OK, here is the message on this topic. It has not appeared on the archive
where I looked for it. I
am trying to figure out why. Thanks to Ed Wall for pointing me to it.
There is a cluster of messages from David, Vera, Ana and Martin and ?? here
that seems to me
especially important and potentially generative.
Referring to the note I sent earlier with the analysis of the Russian who
also knew Sanskrit, I questioned
the issue of so- as a prefix in Russian. ditto o-
And when we combine the two prefixes ( so-znanie/ o-so-znanie) what is being
created. Peter? MGU Aspiranti?
Anna S? ???
znanie =knowledge
so-znanie ~ co knowledge ????
o-so-znanie ~~ about-co-knowledge, concerning-co-knowledge???????
mike
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Date: Feb 9, 2007 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Harried instructor seeks words of wisdom
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Vera,
I would certainly be interested in hearing more about the distinctions
you're making between responsiveness, awareness and consciousness.
To add to the (my) confusion, digging through my notes I've come across the
following note by translator Norris Minick in Thinking & Speech (p. 388, n.
12):
"By the phrase 'conscious awareness' we gloss the Russian osaznanie, which V
carefully and consistently uses and distinguishes from the term soznanie or
'consciousness.' Vygotsky clarifies the difference between the two at
several points in the text
the earlier translation of this volume (
Thought
and language
) rendered both terms as 'consciousness,' introducing a
confusion not to be found in the original Russian text."
The links to neuroscience are very interesting. If I understand it
correctly, Vygotsky's psychology was the study of consciousness and
physiology (the material basis of consciousness). The division of labor that
developed between Vygotsky and Luria speaks to this, I think. Modern
neuroscience too often wants to treat consciousness as an epiphenomenon, but
Vygotsky clearly viewed it as having a purpose: it has evolved because it
serves an important function. After my last message I recalled Vygotsky's
insistence that consciousness appears when action meets an obstacle. I'm
pretty confident he says this as early as Educational Psychology, and as
late as T&S, but I can't track down specific citations at this moment. And
this links to David's comments about volition. Consciousness occurs when our
prereflective action is blocked, and we must deliberate, look around, and
consider alternatives. A two-way link to volition: Cs arises from practical
activity, and serves to reorganize that activity. Cs gives us the will to do
what is hard to do, what needs to be done, what at first grasp seems
impossible to do.
And while I'm cutting and pasting from my notes, this is from the last pages
of Educational Psychology:
"Man has set himself the goal of becoming master of his own feelings, of
lifting the instincts to the heights of consciousness and making them
transparent, of stretching the thread of will into what is concealed and
into the underground, and to thereby lift himself up to a new stage, to
create a 'higher' sociociological type, a, so to speak, super-man." 351
None of this gives my students a *definition* of consciousness. But perhaps
one has to be satisfied with a *history* of it, a story that describes how
it comes into being and then departs again.
Martin
On 2/9/07 11:24 AM, "Vera Steiner" <vygotsky@unm.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I sent my message on consciousness before reading Martin's "harried
> instructor seeks words of wisdom." It is a fine discussion, and my
> apologies for not referring to it in my somewhat differently focused
> comments.In my class last night, I tried to differentiate between
> responsiveness, awareness and consciousness, a hard task, but if anyone
> is interested, I would be willing to struggle with it some more in our
> discussions. Right now, I have to leave the house and the computer,
> Vera
>
> Martin Packer wrote:
>
>> Trying to get the worms out of one can I seem to have opened another, but
I
>> think David may have rescued me before I started to ask. Trying to
explain
>> why studying consciousness was important to Vygotsky, I started with the
>> assertion that for him (and me too) consciousness is in our interaction
with
>> the world. I suppose that all animals have consciousness, perhaps even
>> plants in some sense, since they respond to changes in the environment
(day
>> & night; the movement of the sun) and so must sense these in some way.
But
>> human consciousness is, one supposes, much more complex, and it develops.
>>
>> If consciousness is in our interactions, not in our heads, that is
helpful
>> when we are trying to avoid dualistic thinking. And, yes, Vygotsky was
>> trying to give a materialistic account of consciousness, which at first
>> seems pretty contradictory.
>>
>> Psychology today generally doesnıt consider consciousness: in one class
one
>> might study memory, in another perception, in a third language, and so
on.
>>> From Vygotskyıs point of view this has divided up something unitary
after
>> all, in my conscious existence I am thinking at one moment, remembering
>> something the next, then imagining something, talking, ... and even this
>> account divides consciousness up too much. So the proper study of
>> consciousness is the study of all these functions in their
>> interrelationship. It is, I said, only to keep things simple that
Vygotsky
>> focuses mainly on thinking and talking in the book we are reading.
>>
>> I said some more. I said it in (bad) Spanish and now I canıt remember it
in
>> English!
>>
>> And they said, okay, very good, but what was Vygotskyıs definition of
>> consciousnessı? Give us a definition of consciousness, and keep it
concise
>> and formal. They said this with a (collective) smile, so I know they
werenıt
>> expecting a dictionary definition, even before reading Davidıs message.
But
>> I wasnıt able to give a (good) answer.
>>
>> David, for me, too, consciousness is not cognition. I completely agree
with
>> you that volition is crucial for Vygotsky. (For example, I think
Vygotskyıs
>> position on scientific concepts is misunderstood when people say that
such
>> concepts enable self-control; V is clear that itıs the other way round:
>> self-control, mastery of oneıs own psychological functions, makes such
>> concepts possible.) But Iım not entirely comfortable *equating*
>> consciousness with volition. I guess for a first shot Iıd say that
volition
>> is a relation between consciousness and functions that lack
consciousness.
>> One thing I like about this formulation is that it includes the
possibility
>> that consciousness is social, intersubjective, and that self-control has
its
>> roots in control-by-others. And I do believe that this was Vygotskyıs
>> position (in-itself; for-others; for-itself). But having put it this
way
>> one has to distinguish carefully between consciousness and
>> self-consciousness, no?
>>
>> Enough for one day. Iım off for enchiladas. More words of wisdom from
XMCAıs
>> collective consciousness will be much appreciated!
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> p.s I think Osimbologia may be a Nahuatl word. ;) I saw a wonderful
>> Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary the other day. Any takers?
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>>
>>
>
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