RE: [xmca] DIALECTICAL PSYCHOLOGY SECTION, GROUPE and SEMINAR

Hi, Andy

1. As I understand it, "object oriented activity" unifies not only
"advanced thinkers" and "primitives" but also mollusks. So that's not saying
much. Is that right?

You are absolutely exact, "object oriented activity" is the one which unites
not only "advanced thinkers" and "primitives" but also mollusks and donkeys
and beyond their professional sphere even “Logical Positivist philosophers”.
But I can hardly accept your conclusion that this statement “not saying
much”.

I admit that this fact looks banal for you, but it was difficult for
thinkers starting from Descartes till Vygotsky and the most of his
followers. Most of them consider animals to be stimulus-reactive automatons
and starting from this doubtful assumption were hampered by the insoluble
psycho-physical problem. Surely few researchers were intellectually as
courage and insightful as Rene Descartes to put forward this unobvious idea
openly. As a rule they mask this understanding behind the word “INSTINKT”.
But it is easy to demonstrate that under this term all of them including
Vygotsky imply that animals are slaves of external stimuli, that “SèR”
schema is mathematically exact description of mechanically causal
interrelation of external stimulus and preplanned reaction or answer. Just
the desire to destroy this doom to unfreedom impelled Vygotsky to put
forward his idea of cultural sign as mediating tool together with his famous
triangle.

Thus according to Vygotsky’s schema an animal is doomed to be born, to live
and to die as totally mechanical, not free creature. And the same mechanical
marionette is born as human child. The magical act of liberation in
ontogenesis as well as in phylogenesis or better to say in anthropogenesis
takes place when this mechanical marionette guess to invent and then guess
to apply to “cultural sign” as to mediating tool.

Thus a human conscious appears on the scene literally as Deus ex Machina.
The Nutcracker acquires the sole.

You must admit that this magic act can hardly be estimated as development.
Even wooden Pinocchio was carved out of “alive” log, from the log which
could perceive and cry, while in Vygotsky’s theorizing something dead and
mechanical at one jump becomes conscious.

Before this magic act a human child possesses only natural (in Vygotsky’s
logic - “SèR” or mechanical) “mental” functions. Can anybody explain us
this combination of words: mechanical mental function? This definition is
obviously an oxymoron, something contradictory and nonsensical.

Meanwhile Vygotsky dreams to build Marxist, dialectical, developmental
psychology so he tries to investigate this magic salto mortale as a real
process of productive development and borrows from French sociological
school it’s fairy tales about “primitives” that don’t attain the level of
real concepts or conceptual thinking and stays on the level of prelogical
complexes.

Can anybody explain us how this “primitives” which according to Levi Brule
are hermetical for experience and “modern” logic can survive being
successful hunters and fishermen. Can anybody recall among his friends a
lucky and successful hunter or fishermen who acts mechanically without real
understanding of his objects as well as methods and who is hermetic to the
real practical experience?

But we can easily imagine a tribal hunter with clear understanding how to
hunt a deer, = with clear concept of a deer and of the process and
circumstance of hunt, and with vague ideological (mythological) verbal
reflection on the process. We as well can easily imagine “Logical Positivist
philosophers” who according to their logically primitive approach confuse
the real act of thinking and empty verbal reflection on the process but
never confuse method of applying grants or acquiring high academic
positions.

We (dialectical psychologists) can repeat that as alive individuals we are
not confused with our blood relationship with mollusks and donkeys, while we
feel rather discredited by our possible similarity with some of professors
of logic :-(.

2. "False Consciousness" is not a term Marx ever used. It is a term from
jurisprudence which Lukacs used to mean basically beliefs based on
insufficient information, not "ideology."

   That usage was invented in the 1980s to discredit Marxism.

Dear Andy, quite possible that we have read different Marxes :). I don’t
think that this discussion is relevant to XMCA, but I rather think that in
the first chapter of German Ideology Marx insists just on understanding of
all types of ideology as on phenomena of false consciousness.

Lukach was a nice guy but I don’t think that in this context his name is
relevant.

And finally just a short fragment from the letter of Fredric Engels to Franz
Mering which was written a bit earlier that 1980s.:

“Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously,
indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him
remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at
all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives. Because it is a process of
thought he derives both its form and its content from pure thought, either
his own or that of his predecessors. He works with mere thought material
which he accepts without examination as the product of thought, he does not
investigate further for a more remote process independent of thought; indeed
its origin seems obvious to him, because as all action is produced through
the medium of thought it also appears to him to be ultimately based upon
thought. The ideologist who deals with history (history is here simply meant
to comprise all the spheres – political, juridical, philosophical,
theological-belonging to society and not only to nature), the ideologist
dealing with history then, possesses in every sphere of science material
which has formed itself independently out of the thought of previous
generations and has gone through an independent series of developments in
the brains of these successive generations. True, external facts belonging
to its own or other spheres may have exercised a co-determining influence on
this development, but the tacit pre-supposition is that these facts
themselves are also only the fruits of a process of thought, and so we still
remain within that realm of pure thought which has successfully digested the
hardest facts”.

3. When you say that everyone (incl. "tribal people" and little children")
use concepts, but define these concepts as "objects of their practical life"
this is again saying nothing as even a donkey uses "objects of their
practical life."

I am not, in any event I seek not to be, an idealist thinker so when I say
that "tribal people" and little children" use concepts it means that they
use objects of their practical life with understanding of their cultural as
well as natural meaning. I will never define concepts as “objects of …
practical life”. On the contrary I will say something like this: "tribal
people" and little children" successfully use objects of their practical
life and thus acting with adequate concepts, or conceptly.

I repeat, concept in dialectical logic is not a synonym of a word so I can’t
define and redefine this “concepts” arbitrarily, “according to intention of
my left feet”.

4. To say that "Logical Positivist philosophers" stand lower than "tribal
people and children" in their professional work ignores the fact that if
asked to particpate in the same kind of reflections, people who are not
philosophers will give answers equally silly as "Logical Positivist
philosophers," precisely because it is not their profession.

I think that the situation has to be turn upside down. The problem is that
professional “Logical Positivist philosophers” can give an answer to their
silly questions as silly as any outsider . It doesn’t compromise outsiders,
but compromise “professionals”.

5. You never equate, but repeatedly *link*, children and "primitives," that
is to say trainee language/artefact users and skilled language/artefact
users. True again that in these passage you only link "primitives" with
children, but one gets the impression that people whose cultural roots stand
midway between modernity and "primitives" might still be seen as relatively
immature in their thinking.

First of all I’ve never mention neither trainee nor skilled language users.
I’ve discussed concept thinking, or thinking in concepts, it means that I
discuss object oriented activity. Surely in case of humans such an activity
will probably include some verbal elements, but I haven’t discussed
specially verbal activity. The first has its inner measure, while the latter
has no limits. According to Russian proverb the tongue is without bones.

I don’t discuss the maturity of thinking at all. I’m only underlying that
thinking of child and of “primitive” are not something mechanical or half
mechanical, but they are real thinkers in concepts, they really understand
their objects.

Next, I’ve never insist that “modern” adult thinkers from the first World
are automatically mature thinkers. Thus the problem of people whose cultural
roots stand midway between modernity and "primitives" disappears.

As for maturity of our culture (and thinking), I think that European and
American culture, the culture of so called first world get stuck in
adolescence with all its crises and still remains very far from real
maturity.

6. …Scientific and non-scientific thinking co-exist among users of the
self-same culture. I think we have to be very cautious in ranking people's
thinking according to the historical place of the artefacts they think with.

Andy, I entirely share this latest statement.

:)

Sahsa

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:29 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] DIALECTICAL PSYCHOLOGY SECTION, GROUPE and SEMINAR

Sasha, this is the bit I object to:

Alexander Surmava wrote:

> Those which unifies “primitives” and really advanced thinkers is their

> common object oriented activity, their common smart movement according the

> objective shape of their objects, while their antagonists specialized in

> some type of ideology which according to Marx’s definition is a false form

> of consciousness. I do seriously insist that “tribal people” as well as

> little children use genuine concepts (of objects of their practical life)

> while “Logical Positivist philosophers” using the genuine concepts in
their

> practical personal life in their professional thinking are standing lower

> than “tribal people” and children because “Logical Positivist
philosophers”

> can’t go further empty words, or general, abstract “conceptions”.

Can I make some dot points:

1. As I understand it, "object oriented activity" unifies

not only "advanced thinkers" and "primitives" but also

molluscs. So that's not saying much. Is that right?

2. "False Consciousness" is not a term Marx ever used. It is

a term from jurispudence which Lukacs used to mean basically

beliefs based on insufficient information, not "ideology."

That usage was invented in the 1980s to discredit Marxism.

3. When you say that everyone (incl. "tribal people" and

little children") use concepts, but define these concepts as

"objects of their practical life" this is again saying

nothing as even a donkey uses "objects of their practical life."

4. To say that "Logical Positivist philosophers" stand lower

than "tribal people and children" in their professional work

ignores the fact that if asked to particpate in the same

kind of reflections, people who are not philosophers will

give answers equally silly as "Logical Positivist

philosophers," precisely because it is not their profession.

5. You never equate, but repeatedly *link*, children and

"primitives," that is to say trainee language/artefact users

and skilled language/artefact users. True again that in

these passage you only link "primitives" with children, but

one gets the impression that people whose cultural roots

stand midway between modernity and "primitives" might still

be seen as relatively immature in their thinking.

6. An observation: I am reading about the Algerian

Liberation War (1955-62) at the moment. A writer observed

how the Algerians used modern technology, communications and

organisational forms to fight the French. I am reminded of

how Fundamentalist Christians use postmodern communications

to promote their interpretations of the Bible. My point:

Einstein didn't use Atom bombs. Science and technology are

cultural-historical products and the type of activity

necessary to produce them is not required to use them.

Scientific and non-scientific thinking co-exist among users

of the self-same culture. I think we have to be very

cautious in ranking people's thinking according to the

historical place of the artefacts they think with. I drive a

car with manual transmission. I will make mistakes if I am

asked to drive an automatic. But I don't think I drive at a

lower level than someone who drives an automatic.

:)

Andy

-- 
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Skype andy.blunden
 
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