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Abstracts
Mind, Culture, and Activity
Vol. 7., No. 4
Criteria for the Quality of Inquiry
Willem L. Wardekker
Department of Education
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Researchers working within Cultural Historical Activity Theory need to
develop criteria for the adequacy of the process and product of research
that are founded on the central tenets of that theory. Criteria like
validity and generalizability are not universal, but have been developed
from a specific theory of knowledge use. This relation is explained both
for the nomological and the interpretive paradigms, and suggestions are
made for the development of criteria in the CHAT paradigm on a similar basis.
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Across the Scales of Time:
Artifacts, Activities, and Meanings in Ecosocial Systems
Jay L. Lemke
City University of New York
JLLBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
All human activity takes place on one or more characteristic timescales. On
how many different timescales is our social life organized? How does
persistent organization on longer timescales constrain the likelihood of
events on shorter timescales? How do organizational units and processes on
shorter timescales make possible the emergent patternings we recognize at
longer timescales?
In analyzing the dynamics of ecosocial systems/networks and human
activities within them we need to know what kinds of processes are
characteristic of each relevant timescale and how processes are integrated
across different timescales. In this article I develop some of the
implications of multiple-timescale analysis for the study of meaningful
human activity and raise a host of research questions generated by this
perspective. My principal example is schooling in relation to identity
development and cultural continuity. I move from a brief consideration of
the basic dynamics of complex systems in general, to the case of ecosystems
in which meanings matter, and finally to the conclusion that 'it takes a
village' to to study the complex multi-scale processes that constitute a
village.
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The Dialogical Integration of the Brain in Social Semiosis:
Edelman and the Case for Downward Causation
Paul J. Thibault
Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari Europei e Postcoloniali
Universitŕ degli Studi di Venezia, Italy
1. INTRODUCTION
I would like to explore some questions concerning the relationship
between language and Edelman's biologically based theory of neuronal
group selection. Edelman's theory provides us with a powerful
alternative account of language and the brain in terms of the dynamics
of complex self-organizing systems. Nevertheless, Edelman's account
remains focussed on the neural processes which subtend linguistic
activity in the individual. Beyond an assertion of the importance of
socially mediated transactions for the emergence of language in the
individual, Edelman does not indicate how individual linguistic activity
and the biological processes which subtend this emergence are entrained
and shaped by higher-scalar ecosocial relations and processes along an
individuating trajectory-in-time. Above all, the focus on the individual
organism fails to show how the here-now dyads in which particular
individuals interact with not-necessarily-human others are always
constrained by higher-order social meaning-making practices, discourse
genres and conventions.
My basic proposal is that it is necessary to specify, following Salthe
(1993) and Lemke (in press), three levels of organization in complex
systems along with the dynamic relations between these. In the absence
of a properly worked out account of the higher-scalar ecosocial
constraints acting "from above," Edelman's account remains a two level
one consisting of (i) the linguistic activity of the individual
organism; and (ii) the neural and morphological architecture and
dynamics that support the former. This suggests that Edelman's account
privileges the causal relations that arise from the lower level of the organism.
Consequently, it plays down the fundamental role of downward causation
emanating from the higher scalar level of the ecosocial system (Lemke,
in press). In a three level system of the kind to be discussed below,
each new emergent level of organization in the dynamics of the systems
functions to re-organize variety on the level below as meaning for the
level above (Lemke, in press). With reference to the work of Brĺten,
Halliday, Kaye, Trevarthen, and Vygotsky on early infant semiosis, I
will consider the kinds of possible relations between levels in this
connection. To do so, I will propose a re-reading of Deacon's (1998
[1997]) interpretation of Peirce's distinction between icon, index, and
symbol. I will argue that this can be interpreted as dually entailing an
implication hierarchy of the kind proposed by Salthe (1993) and a
presupposition hierarchy of the kind developed by Silverstein (1976).
I will then explore how these proposals relate to recent work by Lemke
(in press) on the distinction between meanings based on discrete
typological-categorial distinctions and those based on
topological-continuous variation. I will conclude by showing how the
category of social labor as defined by Lukács can help us to build a
theoretical bridge between the inbuilt biological values on the
individual level that are central to Edelman's account and the systems
of cultural values that are located on the higher scalar level of the
ecosocial system. In so doing, we will also see some of the implications
of this approach for the ways in which the many degrees of topological
difference that are evident in early infant semiosis are integrated
into a system of typological-categorial contrasts emanating from the
higher scalar level.
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