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

[Dr. Paul C. Mocombe]

Mike,

I hope Henry's post clarifies that paragraph for you.


Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
President
The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
www.mocombeian.com 
www.readingroomcurriculum.com 
www.paulcmocombe.info 

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> </div><div>Date:10/11/2014  4:59 PM  (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: how to broaden/enliven the xmca discussion </div><div>
</div>Hi Paul-- I see a second note but let me start with this first one.

First of all THANKS! You are correct, I was thinking about my experience
driving and thinking about xmca discourse. And you provided just the sort
of concise identification of the issues that I would be totally incapable
of achieving without a lot of time and effort. Viva the distributed
expertise of those who participate in xmca!

Second,  I do not understand this part of your first paragraph:" I am
assuming from the speech act, comment has no relation to the thinking you
was doing." I was thinking about the xmca discourse and trying to figure
out more about the thinking/acting distinction with respect to semiosis.

Next.....
Let me start with Martin's conjecture:

"Might some kind of reconciliation be possible here by recognizing that
both acting and thinking are *semiotic* in character?  Acting requires
ongoing interpretation of signs (icons, indices, symbols) in the world.
Thinking ditto, the difference being that verbal thinking (thinking with
words), at least, requires articulating that interpretation in the form of
new signs.
​"​

Trying to push the boundaries involved in Martin's proposal by coming up
with an example from my own experience that same day -- driving home, radio
off, monitoring the road and thinking about the XMCA discussion. Is seemed
to be verbal thinking, but was it action I was asking.

You offered "I would suggest that they are semiotic in John Searles theory
of speech
> act, but not austin's.
​"

In those circumstances, in that context, I asked how Searle-Austin
differences applied to the example of me driving home thinking about a
topic that was known to anyone on xmca who is reading this thread.​ You
came up with a very clear answer. "
your act of thinking in the car is purely psychological and semiotic, and
falls outside of austin's locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary
categories.
​"​


​On the shakey assumption that we are still on the same page, I offer the
next thought that came to mind, this time when I am not in a moving
isolation chamber!​


I believe that your answer goes to Martin's proviso that verbal
thinking "requires
articulating that interpretation in the form of new signs." If having
another person in the car to whom I was speaking, presumably the locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary speech acts would come into play. I guess
at that point we move from thought to action.

I am far too poorly read in Derrida and phenomenology to follow your points
relating to controversies that include Heidegger, Husserl. But I venture a
possibility based on what I have learned so far in the conversation and my
own background.

I might characterize what I was doing in the car as preparing for, and
simulating a next turn in an ongoing discussion with a number of
colleagues, unsure of what my own conclusions regarding the issue of
thought/action/semiosis are. In light of the discussion, I began to wonder
about that term, articulation, in Martin's note. I take articulation to
mean roughly "to say out loud to another as part of a conversation (text?).
But, I have been asking myself, and ask you all for your thoughts, when I
am engaged in verbal thinking aren't I engaged in a conversation with
another, with an audience or my sense of an audience, as part of the
process that generates what I say? It is often said that one does not stop
being a sociocultural organism simply by virtue of being physically
separate from others. Is there, in such "conversations with oneself" a form
of articulation?

And/or, might the fact that these thoughts were incorporated in my next
communication as part of this conversation, not be considered a form of
asychronous, semiotic, action?

Thanks again for your concise answer. Sorry I cannot follow adequately some
of the points you are making.
mike


On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <
pmocombe@mocombeian.com> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> My comment was in reference to your process of thinking about the xmca
> conversation, and not your drive, which I am assuming from the speech act,
> comment has no relation to the thinking you was doing.  It is simply
> background information for us the reader (I am not going to reiterate the
> debate between derrida and Searle over the phenomenological issue of
> background, which derrida assumes Searle misunderstands...by the way based
> on you including it in your post it would imply that derrida is correct on
> the argument).
>
> Anyways, your act of thinking in the car is purely psychological and
> semiotic, and falls outside of austin's locutionary, illocutionary, and
> perlocutionary categories.  This psychological act of thinking is the
> element Searle attempts to account for in Austin's thinking.  However, in
> order to do so he has to deal with three issues, background,
> intentionality, and the wittgensteinian issue of a private language, for
> example, was your act of thinking in the car a private speech act?
> Obviously it was not and Derrida is right their is nothing outside the
> text.
>
>
> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
> President
> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
> www.mocombeian.com
> www.readingroomcurriculum.com
> www.paulcmocombe.info
>
> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: mike cole <
> mcole@ucsd.edu> </div><div>Date:10/11/2014  1:10 PM  (GMT-05:00)
> </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: how to broaden/enliven the xmca discussion
> </div><div>
> </div>Thanks Paul --
>
> Could you take me a little further? Others might have the same question:
> How do the Searles and Austin views of semiotic mediation differ, Paul,
> such that Martin's formulation only works for one of them?
>
> And how do they coincide, or differ, from Halliday's views, David Ke?
>
> What are the major implications of the differences??
>
> mike
>
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:49 PM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <
> pmocombe@mocombeian.com> wrote:
>
> > Martin,
> >
> > I would suggest that they are semiotic in John Searles theory of speech
> > act, but not austin's.
> >
> >
> > Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
> > President
> > The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
> > www.mocombeian.com
> > www.readingroomcurriculum.com
> > www.paulcmocombe.info
> >
> > <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: mike cole <
> > mcole@ucsd.edu> </div><div>Date:10/10/2014  7:48 PM  (GMT-05:00)
> > </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: how to broaden/enliven the xmca
> discussion
> > </div><div>
> > </div>Martin-- When I was driving home by myself and thinking about the
> > conversation on xmca, it seemed like I might be thinking with words, but
> i
> > was not articulating and someone might even claim that it was all a
> jumble
> > of sense and meaning anyway. Would this be inconsistent with the belief
> > that both acting and thinking are semiotic in character?
> > mike
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Martin John Packer <
> > mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Might some kind of reconciliation be possible here by recognizing that
> > > both acting and thinking are *semiotic* in character?  Acting requires
> > > ongoing interpretation of signs (icons, indices, symbols) in the world.
> > > Thinking ditto, the difference being that verbal thinking (thinking
> with
> > > words), at least, requires articulating that interpretation in the form
> > of
> > > new signs.
> > >
> > > ?
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > > On Oct 8, 2014, at 9:09 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am asking if Andy and David will follow David's *lead* by exploring
> > > > *mind* through what David *indicates* is Vygotsky's KEY INSIGHT that
> > word
> > > > meaning is BEST understood -
> > > >
> > > > "as MODES  of semantic abstraction and generalization THAN as
> > operations,
> > > > actions, and activities."
> > > >
> > > > This notion of BEST ways to *indicate* the sense of word meanings.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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.
>
>


-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.