>but doesn't this come down to a question of meaning? The idea that
>"dialogue" doesn't connote equivalence in value is not valid. Since
>dialogue presupposes that the individuals involved in the dialogue
>understand that the other understands what they understood themselves to
>have stated (to paraphrase Bateson's level III in Laing's adaptation). Thus
>there is equivalence.
I'm sorry, I don't follow, Paul. I think you are treating "meaning" as
referential only, and, as I said previously and as anthropological
linguists also say, "referential" is not the only kind of meaning and not,
in the view of some (like me), the most important kind.... I don't imagine
that the meaning of my words is the same for my interlocutor as it is for
me....
What is the source of this equivalence? I'm not at
>all sure that dialogue presupposes any "negotiation" of meaning at all. If
>anything negotiation might come down to issues of positioning within a
>pre-existing system of meanings.
Sure, it does come down to choice within constraints. Particular pathways
of choice are more or less unique, individual to individual, moment to
moment; the system of options is more or less "the same"
The process of transformation of systems
>of meanings, at least as far as can be understood from the historical record
>of the transformation of language, world views, scientific paradigms, etc.,
>has nothing to do with this process of positioning.
hunh?
>So we are dealing with the the ground of the possibility of
>intersubjectivity. In my opinion, if you start with a notion of independent
>subjects and attempt to account for how these initially independent,
>autonomous subjects can link together and produce a commonly shared space
>of agreement (of equivalences that allow the above presupposition), you are
>starting out from an inverted conceptualization. As I understand it, the
>issue rather concerns how subjects themselves are brought into existence at
>the same time as the system that allows mutual understanding.
I don't start with a view of independent subjects -- I do assume
individuation within a social unit, obviously co-constituted by the
participants....
>I rarely use the word "culture" in any way that allows its incorporation
>into a phrase such as "culturally specific". To my mind this is an
>attribution of differences to an illusory substance (akin to "ether" in
>pre-Einsteinian physics which accounted for the otherwise inexplicable
>ability of light to pass through a vacuum).
That helps me to understand 'where you're coming from' better than before.
I don't agree at all -- perhaps because the emic perspective is important
to me as researcher, interventionist, whatever. Perhaps because I don't see
subjectivity & objectivity so cleanly delineated. Perhaps because I value
meaning-making... yada yada yada
If anything, the term "culture"
>has value as a general, very abstract term denoting a wide range of
>variations in language, customs, world views, etc. that cannot be given any
>explanatory weight.
>More to the point, in relation to Carl's position, is the question: What are
>the adequate bases for a psychology that accounts for the general patterns
>of meanings/subjectivities that exist in specific historically determinate
>periods. To accomplish this you need an adequate social ontology for
>characterizing historically determinate periods. In my opinion, the only
>adequate social ontology begins with the relations of production and
>reproduction of the society itself.
You sound like Blake's Urizen, Paul.
Judy
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