[Xmca-l] Re: Thought and language as oscillating and pulsing [or not]

[mike cole]

I found the mobius strip metaphor a lot more understandable than the
"yesterday has not
yet been born" metaphor, Larry. From the former I kept look for the
sense/meaning distinction because it seemed as if needed to be there. Still
mulling that idea over.
mike

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 8:35 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have imaginally been walking with Zinchenko who is telling me about his
> chats with Schpet and Vygotsky.
> Zinchenko is engaged in rehabilitating the centrality of the meaning
> of "meaning" to processes of phenomenological historical understanding, and
> interpretation.  His conversation is in the form  of a rejoinder [or
> joining back] with Vygotsky and Schpet with who he wants to bring out their
> mutually shared thesis on the relation of thought and word.
> Zinchenko uses metaphors to poetically embody his attempt to have
> "meanings" more modest place with Vygotsky take on a more prominent and
> central quality.
>
> Zinchenko wrote:
> "A good image for the mutual relationships of meaning and sense is a Mobius
> strip.  In the process of understanding or thinking, we encounter
> oppositely encountered *acts of making sense of meanings and sense giving
> meaningful signs to senses *[authors emphasis], which are transformed into
> each other. In Russian, 'meaning' ['znachenie'] and 'sign' ['znak'] have a
> common root and, hence, the untranslated italicized phrase sounds like a
> Russian pun. On the outer side of the strip may be meaning, which is
> transformed into sense as a result of the act of making sense, and this
> *becomes* the internal side of the *same* strip. Assigning a meaningful
> sign to sense  makes an *analogous *transformation. Anyway, it was  highly
> productive for Vygotsky to change the *focus* from *'meaning*' to sense.
> *Such
> a change *brings his views closer to those of Shpet. [page 228]
>
> I will pause here but want to point out how the metaphor of the Mobius
> strip has a similar quality to the hermeneutical movement of "fusions of
> horizons"
>
> Larry
>
> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:51 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thank you, Martin!
> > Henry
> >
> > > On Jan 24, 2015, at 1:49 PM, Martin John Packer <
> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > This is the information I have, Henry.
> > >
> > > Freiberger-Sheikholeslami, E. (1984). Gustav G. Shpet: Hermeneutical
> > logic and philosophical semiotics. In J. Deely (Ed.), Semiotics 1984 (pp.
> > 381-391). Bloomington: Semiotic Society of America.
> > >
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > > On Jan 24, 2015, at 2:37 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Martin,
> > >> Thank you very muchfor the article on Sheet. I think the readings and
> > dialog generated will help me understand much better Vygotsky and his
> > context by getting a better grip on the long view, through the eyes of
> > hermeneutics. Do you know when the Freiberger-Sheeikholes article was
> > written?
> > >> Henry
> > >>
> > >>> On Jan 24, 2015, at 10:26 AM, Martin John Packer <
> > mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> I am sure that there are differences between LSV and Shpet, as Larry
> > points out. But there are also striking similarities. Here is a little
> > background:
> > >>>
> > >>> Martin
> > >>>
> > >>> <Freiberger-Sheikholeslami 1985 Gustav G. Shpet He.pdf>
> > >>> On Jan 24, 2015, at 11:39 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> Martin will be sending us an article on Shpet.
> > >>>> I therefore did some background exploration and discovered that
> Shpet
> > and
> > >>>> Vygotsky differed on the notion of "oscillation".
> > >>>> Vygotsky believed thought and language oscillated while Shpet
> > disagreed.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Zinchenko clarifies Vygotsky's understanding in this paragraph
> > >>>> that Zinchenko wrote in his chapter "Thought and Word, the
> Approaches
> > of L.
> > >>>> S. Vygotsky and G. G. Shpet": It uses the metaphor of rain [which I
> > >>>> associated with the other thread on rain]
> > >>>>
> > >>>> "Thought and word are no less polyphonic than mind.  Yet, there is a
> > >>>> long way to go to arrive at this conclusion.  And it is hard to
> > >>>> overestimate the input of Shpet and Vygotsky, along with Aleksandr
> > Potebnya.
> > >>>> Out of all the polyphony of mind and thought, out of all the various
> > >>>> possibilities of origins, Shpet and Vygotsky   gave their preference
> > to the
> > >>>> word, although they understood it differently.  Let us start from
> > >>>> Vygotsky's metaphorical description: *What is simultaneous in
> thought
> > is
> > >>>> successive in language.*  It would be possible to compare a thought
> > with a
> > >>>> cloud that showers a rain of words.  This is why the transition from
> > >>>> thought to language is a very complicated process of *dismemberment*
> > of a
> > >>>> thought and its recreation in a word.  On the next page, Vygotsky
> > wrote,
> > >>>> 'continuing this picturesque comparison, we should liken the
> > motivation of
> > >>>> thought to the wind that sets the clouds in motion.'  If something
> > can *pour
> > >>>> itself, *it means that it already exists.  Therefore we can
> > understand the
> > >>>> given metaphor as saying that thought, already existing is
> *expressed
> > *in a
> > >>>> word"  [emphasis in the original]
> > >>>>
> > >>>> This quote draws attention to Vygotsky perceiving *oscillation
> > *behind the
> > >>>> movement of thought and language. Shpet did not see thought and
> > language as
> > >>>> oscillating.  Zinchenko's goal in his article is not to place the
> > >>>> approaches of Shpet and Vygotsky in opposition but to present them
> as
> > >>>> mutually complimentary approaches.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I hope to learn from others on the complexity of the notions of
> > >>>> oscillating movement of thought and language situated within words.
> > >>>> Polyphonic notions
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>



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