[Xmca-l] Re: how to broaden/enliven the xmca discussion

[David Kellogg]

When we were translating "Thinking and Speech", one of our old
Marxists, Mr. Bae Hicheol, pointed out that "znachenie" can also be
translated as "value", and that "sense" and "signification" can easily
be understood along the lines of Marx's analysis of the commodity into
a use value and an exchange value. I think this is precisely
Volosinov's model for "tema" and "znachenie": "tema" is the use value
of a word in a concrete act of thinking and speech, while "znachenie"
is an abstraction (thus more stable than "tema") created by the
process of exchange itself. There are limits to the analogy, of
course, but it is certainly not the case that use value is "private"
while exchange value is "public".

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

On 10 October 2014 23:01, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> On the contrary. It was quite explicit.
> The first slide showed two columns. On the left were the were the Russian
> and German words for "personal meaning" and the inadequate English word,
> sense, on the right the Russian and German words for objective or public
> meaning and the inadequate English word, meaning.
> The next slide illustrated this dualism graphically with public and private
> domains represented.
> The whole point was the Cartesian problem of the relation between the two.
> It seems that the word "dualism" is not a "dirty word" where he comes from,
> and the idea of theorising social change, which was a theme of 2 of the 4
> keynote speeches, was also not a priority for him.
>
> His Oral presentation (immediately after mine on the Thursday) was devoted
> to representation of the autoregulation processes of social and
> psychological systems.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
> Martin John Packer wrote:
>>
>> Did Dmitry simply not recognize the dualism in the theory he was
>> presenting, Andy?
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> On Oct 10, 2014, at 7:26 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> You are quite right Martin, that it was my report of Dmitry's speech that
>>> was being referred to and also correct to chide me for irony. Irony is
>>> really out of place in discussing such complex questions. However,  Dmitry
>>> was not criticising his grandfather's theory; he was continuing it. When I
>>> said that I didn't think that such a stark dualism was a fruitful place from
>>> which to begin a discussion of meaning, he didn't really see the point of my
>>> remark, simply agreeing that there could be local or regional meanings which
>>> departed from the norm. So the irony, I admit, was all mine, and I apologise
>>> for inappropriate use of irony in this instance.
>>> Andy
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>>>
>>>
>>> Martin John Packer wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Just to reduce confusion, I want to point out that it was Andy who
>>>> provided this account of  Dmitry Leontiev's presentation at ISCAR, not me.
>>>> And I think Andy was rejecting the argument. In fact, if I understood
>>>> correctly (there was a lot of irony in Andy's message!), D. Leontiev was
>>>> both summarizing and criticizing a position that his father (A. N. Leontiev)
>>>> had made. Martin
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 10, 2014, at 3:35 AM, Rod Parker-Rees
>>>> <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I would challenge Martin's  account of Dmitry Leontiev's  argument that
>>>>> meaning is objectively fixed to 'what is' -  'irrespective of one's personal
>>>>> relation to it' - yes, znachenie - common sense or agreed meaning is more
>>>>> 'objective' than smysl but it is still socially constructed - meanings are
>>>>> agreed by dint of their common use (what people do 'as a rule') rather than
>>>>> because they reflect an absolute objectivity.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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