[Xmca-l] Re: Dynamics of Developmental Change

[Martin John Packer]

Honestly, Huw, I'm not sure if we're in agreement or disagreement!  

But I'm sure there's the potential for the former!  :)

Martin

On Sep 11, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:

> Martin,
> 
> I suspect what can be missed is the awareness of the consequences of
> logical mode...
> 
> Some problems stemming from this are:
> 
> 1. A tendency to assume the object is continuously present, i.e. to have
> some continuously available faculty that was previously absent.
> 
> 2. A tendency to drift from a descriptive object based upon the formal
> properties to a 'defined' one.  Someone without an appreciation for
> genetic/developmental logic may easily assume that this ToM 'object' is a
> discrete thing that is independent of its historical development such that
> at some felicitous age the 'ToM' object pings into existence for the
> fortunate soul.
> 
> 3. A tendency to mark as boldly distinct those continuities that may
> actually be very minor and in many practical circumstances equivalently
> good enough (e.g. genetic instances of 'theory', pre and post 'ToM').
> 
> I think maybe the third point here is perhaps the most nagging one.  The
> formal distinctions seem to exaggerate the differences which may actually
> be quite similar.
> 
> Taking as another example your assumption about mind, the notion of a
> conceived object of interior phenomena as mind is merely a formally
> conceived one, because one has taken a slice of genetic continuities and
> treated it as a discrete independent object or, if one hasn't 'sliced' the
> continuity but is merely denoting an aspect of it, then the object denoted
> is, as a consequence of its formal properties, of rather limited use and
> one that cannot be used as a foundation for a definition (other than a
> descriptive definition).
> 
> Expanding slightly on the first point, to have a faculty means to have a
> potential.  To have the faculty of flying a plane (or having a ToM), whilst
> not flying, is to have the potential to reliably fly (or having the
> potential to reliably exercise a ToM), which seems to be largely a basis of
> prior exercise.  Nevertheless, faculty here (as used in a pragmatic sense)
> seems to be derived from reliability and precision in the undertaking, not
> in its potential, even though the faculty remains a potential one even for
> an experienced practitioner.   Hence we see the difference again between
> two different logical senses in terms of 'faculty'.
> 
> Best,
> Huw
> 
> 
> 
> On 11 September 2015 at 16:28, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> wrote:
> 
>> Huw,
>> 
>> I was assuming that a mind, if it exists, is 'interior.'
>> 
>> If I lack a faculty that I have the potential to acquire, then I would say
>> that I have the potential, but not the faculty. So an infant may have the
>> potential for theory of mind (if we assume that this is how adults
>> understand other people, which is open to question), but not this
>> particular faculty. Am I missing something?
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> On Sep 11, 2015, at 9:09 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Martin,
>>> 
>>> What does it mean to state that a developmental being lacks some faculty
>>> that is potentially available to them?  It seems to me it either means
>> that
>>> this faculty lacks sophistication (and that it is then technically
>>> incorrect to say that they lack the faculty per se) or that the claimant
>> is
>>> making a logical fallacy by applying idioms of formal logic to a genetic
>> or
>>> developmental domain.
>>> 
>>> Why should a nascent, genetically conceived ToM be something that is
>>> interior?
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Huw
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 11 September 2015 at 14:20, Martin John Packer <
>> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> David, Carol,
>>>> 
>>>> Why not attribute a theory of mind to infants?
>>>> 
>>>> First, because it seems extraordinary to suggest that infants are
>> capable
>>>> of forming theories. Piaget certainly never suggested that sensorimotor
>>>> intelligence involved the forming of theories. Vygotsky argued that
>> infants
>>>> are incapable of verbal thinking, which would also seem to rule out the
>>>> ability to form theories.
>>>> 
>>>> Second, because there is no reason to think that infants know anything
>> at
>>>> all about mental states such as beliefs and desires. Piaget didn't
>>>> attribute such knowledge to infants. Vygotsky argued that children are
>> not
>>>> aware of their own 'interiority' until around school age, and if this is
>>>> the case it is hard to see how they could know about the interiority of
>>>> other people.
>>>> 
>>>> Third, the researcher responsible for identifying the phenomena of
>> primary
>>>> intersubjectivity, Colwyn Trevarthen, does not explain it in terms of
>>>> theory of mind.
>>>> 
>>>> Martin
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>>