Hi Larry and Christine and others,
Larry what you write about Anna Stetsenko's approach is particularly
interesting to me right now. The other day I was talking with a
student who wanted to use Participatory Action Research in her
dissertation. We talked a bit about Lewin and Argylis but she
argued she wanted to use Friere's PAR. She claimed that while the
two types of AR wind up with a number of similarities (the biggest
difference being US AR wants to change organizaitons through
relationships, while South American AR of whom Friere was an
important founding voice, wants to empower individuals by allowing
them to recognize the effects of corrupt relationships through
knowlege/information) they both came from two very different
origins. It is true I think that you can't really find any deposit
of Lewin in Friere's writing. The student made the argument that
Friere's PAR comes almost completely from his use of Marx. It is
ironic because the PAR in the United States was developed primarily
by business consultants who would probably become upset at the
mention of Marx. Having two groups doing almost the same thing,
with exactly the same name, but a few very, very critical difference
certainly makes things confusing.
But reading what you say about Anna Stetsenko is gave me greater
insight into what this student was trying to say. There does seem
to be a strong Marxist aspect to what Friere was trying to say (or
in the case of Friere is is more what he was trying to do). It
seems like Friere's PAR (and Martin I think already made this point)
might be much closer to Vygotsky in origins and spirit than the AR
and Action Science that emerged out of Lewin's work and the whole
business consultation movement. Were there any Friere based
articles in the special issue discussing AR and Vygotsky.
But as far as general laws, I don't think Lewin was speaking
paradigmatically, at least as Kuhn describes it. He was I think
instead talking about habits systems develop that become part of
cultural intelligence without the participants even realizing it.
It is the underlying systems relationships that would lead to real
change (and I would suppose one of the impetuses behind Argylis'
double loop learning).
I'm thinking about Christine's question about environmental
education. The melt down at Fukushia Dai-ichi is an extraordinary
ecological disaster. I read where a Japanese woman wrote to a
friend and asked, "After what happened to us how can you in the U.S.
not be having a very serious conversation about nuclear power in
your country." - the U.S. I am sure some people on this list live
near a nuclear power plant, some near a fault. And yet after a
short burst of enery all conversation about nuclear power has pretty
much been blacked out. Just as conversation of global warming has
become blacked out after a short conversation related to Al Gore's
work. Why can't we talk about these things, what are the
relationships that make it unallowable and for even people in danger
to acquiesce to the silence? This I think is what PAR gets to.
Michael
________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss
Sent: Sun 5/15/2011 1:13 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [xmca] Dialectical Inquiry as the method/methodology of CHAT
This months discussion is about method/methodology as contrasted in
Action
Research and CHAT. I may be wandering off topic but this topic has
left me
perplexed about the larger context of this question
I have re-read a chapter "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants A
Balancing
Act of Dialectically Theorizing Conceptual Understanding on the
Grounds of
Vygotsky's Project" by Anna Stetsenko . The chapter is in the book
"Re/Structuring Science Education: Reuniting Sociological and
Psychological
Perspectives" edited by W.M.Roth. Anna is offering her
interpretation of the
dialectical *method* and outlook on reality.
To put her reflections in context I want to bring in Jay's thoughts on
paradigm assumtions and *general laws* He wrote,
But I am rather conflicted about some of the paradigm assumptions. I
don't
happen to believe that there are useful general laws about social
systems.
They are not the kind of objects of study about which such laws are
possible, primarily because what usually turns out to matter about
them are
more their differences rather than their similarities (as opposed to
the
ways in which natural science's objects are defined, so that
similarities
matter more than differences). Social systems are in this sense a
bit more
like literary texts. So there are ways of not having to start from
scratch
in understanding a new one, but not ways that rely on general laws
of their
behavior. More like check lists of things to pay attention to, and of
possible or frequent kinds of connections seen before. Weak
similarities,
embedded in strong differences (the uniqueness, individuality, and
unpredictability of real complex systems).
The methods of controlled research depend on predictability, and on
the
dominance of similarity over difference. They have their uses in
social
science and psychology, but they don't get one very far, and in
particular
they don't enable social engineering. Which may be a good thing! As
someone
like Latour might note, academic disciplines, and indeed all
organized,
historically long-lived institutionalized activity systems work at
making
things seem and sometimes even be more predictable and regular than
they
would be "in the wild". But when their norms are violated, when
objects of
study are defined in new ways, when systems under study combine
things that
do not normally combine, or combine them in new ways (e.g. combining
researcher culture and practitioner culture), the predictability and
the
illusion of control and regularity quickly evaporates.
The pursuit of general laws is not a good route to the practical
knowledge
and wisdom needed to make our way toward a better society. We cannot
afford
to be misled by superficial generalizations when we are dealing with
real,
particular comm and their problems. We need particularist research
that adds
to our capacity to help out in the next particular case.
END OF QUOTE
Jay is questioning the value of pursuing *general laws" in our
search and
encourages inquiry into practical knowledge and wisdom [phronesis]
as we
pursue the value of developing a *better* society. This perspective
values
the practical as a *higher* good than searching for general laws.
I now want to contrast this standpoint with Anna Stetsenko's
perspective
towards dialectical methodology. She states,
"Within Marxism, there has been a considerable debate as to WHAT
KIND of an
approach the dialectical method represents and whether the term
dialectics
refers to the core outlook on REALITY and its phenomena and
processes or,
alternatively, ONLY to the ANALYTICAL METHOD itself.? Anna points
out that
neither Marx or Vygotsky's positions are clear on this question. (p.
70)
Anna suggests that
"the true hallmark and condition sin qua non for the dialectical
method is
the notion that *practice* serves as the ultimate ground for
advancing the
verifying theories as well as for providing warrants for knowledge
claims.
Unlike the skepticism of social constructionism and other postmodern
approaches that acknowledge no grounds for falsifying theories or
adjudicating among various theoretical standpoints and claims, the
Marxist
method provides warrants for such adjudication. These warrants have
to do
not with applying some abstract, fixed principles that lie outside
knowledge
claims but instead, are derived by discerning the (often implicit
but always
ineluctably present) ideological and ETHICAL underpinnings and
potentialities of a given theory as a form of practice."
I introduced Anna's quote as it seems to parallel both Aristole's
notion of
phronesis and also Gadamer's notion of philosophical hermeneutics
[as well
as Jay Lemke's position as I understand it]
Episteme as a particular *theoretical* form of practice, and also
techne as
a particular *productive* form of practice, are legitimate ways to
engage
with the world IF they are INFORMED, not by general laws or
*systems* of
scientific prediction, but rather by re-cognizing *practical wisdom*
[value-knowledge] which serves as the ULTIMATE ground for warranting
knowledge claims.
The relations between episteme, techne, and phronesis, as various
FORMS of
knowledge as expressed within the methods of dialectical materialism,
philosophical hermeneutics, or Aristotle's knowledge framework may
bias
episteme, techne, or practical wisdom [value-knowledge] as more or
less
central and the other forms as more or less peripheral, [different
hierarchical perspectives] but all 3 perspectives emphasize that we
must
reclaim a central role for practical ethical wisdom in our knowledge
frameworks.
Larry
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
<winmail.dat>__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca