RE: [xmca] personality (Goethe, Faust)

re: > Unfortunately I failed in my attempts to find full fragment in WWW
in
> English.
...
> "V nachale bylo Slovo". S pervykh strok
> Zagadka... --

Here is this fragment in English. Interestingly, this text appears in the
texts of the "founding fathers" (e.g. Vygotsky, AN Leontiev) several times
on different occasions as an illustration of their search for the prime
principle. Anyway, the text:

[He opens a volume and applies himself to it.]

'Tis written: "In the beginning was the Word!"
Here now I'm balked! Who'll put me in accord?
It is impossible, the Word so high to prize,
I must translate it otherwise
If I am rightly by the Spirit taught.
'Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought!
Consider well that line, the first you see,
That your pen may not write too hastily!
Is it then Thought that works, creative, hour by hour?
Thus should it stand: In the beginning was the Power!
Yet even while I write this word, I falter,
For something warns me, this too I shall alter.
The Spirit's helping me! I see now what I need
And write assured: In the beginning was the Deed!

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faust04.html

... and, just in case, the original:

(Er schlägt ein Volum auf und schickt sich an.)

Geschrieben steht: "Im Anfang war das Wort!"
Hier stock ich schon! Wer hilft mir weiter fort?
Ich kann das Wort so hoch unmöglich schätzen,
Ich muß es anders übersetzen,
Wenn ich vom Geiste recht erleuchtet bin.
Geschrieben steht: Im Anfang war der Sinn.
Bedenke wohl die erste Zeile,
Daß deine Feder sich nicht übereile!
Ist es der Sinn, der alles wirkt und schafft?
Es sollte stehn: Im Anfang war die Kraft!
Doch, auch indem ich dieses niederschreibe,
Schon warnt mich was, daß ich dabei nicht bleibe.
Mir hilft der Geist! Auf einmal seh ich Rat
Und schreibe getrost: Im Anfang war die Tat!

http://www.digbib.org/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe_1749/Faust_I

--- Alexander Surmava <monada@netvox.ru> wrote:

> Surely, all you including "old Charley" (:-) – I mean Marx) are quite
> right. The real, not only imaginary collective object-oriented activity
> is indispensable in the beginning, genetically. But even in functional
> plan we have to retain this real and practically oriented communication
> to save ourselves as a human personalities. Recall examples when sailors
> being leaved alone in an uninhabited island progressively lose the image
> and likeness of Human being.
>
> But I strongly object to Pierce's speculation.
>
> Thus he writes: “The first is that a person is not absolutely an
> individual. His thoughts are what he is 'saying to himself,' that is, is
> saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of
> time. When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to
> persuade”…
>
> I think that in the real process of reasoning, in such a reasoning which
> has its aim not to play up to our teacher, chief or buyers of our
> intellectual product we have to persuade not only our inner critical
> self but such a most stubborn thing as objective reality. This task is
> much more difficult than to persuade ourselves.
>
> Peirce continues: “all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of
> the nature of language”.
>
> A word as a sign, according to its conventional nature is something very
> easy. There is a good Russian proverb “Hot’ gorshkom nazovy,
> tol’ko v petch ne stav’” (Name me a pot, only save me from being
> put into the oven”). The situation when a subject acts according to
> the objective shape of its object fundamentally differs from the first
> one in which a subject acts only in verbal plan. To gain a real
> understanding (concept or Begriff) of say a circle (this is an example
> from Spinoza) we have not content ourselves with verbal definitions, but
> to elaborate such a universal tool which enables us (or anybody else
> with our practical and theoretical aid) to reconstruct any circle
> practically. Spinoza means we have to construct a plain pair of
> compasses. Such a material artifact will represent not itself, not its
> own angular body, but something totally unlike to it – all circles,
> moreover it will represent the universal nature of all circles. This
> type of “simbolic” representation is known in dialectical tradition
> of Marx and Il’enkov as ideality. It is obvious that ideality has
> nothing to do with conventionality as dialectic with semiotic.
>
> Surely the spoon is a sign of eating and food, but it is not a
> conventional sign. A spoon to act as a spoon must have some special not
> in the least conventional shape. And (according to LSV’s experiments)
> you will never succeed in inducing a child to act with ball instead of
> spoon in the special REN game. Because a ball can hardly replace the
> spoon in the special “spoon” gesture. Vygotsky considers it as a
> weakness of children’s thinking – the fact that child doesn’t
> recognize the conventional nature of words. On the contrary from the
> point of view consistently dialectical psychology this fact is proof of
> object-oriented (not conventional) nature of human as well as child’s
> thinking.
>
> All attempts of deaf and blind teachers to form association between some
> object and some conventional sign as a first step of acquiring of human
> language which they consider a semiotic system of conventional signs
> were unsuccessful. The deaf and blind person refuses to understand and
> to remember such an association.
>
> The situation radically changed when instead of this often cruel
> training come joint with adult hand-in-hand object oriented activity in
> which the spoon played a role of human (ideal) tool. After such an
> experience a child not only realize the cultural meaning of a spoon, but
> he/she easily understands the special symbolism in which a spoon means
> human food and human way of eating, so that he/she is ready to shift
> from spoon as it is to gesture of eating with aid of spoon and finally
> to the word - conventional language sign.
>
> Much earlier than Pierce and much more profound in this problem was
> Goethe who translating the Bible in “Faust” this way:
>
>
>
> It says: 'In the beginning was the Word.'
>
> Already I am stopped. It seems absurd.
>
> The Word does not deserve the highest prize,
>
> I must translate it otherwise
>
> If I am well inspired and not blind. (1224-28)
>
>
>
> Unfortunately I failed in my attempts to find full fragment in WWW in
> English. May be some of you will help me in this.
>
> For those who understands Russian I give this fragment in congenial
> translation of Boris Pasternak.
>
>
>
> "V nаchаle bylo Slovo". S pervykh strok
>
> Zаgаdkа. Tаk li ponial ia nаmek?
>
> Ved' ia tаk vysoko ne stаvliu slovа,
>
> Chtob dumаt', chto ono vsemu osnovа.
>
> "V nаchаle mysl' bylа". Vot perevod.
>
> On blizhe e'tot stikh peredаet.
>
> Podumаiu, odnаko, chtoby srаzu
>
> Ne pogubit' rаboty pervoj frаzoj.
>
> Moglа li mysl' v sozdаn'e zhizn' vdokhnut'?
>
> "Bylа v nаchаle silа". Vot v chem sut'.
>
> No posle nebol'shogo kolebаn'ia
>
> Ia otkloniaiu e'to tolkovаn'e.
>
> Ia byl opiat', kаk vizhu, s tolku sbit:
>
> "V nаchаle bylo delo", - stikh glаsit.
>
>
>
> And finally the latest remark. Kozulin opposes Vygotsky to Leont’ev as
> liberal semiotic to official activist. I’m afraid that this is not
> entirely correct. The opposition between Vygotsky and Leont’ev really
> took place, but it hasn’t an ideological character. Moreover
> Leont’ev himself failed in overcoming the semiotic dead end. But this
> is just another issue and moreover I am dead tired because was writing
> this post all night through.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sasha
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 7:00 PM
>
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>
> Subject: RE: [xmca] personality
>
>
>
> Exactly Maria, :) or, as CS Peirce put it:
>
>
>
> "Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember.
>
>
> The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts
>
>
> are what he is 'saying to himself,' that is, is saying to that other
> self
>
> that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it
> is
>
> that critical self that one is trying to persuade; and all thought
>
> whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the nature of language. The
> second
>
> thing to remember is that the man's circle of society (however widely or
>
>
> narrowly this phrase may be understood), is a sort of loosely compacted
>
> person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual
>
>
> organism."
>
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===

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Received on Thu Oct 11 05:56 PDT 2007