[Xmca-l] Re: labour and signs
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Thu Dec 4 16:16:56 PST 2014
can you explain, Mike?
andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
mike cole wrote:
> Which still leaves us with the question of how language developed out
> of other forms of action -- in phylogeny and ontogeny-- as Haydi
> emphasized recently.
> mike
>
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> What an excellent reference, Mike!
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch07.htm#deed
> (the 4th last paragraph of Thinking and Speech):
>
> "The connection between thought and word is not a primal connection
> that is given once and forever. It arises in development and itself
> develops. “In the beginning was the word.""’ Goethe answered this
> Biblical phrase through Faust: “In the beginning was the deed."”
> Through this statement, Goethe wished to counteract the word’s
> over-valuation. Gutsman has noted, however, that we can agree with
> Goethe that the word as such should not be overvaluated and can
> concur in his transformation of the Biblical line to, “In the
> beginning was the //deed/.” /Nonetheless, if we consider the
> history
> of development, we can still read this line with a different
> emphasis: “In the //beginning/ /was the deed.” Gutsman’s
> argument is
> that the word is a higher stage in man’s development than the
> highest manifestation of action. He is right. The word did not
> exist
> in the beginning. In the beginning was the deed. The formation of
> the word occurs nearer the end than the beginning of development.
> The word is the end that crowns the deed."
>
> Surely the last word on the matter.
>
> Andy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> mike cole wrote:
>
> What if word is used in the context "in the beginning was the
> word"? It seems that in different contexts, LSV use of the
> term, word, varies in meaning. So being careful about the
> topic/context of usage may help us.
>
> (You don't have to take my word for it). :-)
>
> mike
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:35 AM, HENRY SHONERD
> <hshonerd@gmail.com <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>
> <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
> Andy and Haydi,
> Does it make any difference to this discussion that in the
> link to
> “Word and Action”, word is equated with speech? What if
> word is
> equated with gesture, as in sign language?
> Henry
>
> > On Dec 4, 2014, at 6:58 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
> >
> > Haydi, exactly what Vygotsky's idea was about this or
> that, at
> this or that time, is something beyond my powers to know.
> I just
> try to make sense as best I can of what I find in his
> writings. So
> I can only say what conclusions this has led me to.
> Participation
> in the labour process obviously conditions our activity
> and our
> thinking. But I take it that *true concepts* appear only
> through
> the use of signs. It will still be the case that such concept
> formation rests on tool-use - you can't eat words.
> Participation
> in the labour process (however broadly understood) necessarily
> entails using tools. I think the relation between tool and
> sign in
> concept formation is found in those two passages to which
> you drew
> our attention on "Word and Action":
> >
> >
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1934/tool-symbol.htm#s25
> >
> > I don't think these two lines of development are
> separate - they
> are *distinct*, but not separate.
> >
> > I tend think that "historically" tool use was "prior"
> but it may
> not be the case, and I don't really think it matters. For
> example,
> according to Marx, the first phase of development of capital
> entailed gathering workers together in a workshop as wage
> workers,
> without making any change whatsoever in the labour process
> itself,
> and all the revolutionising of machinery only happened later.
> >
> >
>
> http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02a.htm
> >
> > So if that was how it worked in the dawn of humanity,
> that is,
> that the form of cooperation preceded the revolutionising
> of the
> means of labour, this would support the claim for sign use to
> pre-date tool-use in the formation of intellect. But I
> don't know
> and I doubt that anyone knows. The point is just that
> these two
> lines of development have their distinct bases and develop
> side by
> side in connection with one another.
> >
> > Hope that helps, Haydi.
> > Andy
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
> >
> >
> > Haydi Zulfei wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm no authority to say things act this way or that way
> but I'm
> allowed to display my understanding . In this very piece , V
> challenges "instrumental method" . In "Crisis" , he does
> the same
> . I wonder what you might take by encountering so much
> talk about
> the "New Psychology" or the "New Methodology" with lots of
> evidence he showers on us to document his sayings .
> Shortly , was
> he a Marxist of the Day or Not ? This could help us with many
> things . What seems to be ambiguous for me is the last
> three lines
> of the paragraph . Is that what you mean by pre-linguistic
> stage
> that after this stage , no use of tools is to be observed
> ? I'm
> sure you won't . Mike is all right with the term 'rudimentary'
> because the to-be MAN (primitive) acts on the instant , is
> interested in THROWING bones or dice not in their physical or
> chemical properties as is the case with later stages .
> Hence use
> of stimulus-device not sign-device . But with full use of
> tools
> and their sophistication we approach the appearance of
> language
> which converts the NATURAL functions . V even locates
> their due
> places , one the stem of the brain , the other the different
> layers of the cortex . We know about ANL saying a day might be
> reached when scientists become full workers and workers full
> scientists or quasi-scientists but that day has not yet
> arrived .
> Not to become lengthy , I refer to the important point
> that we do
> not internalize tools but we do internalize signs , speech and
> this is where V warns us against .
> >> The reason that Vygotsky gives us this story about the
> knot in the
> >> handkerchief and the coin-toss is that he wants to
> suggest a
> genesis of
> >> the semiotic use of artefacts which does *not*
> originate from
> the use of
> >> tools for working on matter.
> >>
> >>
> >> Yes , yes , Vygotsky says , I parrot it many times .
> Then , I
> put the question where does it come from (before
> rudiments) . Let
> me once again stress on the fact that V asserts the two
> lines of
> development are separate one from the other in phylogenesis .
> >>
> >>
> >> His claim is of course entirely speculative
> >> and I take it to be a rhetorical move. So far as I know,
> Vygotsky is in
> >> agreement with the idea that collaboration creates the
> situation in
> >> which people need to share generalisations and thus
> "invent" speech
> >> properly so called. Here is in agreement with Engels, but I
> think he
> >> wants to assign only a very early (pre-linguistic) role
> to the
> tool,
> >> holding that the tool can only give rise to the *potential
> concept* and
> >> not a *true concept* as such. This idea is consistent
> with what the
> >> distributed cognition people want to do and also with the
> phylogenetic
> >> story told in the labour paradigm. In our own day, the
> role of
> tools in
> >> the formation of mind is really unmistakable. But I
> think we
> need to be
> >> just as flexible as I think Vygotsky was on these
> questions.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> What V says is use of tools finds its meaning within 'work
> activity' of which you are a master . But these lines smack of
> historic precedence of speech and co-constructing of
> speech over
> working activity . Where have I got wrong ?
> >>
> >>
> >> Haydi
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science
> with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
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