RE: Vygotsky and context

From: Cunningham, Donald James (cunningh@indiana.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 09:58:23 PDT


The term context and related ones like environment always suggested to
me something that exists independent of the organism, the same for all.
I switched to using the term Umwelt a few years ago. Here is an excerpt
from a recent paper (none of this bears on whether Vygotsky was a
contextualist!):

"Umwelt, a term borrowed from the late 19th-early 20th century
biologist, Jacob von Uexkull, applies equally well to humans and other
animals, and, perhaps also to life on earth (i.e., plants, microbes,
etc.). Uexkull was interested in characterizing how animals picture the
world in their mind and how they then interact with the world as they
have circumscribed it. Since animals can only respond to a small portion
of the total sensory information available, they create, both as a
species and as individual members of a species, an Umwelt, a "subjective
environment" which details only those aspects of the physical world
which are important (i.e., to be approached, avoided, ignored, etc.).

It is crucial to understand the difference between an Umwelt and an
environment. An environment is a physical setting that can be conceived
of independently of any particular organism and, in fact, is usually
said to exist for all organisms. This separation of organism and
environment is a fundamental tenet of behavioral and cognitive
information processing models of cognition. The Umwelt of an organism,
however, is not independent of the organism; in fact, it exists only in
relation to the organism. Any particular physical entity can serve an
enormous variety of Umwelts: the Empire State Building in New York City
can create a shelter from the rain for humans, a nesting site for
cockroaches, a landing site for pigeons, a landmark for cab drivers, a
climbing post for King Kong, and so forth. In all cases, the environment
of the building is the same; that is, the sheltered enclosure, the
crevices, the flat surfaces, etc. are available to each of the
organisms, yet their experience of them is quite different.
Through experience in the world and mediated by the sensory and
perceptual capacities of the organism, the Umwelt emerges; that is, the
tools for developing an Umwelt are present from birth but each
individual's Umwelt is developed by particular activities and by
species-specific characteristics. Via this process, the animal comes to
terms with the physical environment, creating and living in a world
uniquely defined for that species and that individual. Yet the Umwelt is
not static (i.e., in equilibrium) but in a constant state of flux both
at the species and individual level.

Semiosis in humans, while based upon the processes described thus far,
is qualitatively different from that of other organisms. Humans can
create signs which go beyond the immediate experience of the cognizing
organism. Words, pictures, bodily movements and the like generate signs
for objects which need have no basis in the real world and which can be
manipulated independent of that world. Yet these signs come to form a
part of the Umwelt of humans in the same way that dark crevices do for
an insect. It is the intervention of language, according to this view,
that allows humans to engage in this type of semiosis. Through language,
we create culture: governments, armies, schools, art, professional
associations, etc. Culture, in turn, impacts our lives, by determining
what is important, what makes sense, what is to be valued, etc. The
arbitrary nature of these signs, their lack of true reality status, is
not readily apparent to the human organism until they are exposed to
cultural systems which depart from their own.
The fact that humans can utilize signs which are arbitrary and need have
no existence in their immediate experience is what makes thought
possible and distinctly human. Experience comes to be represented by
linguistic signs that can be created without any actual embodiments in
the physical world. But these signs come to be part of our Umwelt - we
tend to see the world anew once some aspect of culture is created or
adopted.

Don Cunningham
Indiana University
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 11:24 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Vygotsky and context

Ana-- I'll put aside the discussion of whether LSV believed in
evolutionary
progression or not. I think he did and we can return to this question or
someone else can take it up. But I am focused on the meaning(s) of
context being used in such discussion. So, I want to focus on questions
that arise from your statement that:

the key to understanding Vygotsky is to understand that social
communication precedes higher mental functions in human beings. Social
activities and processes are not just a background (context) within
which a
person, and individual develops -- social processes and activities are
internalized (Vygotsky's term) and make the person's self. And (!),
this
is not social reductionism, because the process of internalization is
the
process of active recreation of a social world as an inner microcosm.
In addition, I think that play -- activities and orientations in play --
are key to understanding how this internalizing/recreating works.

1. Vis a vis LSV's thinking, I think I agree that the individual is
differentiated from the social group, that social activities are not
just a background (is "background" a synomym for "context" here?).

2. Its crucial in avoiding the (sometimes alleged) idea that society
creates the individual and turn the matter to the active individual
internalizing social ....ugh....context (?) situation (?) pattern of
interaction (?) and CREATING the psychological plane/inner microcosm.

Do you believe, and do you believe that LSV believed, these processes
to be universal? And in particular, do you believe that his account of
the role of play in development is universal? That is the issue that
Artin and Susan raise.

Now a question. The term, culture, does not enter your account. Yet
isn't culture central to the mechanism of development from a cultural
historical perspective?

And if the answer is yes, is cultural variation of any importance?

And a second question. Tool mediated action in context is the unit of
analysis proposed by Jim Wertsch, Volodya Zinchenko and others. Is there
any tool you know of, the effectiveness of which is independing of the
activity it is mediating?

If not, could LSV propose a cultural historical theory and NOT be a
contextualist?

And now much of this is from LSV and not from either one of his Russian
students or non-Russian interpreters?

More later. Time to teach a class with Kris Guitterez at UCLA and finish
up our joint class for the year. The quarter system sure drags things
out.

mike



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jul 08 2003 - 11:29:44 PDT