Big topic, Andy, and I can't afford to get distracted from
trying to figure out LSV on concepts! But it has to be said that
science is hermeneutic too. There is not a single science that
is not concerned with understanding traces, signs, indices, even
symbols. That's to say, science is all about "taking something
*as* something" (as Heidegger put it) and so "saying something
of something," (as Aristotle had it, in his On Interpretation).
Martin
On Mar 20, 2010, at 9:11 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
A while ago I was obliged to deal with the work of Roy
Bhaskar. What Bhaskar does is insist on the ontology of natural
science in every aspect of life, including for example, literary
criticism and cultural anthropology. The editor makes a nice
point with an anecdote: he is at a seminar on J-P Sartre. A
student in the audience calls out "Do you really think that
someone called J-P Sartre existed?" Obivously an inappropriate
application of relativism, which then opens the way for his own
dogmatism.>
I was drawn to the conclusion that it is dogmatism to insist
on one true ontology (here I mean ontology the general,
classical, not the Sartrean sense) for all activities at all
times. Natural science is an activity which by its very nature
must assume that there is a natural world out there whose
properties and forms can be known. This is not true of any
activity where reality is in a significant degree formed by and
interconnected with, human activity and in the case of the
natural sciences breaks down in certain circumstances at certain
times.>
So I don't accept that naturalistic ontology is a *myth* of
the natural sciences. It is an essential part of natural
science. But it is not universal. It is just as dogmatic to
insist on hermeneutic relativism in natural science as it is to
insist on naturalistic realism in hermeneutics, etc.
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
Larry,
Yes, it has for a long time been part of the myth of modern
science that it discloses things as they 'really are,' not as
they 'appear' to be. LSV falls into this way of speaking (or at
least his translators do). The most powerful analyses of
science, philosophical, historical and sociological, in my
opinion, show that it is thoroughly enchanted. Science involves
seeing (and thinking of) things 'as if.' So Kuhn explained
paradigms in terms of 'seeing as' - a duck or a rabbit. So every
introduction I have seen of gravity in relativity theory uses
the image of space sagging like a rubber sheet around masses,
even though this image is inadequate once one gets deeper into
the math. Seeing space 'as if' it were rubber is a necessary
step into this branch of science. Each science has/is its own
imaginary.>> Martin
On Mar 20, 2010, at 10:20 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
Luiz
That was an interesting thread you sent on play and games
and the tension between the concepts.
It is a fascinating topic.
I want to bring into the conversation a fascinating
perspective on the place of the fictional and imaginary in play
(and other activity).
First for some context.
I've always been curious about the antinomy often reflected
in the tension between imagination/reality and the literature on
modernity as the disenchantment of the world and the reaction to
this privleging the as-IS reality over the as-IF reality.
There is a counter literature on finding ways to re-enchant the world.
Often science is seen as the villan who is responsible for
the loss of the as-IF reality, as children move beyond playful
imagination into the real world.
Piaget's notions of animism as indicating immature thinking.
INGRID E. JOSEPHS takes a radically different perspective on
the tension between the imaginary as-IF constructions and the
figure-ground type relation to as-IS reality.
She wrote an article in HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1198, Volume 41,
pages 180-195 which explains very clearly this alternative
interpretation of the as-IS and as-IF dialectic and how it
infuses meaning with e-motion and explains the process of
Vygotsky's internalization and Mead's I-ME dialectic.
Following is a quick summary of Ingrid's perspective on the
imaginary in our devlopment.
Symbol formation implies a TRANSCENDENCE of the here-and-now
as-IS world by construction of the imaginary as-IF world.
Ingrid's standpoint is an extension of Hans Vaihinger's [1911-
1986] "philosophy of the "AS-IF" as his notion of FICTIONALISM
as an independent version of PRAGMATISM. (as an aside Alfred
Adler said this book transformed his life).
Vaihinger believed as-If thinking was foundational for
scientific reasoning.
Ingrid makes a further distinction between static
nondevelopmental and dynamic/developmental accounts of as-
IF. "BEING as-if" is static, whereas "BEING-AS-IF-COULD-
BE" is dynamic. She points out this is similar to Bretherton's
distinction of AS-IF and WHAT-IF. In dynamic notions, the as-IF
is a step in the process of forward oriented preadaptation to
the next MOMENTARY context. Development is based on as-IF types
of apperception as each person participates in their own
development. Rather than being MORE adaptive or BETTER Ingrid's
position is that developmental transformations cannot be
prejudged before the act. Whether it is better or worse is an
evaluative question.
In summary imagination always begins in the known world of
present and past and then one's horizon of understanding is
stretched into the realm of the as-IF.. Ingrid points out this
notion of as-IF is close to Cole's [1992, 1995] notions of
personal duration. Ingrid states, "In imagination, not only do
present, past, and future become MUTUALLY RELATED (and
constructed), but both the person and world are transformed." p.184
Now to the more specific topic of SYMBOLIC PLAY that is
being explored on this thread. Piaget understood play as pure
assimilation that is necessary until developmentally the child
can transcend this immature level of reality and with
development SUBORDINATE the as-IF reality by the rational
logical, and DECENTERED modes of entering reality. The as-
If is not ascribed any PRODUCTIVE future oriented function in
development. In contrast the position Ingrid (and Cole,
Vygotsky, Mead,) are elaborating is that the AS-IF-COULD-BE
operates throughout the lifespan.
[Note] I'm emailing this section because my software
sometimes crashes
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: Wagner Luiz Schmit <mcfion@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:11 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Play and the Owl of Minerva
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
I even didn't had time to read all e-mails (lots and lots
of work to
do), but games and development is exactly what i want to
study in my
doctorship.
Do you heard about narratology David? this was used to
study and analisegames for a while, and them other thing called
ludology emerged...
Take a look at this article:
LUDOLOGY MEETS NARRATOLOGY:
Similitude and differences between (video)games and narrative.
http://www.ludology.org/articles/ludology.htm
this is my two cents contribution to the discussion... and
i'm very very
interested too in this rational/irrational discussion
too... but i don't
have much to contribute now... Only that William James
already was
debating this =P (being a teacher of history of Psychology
is very
usefull)
Wagner Luiz Schmit
INESUL - Brazil
Em Ter, 2010-03-16 às 18:13 -0700, David Kellogg escreveu:
Sorry, everybody!
I wrote:
One of my grads tried to find the point at which a
story definitively passes over into a game, and I said it
was a little like trying to find the point where talk
definitively passes over into talk. It is there, but we always
find texts in talk, and talk in texts, no matter which side of
the divide we may find ourselves on.
I meant to write "it's a little like trying to find the
point
where talk passes over into TEXT". Halliday remarks
somewhere that scientific linguistics didn't really start until
the invention of the tape recorder.
I was always puzzled by that remark until I realized that
until the invention of the tape recorder, TEXT was
synonymous with writing and TALK was synonymous with speech, and
only people like Bakhtin and Vygotsky knew that there was a much
deeper, underlying difference having to do with pastness and
presentness, finalizeability and unfinalizedness.
(When we look at Piaget's work on conservation it is quite
a
while before we realize how dependent on VISUALS it is. For
the child, sound is not conserved at all, and of course neither
is time. It is only with the discovery of language that the
child can imagine the conservation of sound at all.)
I think that the distinction between text and discourse is
really the fast moving line between stories and games that
we want: the story is past and the game is present, the story is
finalizedness and the game is unfinalized and inherently
unpredictable. So the story is a text, and the game is an
ongoing discourse.
I think, Andy, that in a game the problem is not autnomy
per
se. It's autonomy for a purpose, and purposes are almost by
definition not only beyond the self but even beyond the present
moment (and this is why Mike is so right to point out that EVERY
act of culture or even private imagination has an implicit
notion of "the good life" in it).
Similarly, I don't think Vygotsky ever prizes volition for
its
own sake; it's always the freedom to produce and to create
and to imagine "the good life" and to master the irrational
forces which deprive life of that meaning, including those found
within the self. It is in that sense that, yes, life is a game:
it is meaningful through and through and to the very end. Not, I
think, what the existentialists had in mind!
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
Wittgenstein claimed that there is no overt over-arching
and external trait between games (e.g. a common functional
"motive" or a "goal"). When we read Vygotsky's play lectures, we
find TWO common points: viz. gratuitous difficulty and guile-
less deceit, the abstract rule and the imaginary situation.
But one is always hidden when the other is abroad.
After all, Wittgenstein's argument was only that there is
no CLEARLY VISIBLE over-arching trait. And Vygotsky's reply is
that if the essence of things were visible on the surface, as
overt motive, or aim, or goal, why then no scientific
explanation would ever be required for anything. His explanation
of play is not an empiricist-functionalist but a historical,
genetically, deterministic one, and the owl of Minerva flies
only at nightfall.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On *Mon, 3/15/10, Andy Blunden
/<ablunden@mira.net>/*
wrote:> >
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Dialects of
Development- Sameroff
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,
Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, March 15, 2010, 5:33 PM
Way out of my depth in discussing
play, but here is my take
on "what is the motivation for play?"
I don't think we can or want to
ascribe a motivation for
participating in play *in general*.
I.e., the question of
"why does a child play?" cannot
sensibly be answered by the
child. But this still leaves the
question of the motivation
for any particular play activity:
what is it that is
motivating a child when they play?
It seems to me that every action a
child takes can be
explicable in terms of its being
part of a project, and the
"Why are you doing that?" question
gets the same kind of
answer as it would for an adult at work.
A different kind of explanation is
required for why a child
is drawn to participate in what is
after all an "imaginary"
project, then gun does not fire
bullets, the money is not
coin of the realm, etc. I think in
answering the question at
that level we look at problems the
child faces in being
exlcuded from the real world and
their attempts to overcome
that. I don't know. But from the
beginning a child it trying
to extricate themselves from the
trap of childishness.
Andy
mike cole wrote:
Your helixes/helices seemed
appropriate to the discussion, Martin.
XXX-history is cultural-
historical genesis. And, as Steve suggested,
the twisted rope of many
strands may be at the end of the rainbow of
promises.
I have been pondering David
Ke's question about the
object/objective/motivation
for play. It came together in my
thinking with
Yrjo's metaphor of being
always "just over the horizon" and its dual
material and ideal nature,
most recently mentioned by
Wolf-Michael. Might it
be the dream of being
coordinated with a world entirely
consistent with
one's own dreams? A world,
extending, as Leslie White put it,
that extends
from infinity to infinity,
in both directions?
probably not, just wondering.
mike
On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:55
PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=packer@duq.edu>> wrote:
Larry,
I didn't mean to detract
from the discussion with my playful
helices. I
haven't found time yet to
read Sameroff's article, so I don't
know if he is
proposing that there is an
antimony between nature and nurture
in human
development, or in our
*conceptions* of development. I took Mike
to be
suggesting, in his recent
message, that when we pay attention to
culture we
can transcend that
antimony, since culture is a 'second nature' that
provides nurture, and since
culture is the medium in which human
brains and
bodies grow, and since all
nurture offered to the growing child
is mediated
by culture, and since
culture has been transforming human nature
throughout
anthropogenesis through its
selective evolutionary pressures.
Eric, yes, I should have
added phylogenesis, not just biological
evolution.
What then is the "XX-
genesis" term for history?
Martin
On Mar 14, 2010, at 9:55
PM, Larry Purss wrote:
It seems the double or
triple helix is a significant way of
trying to
configure dynamic
processes. However, what the particular
specific double
helix referred to in the
article is pointing to is a very
specific tension
BETWEEN two specific
constructs "Nature" and "nurture". The
current debates
raging about neuroscience
on the one side and the tension with
relational
notions of development on
the other hand (ie the
self-other-
object/representation triangle) suggest a dialectical
tension
which the article says may
be INHERENT to development. To me
this is asking
a question about how the
mind constructs significant social
representations.
What is specific
about this particular double helix is the
HISTORICAL
salience of this SPECIFIC
ANTIMONY through centuries of dialogue
and theory.
My question is "Is there
significance to the extended duration
of this
specific antimony through
centuries. Does this historical
engagement with
the specific notions of
nature and nurture have relevance for CHAT
discussions. This is
not to say other double or triple helix
models may not
have more explanatory power
but that is not the specific
question asked in
the article. The question
being asked specifically is if this
specific
nature/nurture antinomy is
inherent to the notion of
development? Other
double or triple helix's
could be conceptualized within the
nature/nurture
antinomy but the question I
believe is being asked is how relevant a
dialectical (or
alternatively dialogically) nature/nurture
antinomy is to
our primary (ontological??)
notions of Development as a social
representation.
When I read the article,
it seemed to capture the tension we are
exploring about the place
of neuroscience in our theories of
development.
For some scholars one side
or the other side is in ascendence and
historically one side or
the other is in ascendence. What the
article is
asking is if we must
"INTEGRATE" what is often seen as in
opposition and
realize nature/nurture is
in a figure/ground type of relational
pattern
(like the ying/yang visual
representation) and the movement
BETWEEN the two
positions is basic to
development.> > >>> Do others
have thoughts on the specific question Arnie has
asked in his
article about the
historical dynamic of the nature/nurture
antinomy in
developmental theories as
well as in ontological and cultural
historical
development. This question
speaks to me about the possible
relevance of
Moscovici's theory of
social representations.
One alternative answer is
to generate other double or triple
helix models
which may become social
representations over time as they are
debated in a
community of inquiry but
the article as written is pointing to a
very
salient social
representation within our Western tradition. Does
that
recognition of its
historical roots change how we view this
particular
antinomy?
Larry
----- Original Message ----
-
From: Martin Packer
<packer@duq.edu> >
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=packer@duq.edu>>> >
Date: Sunday, March 14, 2010 4:59 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca]
Dialects of Development- Sameroff
To: "eXtended Mind,
Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>>