[Xmca-l] Re: LSV&Spinoza

[Andy Blunden]

To avoid some continued minor myth-building, what I posted 
was the same file Mike posted with the extension.doc changed 
to .pdf that's all.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 19/06/2015 5:38 AM, lpscholar2@gmail.com wrote:
> Annalisa, Mike, Andy.
>
> thanks for this article.
> I would agree with Annalisa that it is very difficult to 
> understand the meaning that Vygotsky was reading into 
> engaging with Spinoza because of what we the readers bring 
> to our understanding of the words/concepts used. I want to 
> draw attention to the last line of Jan’s article.
> “the point of this article a propos Vygotsky’s thought is 
> that this first step REQUIRES philosophical work.”
>
> so we are in the realm [the kingdom of] philosophical 
> psychology. Vygotsky lived in a time when the disciplines 
> of philosophy and psychology were not so distinct and to 
> understand psychology was to engage with philosophical 
> inquiry.
>
> Jan also concludes with,
> ”Vygotsky considered freedom in Spinoza’s sense of 
> self-determination as INTEGRAL to education as a 
> specifically human process of COMING TO BE in the world.” 
> This is the process of “bildung” as Hegel used the term.
>
> to develop intellect and to develop will ARE processes of 
> bildung leading towards self-determination 
> through “adequate concepts” which exist within a “system”.
> I read the concept “system” as used in the notion of 
> adequate thought as linked also to “tradition”.
> Vygotsky said that every word exists only within a “theory”
> so a “word” is never isolated or an orphaned word but 
> always exists within a system that the word emerges “from 
> …” To “read a word is actually to read a “word/from …”
>
> in other words Jan is inviting us to enter a system or a 
> tradition in order to understand the meaning of “word” 
> and “concept” as Vygotsky meant these words. In order
> to enter the world of this word [as adequately used] is 
> to “know” where the word developed “from …”
>
> THIS system and tradition is expressing the meaning of the 
> centrality of “reason” but is not “abstract reason” [which 
> is orphaned reason which has lost its ancestral home]
>
> I would recommend Jan Derry’s new book [Vygotsky, 
> Philosophy and Education] for a more extended conversation 
> on her notion of how to adequately read Vygotsky through 
> the systematic horizon of bildung [educational philosophy]
>
> Jan in her book attempts to show that reading Vygotsky 
> through a “constructivist horizon” is an inadequate 
> reading emerging FROM an alternative system/tradition with 
> different philosophical roots.
> I read Jan as helping to make clear that Vygotsky must be 
> read “from” a Spinoza and Hegelian tradition.
> Then we can engage with whether this tradition/system 
> itself is adequate but the first step is to show that 
> representational paradigms emerging from abstract 
> reasoning are radically inadequate readings of 
> freedom “from” all constraint and simplistic notions of 
> freedom.Larry
> Sent from Windows Mail
>
> *From:* mike cole <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* ‎Thursday‎, ‎June‎ ‎18‎, ‎2015 ‎8‎:‎51‎ ‎AM
> *To:* Andy Blunden <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>, eXtended 
> Mind, Culture, Activity <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>
> Oh! Whatever it was it was not supposed to be the 
> published version. Thanks
> Andy.
> mike
>
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 8:42 AM, Andy Blunden 
> <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > That's a PDF file, MIke.
> > Try opening the attached instead.
> > Andy
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >
> > On 19/06/2015 1:27 AM, mike cole wrote:
> >
> >> For those of you, like myself, who are not steeped in 
> Spinoza, this
> >> article
> >> by Jan Derry from 2006 (Educational Review) might prove 
> a helpful entry
> >> point to the vygotsky-spinoza connection. This copy is  
> a draft version
> >> obtained from Jan with thanks.
> >>
> >> mike
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
> -- 
>
> All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable 
> which makes
> you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see 
> something
> that isn't even visible. N. McLean, *A River Runs Through it*