I think there is huge controvery about the facts because, naturally,
the facts are theory laden.
I have found Jim Wertsch's 1985 book very helpful on sign/symbol
issues I raised in this
intellectual context. See also Deacon, *The symbolic animal*.
mike
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:43:56 -0500, Peter Moxhay
<moxhap@portlandschools.org> wrote:
>
> Ana asks some interesting questions with regard to animals:
>
> > The question is -- can we observe learning through construction of
> > symbolic tools in animals?? Or some animals? Ability to construct and
> > use symbolic tools becomes an interesting evolutionary difference
> > between humans and other species. The question is, is there an
> > intermediary step between learning by a direct feedback loop and
> > learning through a mediated ZPD? How does this new way of leaning and
> > understanding come into existence in the evolution?
>
> Aren't these questions related to whether animals possess
> the "ideal" in Ilyenkov's sense? We know that individual
> animals do use tools in problem solving, but is there any
> any example of animals _socially_ producing a tool? Is there
> any example of animals taking a tool they have produced and
> relating to it as a "fetish"?!
>
> Ilyenkov ("The Concept of the Ideal") thinks not: "... the 'ideal'
> exists only in man."
>
> What do you think?
>
> Peter
>
>
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