual
speech. Many commentators have pointed out that the key elements of poetry:
meter, assonance, alliteration, etc, served mnemonic purposes for the
poet-bard-sage, the well of the collective memory of the group, the keeper
of the flame. One looks at the oldest known examples of written speech (the
Rig Veda) and finds very strict formula poetic forumula (the Hindu word
"veda" means knowledge, the indo-european root of the german Wissen as well
as the English "wit"). In this context I also consider Mikhailov's
discussion of the semantic properties of phonemes. Yes, digression but this
ties into the the question of social memory, and particularly cultural
organization. Jumping boundaries: the coherence of Bourdieu's "habitus" in
no way derives from its conceptual coherence, it is rather based on
homology, metaphorical relationship etc.
----- Original Message -----
From: Nate Schmolze <nate_schmolze@yahoo.com>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 4:46 AM
Subject: RE: RE: RE: On Leontiev
> Paul,
>
> Is not there a danger with this line of argument too? It is "true" of
> course - up to a point but it also make it seem so out there. I guess
what
> I'm asking is it necessary to go back millions of years. Vygotsky's point
> that "lower" remains unchanged, but becomes something different -
> transformation - seems important. Allen, a systems dude, said something
> interesting in regards to form of the brain and all that has stuck with
me.
> When we look at animals there seems to be as with chimps a relationship
> between the size of the brain and intellect. This is not so with humans,
> our "higher" is more of a cultural organization in which we were able to
> pass the phsyicality to a certain extent.
>
> The only reason I say this is if we take the "marxist "anthropological
> argument or the evolutionary one of the brain, we are left with the
chicken
> and egg thing. Kind of a Lamarck - Darwin dialectic of sorts, but it
seems
> Vygotsky approached it somewhat differently. Development as a species in
> not so much on how activity - millions of years - changes the brain, but
> rather how it was left in tact so to speak. The "human eye" as Marx
> mentions, or Vygotsky's higher mental processes where the physical,
> biological become a different thing.
>
> Memory is a nice example - over millions of years - if memory - brain -
> adapted itself we would probally need rather large brains or at least
> different ones than we currently have. This might not have been efficient
> for other physical reason, but with written language for example the
> capabilities of memory was expanded expotentially with out changing the
> structure of the brain.
>
> Three explanations ?
>
> 1) Evolutionary - consciousness, activity is constained and / or
determined
> by the bran. We are have consciousness because we have evolved as a
species
> over time.
>
> 2) Lamark-Anthro - Activity, tool use over millions of years has forced
> the brain, eye, hand to adapt to the development of human activity.
>
> 3). Vygotsky, Luria, (Leontev?) - The lower (biological) are replaced (put
> underneath) by higher cultural mental processes. They are not changed so
to
> speak as in the Lamarkian view but become part of a cultural-historical
> system. Transformation seems important here - for example with a child
> learning to write (penmanship) there is this hand-eye coordination which
is
> essential for written language, but this reorganization occurs without
> changing either the eye or the hand. However, with this cultural
> reorganization the hand and the eye become a very different thing -
> transformation.
>
> I think 2 and 3 are both motivated by dialectical thinking, but have
> different implications. One last example, I have never liked datebooks, I
> would rather keep them in memory (culturally developed of course).
Recently
> of course I have by necessity needed to develop a system which has greatly
> expanded my memory while leaving my brain in tact so to speak. For me, (3)
> takes one out of the chicken-egg problem (interactionism) that Leontev
> talked about. It seems then that (2) and (3) may be different dialectical
> responses to (1) that would be interesting to explore. Marx and Engels
> were used in different ways to validate both, yet it seems they have
> different implications.
>
> Nate
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul H.Dillon [mailto:illonph@pacbell.net]
> Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 10:52 AM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: RE: RE: On Leontiev
>
>
> Phillip posted ,
>
> > actually, yes - because the egg is part of the constraints of the
> > activity - just as the structure of the eye is part of the constrait
of
> > sight - along with cultural notions of color and meanings of black /
> > white / red / yellow - etc.
>
> To the contrary, I think the important point is precisely that the
> structure of the eye has developed as part of tool mediated activity and
> adapted to that activity over the course of several million years
> (particularly the eye and the hand as in the oh-so-important "hand-eye"
> coordination necessary for the manipulation of tools). In general I agree
> with you about the constraining character of physical reality whose inner
> structure we can know through the fact of our activity, but with respect
to
> the physical organization of the human species itself, it must always be
> seen as the product of cultural evolution at least for the past few
million
> years or so (maybe more). That is what the archaeological record shows us
> (pace Andy).
>
> Paul H. Dillon
>
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