[Xmca-l] Re: Spinoza on xmca

[Henry G. Shonerd III]

Hi Greg,
I'm convinced you are right. Like I say, Bakhtin just keeps popping up. The trickster? Rebelais? What is that about?  
Henry

On Sep 14, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:

> One reason I mention him is because of resonances with ideas.
> But I also mention him as a kind of trickster figure as well as a student
> of the trickster in writing (his dissertation was on Rabelais).
> I also mention him as a writer who seems authentically engaged with
> meaningful/emotive aspects of human existence (e.g., Toward a Philosophy of
> the Act, and Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity).
> And finally, I mention Bakhtin because I'm still not convinced that the
> deep treasures of Bakhtin's work has yet been mined out.
> -greg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Greg,
>> Thank you for you good words and great question. I knew about Bakhtin, but
>> have been finding him everywhere in the articles and chat of XMCA over the
>> last week. Seriously.
>> Henry
>> 
>> On Sep 13, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> I would hope that a certain amount of irreverence would be dear to most
>>> people on this list!
>>> But seriously Henry, have you come across Bakhtin's work at all?
>>> Seems like another that you might want to throw in with the crowd of
>>> healthy irreverents.
>>> -greg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com
>>> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Mike and David,
>>>> This is seriously getting to be a club that I, like Groucho,  won't
>> join,
>>>> if it takes me as a member. I think all of this seriously evokes Andy's
>>>> contention, in his notes for the upcoming presentation at the ISCAR
>>>> conference (which XMCA has gotten) that, "Adults can grasp true
>> concepts,
>>>> and can change society, and a social theory has to treat adults as
>> adults,
>>>> and this is what the projects approach allows us to do. " If "adult"
>> means
>>>> the same as "serious", you can see why I have my doubts about joining
>> the
>>>> Unserious Scholar Club. On the other hand, if I can have some fun, as in
>>>> the laughing warrior (forget gender stereotypes here, and dare me to
>> talk
>>>> about Jihad), then that's what I'm talking about. Incidentally, I loved
>>>> Andy's notes. I could so relate it to CG. The emergent character of
>> project
>>>> realization he talks about applies very well to discourse, as you can
>> see
>>>> in the articles by Langacker I have sent out. Discourse IS a project and
>>>> its outcome is typically not entirely clear in the minds of the
>>>> interactants as they negotiate its waters. XMCA, of which this email is
>> a
>>>> "turn",  is a prototypical "work in progress", as Andy puts it, since we
>>>> clearly don't know where this will all end up. But I hope it can be fun
>>>> along the way.
>>>> Henry
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 1:51 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Henry-- There goes my pile of books that need to be read before bed
>>>> time!
>>>>> Spinoza goes up there right next to Dead Souls.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, David having already claimed the mantle of unserious scholar,
>>>> and
>>>>> you having made the same claim, I am afraid that I have to make
>> precisely
>>>>> the same claim on the unrefutable grounds that no one pays me any
>> longer
>>>>> for what I do so I get to be as unserious as i can seriously be!
>>>>> mike
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <
>>>> hshonerd@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi Mike,
>>>>>> All I can say now is that Spinoza is famously quoted as having said,
>>>> "The
>>>>>> more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you
>>>> become
>>>>>> a lover of what is." This quote happens to appear in the introduction
>>>> to a
>>>>>> very popular self help book, Loving What Is, by Byron Katie (2002). I
>>>>>> bought the book , obviously, because I thought I needed help. It did,
>>>> but
>>>>>> it also introduced me to Spinoza. And that has been a deeper "help".
>> So,
>>>>>> from a personal perspective, I can totally understand how Spinoza and
>>>>>> periizhvanie would be connected. For all of you ESL teachers out
>> there,
>>>> who
>>>>>> doesn't remember Krashen on the "affective filter" and I have been
>>>> seeing a
>>>>>> lot on character and education lately. Oh yes, and how failing is
>>>> important
>>>>>> to eventual success. Teasing out issues in the education of
>>>>>> non-mainstreamers, and recognizing how the current system is toxic for
>>>>>> everyone, I think Spinoza's analysis and the narrative of his life are
>>>>>> powerful. Vygotsky hits me the same way. Cantor, the mathematician,
>> and
>>>>>> Pierce, the philosopher/logician/semiotician, also constantly come up
>>>> for
>>>>>> me. They were ridiculed by the received cognoscenti of the time, so
>>>> much so
>>>>>> that the suffered mental breakdowns. But they pushed on to develop
>>>> tools in
>>>>>> math and semiotics that seem to me are complementary with Vygotsky.
>>>> Again I
>>>>>> get to take the role of unserious scholar here, so think of my
>> thoughts
>>>> as
>>>>>> gaming on line and don't take the game too seriously.
>>>>>> Henry
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sep 5, 2014, at 6:42 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi David and Henry--
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> David-- I was intrigued by your comment that Spinoza is a
>> controversial
>>>>>>> topic on xmca. I googled Spinoza on the main web page and came up
>> with
>>>> 4K
>>>>>>> plus hits (!!). My own impression is that few on this list, me
>>>> included,
>>>>>>> have engaged in serious study of Spinoza let alone the imprint of
>>>> Spinoza
>>>>>>> on Vygotsky.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What is the nature of the controversy? What is at stake? The topic is
>>>> of
>>>>>>> particular interest to me at present because I have been part of
>>>>>>> discussions with people who are focused on Vygotsky's use of
>>>> perezhivanie
>>>>>>> in his later work, where the relation of emotion and cognition is a
>>>>>> central
>>>>>>> concern and Spinoza is clearly relevant.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Henry and anyone interested in chasing down what has been written
>> about
>>>>>>> various topics in xmca chatter, take advantage of the nice google
>>>> search
>>>>>> at
>>>>>>> lchc.ucsd.edu.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> mike
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> (who enmeshed in the sense/meaning distinction in all of its
>>>> multilingual
>>>>>>> confusifications at present)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>> Assistant Professor
>>> Department of Anthropology
>>> 882 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>>> Brigham Young University
>>> Provo, UT 84602
>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 882 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson