[Xmca-l] Re: Chomsky, Vygotsky, and phenomenology

[Martin John Packer]

You've piqued my interest, Paul! A portion of my youth was (miss?)spent reading and studying Heidegger.  Politics aside (yes, that's a big push) I see many connections between Heidegger and LSV (the escape from dualism, the importance of ontology, the emphasis on temporality, the role of culture, the foundation as practical activity...). But I think that Heidegger would have considered Chomsky's approach to language an example of giving priority to what he called the "present-at-hand" instead of the "ready-to-hand." In simpler terms, Chomsky studies language as a disinterested observer, and that approach always distorts whatever we are trying to understand. Heidegger's phenomenology, as I understand it, was an approach to investigation based on getting one's hands dirty.

You have mentioned syntax and semantics. I think LSV would have argued - *was* arguing - that  *pragmatics* comes first, and that to a greater or lesser degree the other two are always abstractions from language as it is used.

So like Helena I am very interested to see where you will go with this!

Martin


On Dec 17, 2014, at 3:20 PM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <pmocombe@mocombeian.com> wrote:

> I am working on it helena...hopefully I can get it published in the journal when I am done.
> 
> 
> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
> President
> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
> www.mocombeian.com 
> www.readingroomcurriculum.com 
> www.paulcmocombe.info 
> 
> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com> </div><div>Date:12/17/2014  3:06 PM  (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Chomsky, Vygotsky, and phenomenology </div><div>
> </div>Wow, this is an idea, for sure.  Beginning with Chomsky and ending with Vygotsky? I am trying to get my head around this.  Chomsky would have been a little boy when Vygotsky died. 
> 
> So you're talking about a system. Not a chronology, but the reverse of a chronology. A system -- that means moving parts that do something.  What are you going to use to hook the system together and move it along? What will be the track, the signposts, the guardrails or the rungs along which the changes take place? What will this system do?
> 
> I can accept the idea that history is not the only track along which change runs. But what are you going to use in its place? 
> 
> I'm sure Vygotsky and Chomsky would have had some friendly conversations and found a lot to agree on, especially with regard to politics (once they got the 20th century out of the way) but I want to know what you have in mind.
> 
> Thanks --
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> 
> On Dec 17, 2014, at 10:51 AM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe wrote:
> 
>> Essentially, I want to build an epistemological system beginning with chomsky and ending with Vygotsky. ..
>> 
>> 
>> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
>> President
>> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
>> www.mocombeian.com 
>> www.readingroomcurriculum.com 
>> www.paulcmocombe.info 
>> 
>> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: "Dr. Paul C. Mocombe" <pmocombe@mocombeian.com> </div><div>Date:12/17/2014  1:46 PM  (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> </div><div>Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: Chomsky, Vygotsky, and phenomenology </div><div>
>> </div>Yes to follow descartes is problematic...(just because you can think something apart does not mean it is apart in reality)...descartes' error, he assumed his ability to think has ontological status...But kant ' s introduction of the synthetic a prior fixes descartes, refutes Hume ' s skepticism,  and reinvents locke.  I read Chomsky as searching, empirically, for the embodied forms of understanding and sensibilities by which we experience being in the world. He stops there.  Vygotsky completes chomsky...my reading...i maybe wrong.
>> 
>> 
>> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
>> President
>> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
>> www.mocombeian.com 
>> www.readingroomcurriculum.com 
>> www.paulcmocombe.info
> 
> 
>