Re: [xmca] On Roth's "On Mediation"

From: Andy Blunden <ablunden who-is-at mira.net>
Date: Wed Oct 24 2007 - 19:34:16 PDT

At 07:15 PM 24/10/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>Tony:
>
> It's in Chapter Six of Thinking and Speech, p. 193 of Collected Works
> Volume 1, where it is sourced to V.25 of Marx and Engels Collected Works,
> Chapter 2, p. 384.

Actually it's Vol 37 p. 804. That must have been the Russian edition????
Vol 25 is Anti-Duhring an Chap 2 is not on p. 384. and the quote is not in
Anti-Duhring or chapter two of anything.

Andy

>
> I've NEVER seen this in Mao. In fact, I've never seen ANY Marx in Mao
> that I didn't first see in Stalin, and Stalin didn't read very much.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>Tony Whitson <twhitson@UDel.Edu> wrote:
> maybe something like this?:
>
>"If the world was really just as it appears to us, there would be no need
>for science." Karl Marx
>
>That's my paraphrase, from memory, and I think I'm remembering a Marx
>quotation that I read somewhere in Mao's writing (possibly in Chinese).
>
>So, I don't have the exact quote, and I don't know the precise source.
>
>Does anybody recognize this?
>
>On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > I think we can find similar kind of thinking in a number of works and
> > traditions. For example, with respect to CHAT, Klaus Holzkamp
> distinguishes
> > between the world as available to people everyday, and other aspects only
> > available through critique of ideology, structural analysis.
> >
> > Similarly, Dorothy Smith (sociologist) writes about the world as
> available to
> > us, and determinations that are not apparent. If I use a concept such as
> > Standard North American Family or Single Parent, I am generally not
> aware of
> > the political work that has gone on behind the scenes--from my current
> > perspective---and I am importing into my lifeworld ideologies. Only
> critical
> > analysis (ethnography, sociology, critical cultural studies) will allow
> me to
> > make these hidden structures/determinations apparent.
> >
> > From a consciousness perspective, only those things mediate my
> decisions that
> > are apparent to me; but from an analytic perspective, there are structural
> > determinations or mediations.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 24-Oct-07, at 3:57 PM, Mike Cole wrote:
> >
> > Gordon--
> >
> > A position in Michael's paper that seems crucial to me is that between
> > functional and structural
> > perspectives with respect to mediation of CONSCIOUSNESS (not necessarily
> > behavior, although
> > sometimes I get confused on this score).
> >
> > So, while I may be unconcious of the fact that a gear box/stick etc are
> > mediating my interaction with the world
> > while driving, e.g., functionally for consciousness the operation of gear
> > shifting is unediated, structurally, the
> > operation IS mediated.
> >
> > This is sort of like Don Norman's "first person" versus "system" view of
> > mediated human action and the use of
> > artifacts in action.
> >
> > Not sure how we can zero in and be more precise, lets see what michael
> says.
> > mike
> >
> > On 10/24/07, Gordon Wells wrote:
> >>
> >> Michael,
> >>
> >> I too had some difficulty with the non-mediating operation issue. I
> >> agree with your analysis of speaking and Mike Cole's explanation of
> >> Leontiev's example, but I still think that the operation (of
> >> gear-shifting or fish feeding with the scoop) act as mediational
> >> means in the action in focus. Using Mike's explanation, it would
> >> seem that having to attend to gear-shifting - or to how to use the
> >> scoop - means that those are actions - or probably sub-actions -
> >> rather than operations.
> >>
> >> Taking this general discussion a little further, wouldn't it also be
> >> necessary to recognize that, just as there are sub-actions, so there
> >> are sub-operations that are even further from conscious awareness?
> >>
> >> Gordon
> >>
> >>> Hi Eric,
> >>> thanks for your note.
> >>>
> >>>> How does the immediacy of operations develop into the mediated
> >>>> actions of a goal directed activity?
> >>>
> >>> Operations do not "Develop" into mediated actions, they are produced
> >>> in response to current conditions, which include the present state
> >>> of the action. I am thinking about talking in everyday situations as
> >>> a paradigm. We don't go and search for words, they seem to appear in
> >>> our mouths. The type of words is a function of the current state,
> >>> including what we have produced thus far, and we stop not BECAUSE of
> >>> grammatical rules but because of a stop order (remember, most people
> >>> and especially children don't know formal grammar and yet produce
> >>> grammatical sentences), which tells us that what we have produced is
> >>> somehow complete. We can make salient operations, which usually
> >>> happens when something goes wrong, and the reverse happens as we
> >>> become familiar with actions that they disappear from our
> >>> consciousness. When this happens precisely normally is not available
> >>> to consciousness, because it precisely involves the disappearance of
> >>> being conscious of the action. (I once studied it when I was
> >>> teaching in Newfoundland, taking also a course, and doing a study of
> >>> tying shoe laces with a child that had trisomy 21. What are
> >>> operations to us had to be made explicit, involving something like
> >>> 18 steps in my case. With time, 2 actions combined, leading to the
> >>> disappearance [becoming operations] of its predecessors)
> >>> Michael
> >>>
> >>> On 24-Oct-07, at 9:25 AM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Woff-Michael:
> >>>
> >>> Firstoff: great read! I so enjoy an article that places a "real-world"
> >>> context for the reader to negotiate the scholarly "words". The
> >> real-world
> >>> context being the fish hatchery. Also, for once I believe I have a firm
> >>> grasp on how Leontiev was negotiating the avenue of activities, actions
> >> and
> >>> operations. Your examples clearly indicate the differences and I am
> >>> able
> >>> to better understand the history and development of Cultural-Historical
> >>> theory as a result of your article. Thank you. Here is my difficulty.
> >>> Perhaps it is in the paper and I am not deciphering it correctly,
> >>> perhaps
> >>> not. How does the immediacy of operations develop into the mediated
> >>> actions of a goal directed activity? Where is the explanation of the
> >>> process that allows actions to become operations? Vygotsky viewed the
> >>> transition of speaking aloud to problem solving to inner speech for
> >> problem
> >>> solving as the process. Valsiner similar but more intricate in his
> >>> explanations. The difference obviously being that Valsiner has enjoyed
> >>> much more time in the research arena. Using your example of learning
> >>> how
> >>> to feed the fish could you possibly walk me through your thoughts on how
> >>> you transitioned from using the scoop as a mediating device to the point
> >>> where feeding the fish was an operation and you were able to move into
> >>> an
> >>> 'everydayness' of feeding fish.
> >>>
> >>> eric
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
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> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Gordon Wells
> >> Department of Education
> >> University of California, Santa Cruz
> >> http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells
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>
>Tony Whitson
>UD School of Education
>NEWARK DE 19716
>
>twhitson@udel.edu
>_______________________________
>
>"those who fail to reread
>are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Wed Oct 24 19:37 PDT 2007

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