[Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
Alfredo Jornet Gil
a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
Fri Jul 17 09:42:57 PDT 2015
I like very much how Greg brings in a methodological issue here with his mention about ethnography and his reading of "fidelity"; that the latter is not about representing exactly, but about describing events in terms of consequences for the participants, which they display for each other in their actual practice.
This methodological aspect makes me think that the the notion of ANALYSIS BY UNITS, which has been discussed in xmca before, is useful here. Unit analysis reminds us that, as units, experiences, as concrete and real phenomena, have some form of organization that extends in time. That is why, if I understood the discussion below correctly, Beth is warned not to think of the unit of experience as a unit "in itself".
Dewey and Bentley 1949 made the differentiation between self-action and transaction. In self action, things are explained by their own powers. This is, I believe, what Vygotsky would have referred to as analysis by elements. In transaction, they say, “deal[s] with aspects and phases of action, without final attribution to ‘elements’ or other presumptively detachable ‘entities,’ ‘essences,’ or ‘realities,’ and without isolation of presumptively detachable ‘relations’ from such detachable ‘elements’”. An experience can be studied precisely because it is not a thing in itself: it is always a moving, gesture, a "method of organization" as Dewey & Bentley write.
I thought this my add something to your fascinating discussion,
Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
Sent: 17 July 2015 18:23
To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
Marx: It is only in a social context that subjectivism and objectivism,
spiritualism and materialism, activity and passivity, cease to be
antinomies and thus cease to exist as such antinomies. The resolution of
the theoretical contradictions is possible only through practical means,
only through the practical energy of man. Their resolution is not by any
means, therefore, only a problem of knowledge, but is a real problem of
life which philosophy was unable to solve precisely because it saw there a
purely theoretical problem."
On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> No, no, Beth. As Dewey says:
>
> "This unity is neither emotional, practical, nor
> intellectual, for these terms name distinctions that
> reflection can make within it. In discourse//about//an
> experience, we must make use of these adjectives of
> interpretation. In going over an experience in
> mind//after/ /its occurrence, we may find that one
> property rather than another was sufficiently dominant
> so that it characterizes the experience as a whole."
>
> Isn't this beautiful scientific prose! We make these distinction when we
> *reflect* on an experience. And perhaps we include the experience in our
> autobiography, act it out on the stage, analyse it scientifically, all of
> which presupposes analysis and synthesis. But it is important to recognise
> that the unity is prior. It is not only a unity of emotion and cognition
> (for example) but also of attention and will - and any other categories you
> abstract from an experience.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> On 17/07/2015 3:00 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
>
>> Or reproducing the part that represents the whole? Like a fractal? I
>> think it is the similarity across scales that makes an experience
>> proleptic, or gives that 'bliss conferred at the beginning of the road to
>> redemption" that Vasilyuk refers to. You have an experience on several
>> timescales and so a sense of deja-vu is central to having an experience.
>> This is what I am thinking about after reading both the paper of Dewey's
>> and your recent piece on perezhivanie, Andy, although I am picking up on a
>> small piece of the last email in this chain -- : If something is only
>> itself in its whole then you can't study it, is what is bothering me. Beth
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>
>> Not "getting at something", Michael. Just pursuing
>> this question you raised about Dewey's saying that the
>> aesthetic quality of medieval buildings arises from
>> their not being "planned" like buildings are nowadays.
>> He goes on to say "Every work of art follows the plan
>> of, and pattern of, a complete experience." The puzzle
>> he is raising here is the completeness of an
>> experience which gives it its aesthetic quality, and
>> this cannot be created by assembling together parts in
>> the way a modern building is planned. An experience -
>> the kind of thing which sticks in your mind - is an
>> original or prior unity, not a combination, and this
>> is what gives a work of art that ineffable quality,
>> something which can only be transmitted by reproducing
>> that whole of an experience.
>>
>> Andy
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>> On 17/07/2015 2:32 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>>
>> Andy,
>>
>> I'm still not sure about your question. Did I set
>> out to have that experience, that morning...no, I
>> don't think so (it was a long time ago, but I'm
>> pretty sure no). Could I have just treated it as
>> an indiscriminate activity, probably, I had done
>> so before.
>>
>> But I am guessing you're getting a something here
>> Andy?
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:
>> osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13
>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bglassman.13>=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of
>> Andy Blunden
>> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:21 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>>
>> YOu said: "... But that time I had the experience
>> with the paintings..."
>>
>> I mean that was an experience. Did you set out
>> that morning to have that experience?
>> RE, your question: "what does he mean when he says
>> you can't do things indiscriminately and have
>> vital experience, but you also can't plan things?"
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>> On 17/07/2015 2:09 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>>
>> Well I'm not sure I understand your question
>> Andy, but perhaps it has
>> something to do with my grandfather's favorite
>> saying (translated from
>> Yiddish),
>>
>> Man plans, God laughs.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman
>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmglassman>=
>> ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>]
>> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
>> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:04 PM
>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>>
>> So Michael, there was just that one occasion,
>> in all your museum-going, when you had an
>> experience. Was that planned?
>> (I don't mean to say you haven't had a number
>> of such experiences,
>> Michael ... just some number actually)
>>
>> Andy
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>>
>> On 17/07/2015 1:19 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>>
>> Hi Larry and all,
>>
>> I think this is one of the most complex
>> aspects of experience, what does he mean
>> when he says you can't do things
>> indiscriminately and have vital
>> experience, but you also can't plan
>> things? I have discussed (argued) about
>> this a lot with my students. I have
>> especially seen him raise this point in at
>> least two of his great works, Democracy
>> and Education and Experience and Nature -
>> and again of course in Art as Experience
>> (notice he is not saying how Art enters
>> into experience but how art is experience
>> - I have come to notice these little
>> things more and more in his writing).
>>
>> The difficulty we have, at least in the
>> United States because of the dominance of
>> the idea of meta-cognition, is that we too
>> often translate what individuals are
>> bringing in to experience to organize it
>> as a form of meta-cognition. It is kind
>> of possible to make that interpretation
>> from Democracy and Education, although
>> what I think he is doing more is arguing
>> against misinterpretations of his work as
>> random, child centered activities. I
>> think he is clearer in Experience and
>> Nature that we bring in who we are at the
>> moment into the activity, and use who we
>> are (I don't want to say identity) as an
>> organizing principle for what we do. It
>> is perhaps one of the places where Dewey
>> and Vygotsky are close. Perhaps I can use
>> the same Jackson Pollock example. The
>> first few times I saw his paintings I was
>> trying to "apprecitate" them because I was
>> told that was the best way to experience
>> them. Dewey says no vital experience
>> there because my activities become stilted
>> and artificia
>> l. Sometimes I went through the
>> museum and just looked at pictures, one to
>> the other. No vital experience there,
>> just random threads. But that time I had
>> the experience with the paintings I was
>> allowing who I was, what had been built up
>> in the trajectory of my life to enter into
>> my experience with the painting, making it
>> a vital experience. I think Dewey makes
>> the argument in Experience and Nature that
>> it is not just the experience the moment
>> before, but the experiences leading to
>> that experience, the context of my life,
>> of my parent's life, of a long line of
>> historical experiences.
>>
>> Anyway, my take.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> -
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Beth Ferholt
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
>> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
>> 2900 Bedford Avenue
>> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>>
>> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>
>> Phone: (718) 951-5205 <tel:%28718%29%20951-5205>
>> Fax: (718) 951-4816 <tel:%28718%29%20951-4816>
>>
>
>
--
Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
Ecological Niche, 2008)
More information about the xmca-l
mailing list