[Xmca-l] Re: Volkelt's diagram (LSV's HMF Vol 4)

[Martin John Packer]

The term "moment" has been used extensively in phenomenology.  Here is an accessible account of the basics:

<https://barebonescommunication.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/kleingeld-phenomenology-pieces-and-moments/>

Martin

On Jan 10, 2016, at 7:23 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> The theoretical point seems interesting and worth clarifying. The differing
> interpretations have quite different implications.
> mike
> 
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> 
>> Actually, Hegel does not use "moment" as meaning a stage, phase or step,
>> David. He tends to use phase, category, stage or division for those
>> concepts.
>> 
>> Individual, Particular and Universal are typical examples of "moments" but
>> these are not steps, phases or stages of the concepts, even though they are
>> also exhibited in this way. Every concrete concept has all three moments.
>> In a trade union, the members, the branches/divisions and the general
>> secretary are individual, universal and particular moments. We cannot
>> conceive of a union developing from an individual to a branch to a general
>> secretary, can we?
>> 
>> I will look into the origins of this expression. I have always just
>> presumed it came from mathematics, as in the first, second, third, ...
>> moments of a function, and I know Hegel did study this branch of
>> mathematics, because he gives a lot of space to it in the Science of Logic
>> in his critique of calculus. But I am probably quite wrong. I'll check.
>> 
>> Andy
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>> On 11/01/2016 4:32 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> 
>>> Huw:
>>> 
>>> Yes, Vygotsky uses "instants" and even more often "moments", and the word
>>> "moment" sometimes means a stage, or a phase, or a step (as in the three
>>> "moments" of the formation of the concept in Hegel, as in "in itself",
>>> "for
>>> others", "for myself".
>>> 
>>> One of the most difficult problems we had to solve in translating the
>>> Lectures on Pedology was that Vygotsky very clearly distinguishes three
>>> moments of speech development: indicative, nominative, and signifying.
>>> "Indicative" is often non-verbal, e.g. a pointing gesture. "Nominating" is
>>> ipso facto verbal, because it is the naming function: "every thing has a
>>> name". But "signifying" is much harder to pin down, and in one place
>>> Vygotsky actually says that it is synonymous with the adult understanding
>>> that anything can be named. So what is the difference between knowing that
>>> everything has a name and the knowledge that any thing can be named?
>>> 
>>> I think that the distinction is just as subtle and just as significant
>>> as the distinction between pointing to something with a gesture, pointing
>>> to something with a word like "this" or "that", and pointing to something
>>> with a word like "apple" or "pear". If I say that "everything has a name",
>>> the name could be extremely general ("everything" or "thing") or it could
>>> be highly specific ("Huw" or "this computer"). But I don't yet have the
>>> idea that names are invented, and that therefore it is possible to name
>>> objects which do not exist, and therefore to bring into existence modes of
>>> pure abstract thinking through language. That's signifying, and it is
>>> indeed a new moment, or a new instant, in the lifelong process of speech
>>> development.
>>> 
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Macquarie University
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:04 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thank you, David. That helps to explain a particular aspect that I thought
>>>> Vygotsky was overlooking in the narrative, which is that stimuli can not
>>>> only signify but also symbolise, i.e. they afford the kind of dynamics
>>>> you
>>>> have elucidated from Volkelt's schema.
>>>> 
>>>> I have also noted that the translation of phrases like "instances of a
>>>> process" is probably off the mark too.  What is really meant, I believe,
>>>> is
>>>> "instants of a process".  These have two rather different meanings from
>>>> the
>>>> perspective of thinking about processes.
>>>> 
>>>> Best,
>>>> Huw
>>>> 
>>>> On 10 January 2016 at 06:02, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Huw:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Here's what Vygotsky really says:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Если задача не превышает естественных сил ребенка, он справляется с ней
>>>>> непосредственным или примитивным способом. В этих случаях структура его
>>>>> поведения совершенно напоминает схему, нарисованную Фолькельтом.
>>>>> 
>>>> (Russian
>>>> 
>>>>> Collected Works, p. 117).
>>>>> 
>>>>> This means (as nearly as I can make out): "If the task did not go beyond
>>>>> the natural capability of the child, he could deal with it in an
>>>>> 
>>>> unmediated
>>>> 
>>>>> or primitive method. In this cases, the structure of his behavior would
>>>>> 
>>>> be
>>>> 
>>>>> completely similar to the scheme as presented by Volkelt".
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think there is no diagramme, at least not in the sense of a two
>>>>> dimensional graphic one can have a copy of. What Vygotsky is referring
>>>>> to
>>>>> is Volkelt's attempt to explain all child behavior as the result of an
>>>>> affectively tinged FUSION of perception and behavior, an affectively
>>>>> colored, unanalyzable, whole  in which perception and behavior were
>>>>> absolutely inseparable. This was what Hans Volkelt concluded from a
>>>>> 
>>>> series
>>>> 
>>>>> of experiments that Vygotsky refers to repeatedly, both in HDHMF and in
>>>>> 
>>>> the
>>>> 
>>>>> Lectures on Pedology and elswhere.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What Volkelt did was this: he had four baby bottles: one shaped like a
>>>>> triangle, one like a violin, one like a square, etc. They were all
>>>>> different colors as well. But three of them didn't have holes in the
>>>>> 
>>>> teat:
>>>> 
>>>>> you could see and smell the milk but you couldn't drink it. One did. He
>>>>> taught the infants to associate the drinking of milk and the feeling of
>>>>> satiation with one particular bottle, so that they would actually ignore
>>>>> the bottle unless it had all the characteristics: triangularity,
>>>>> 
>>>> blueness,
>>>> 
>>>>> etc. So Volkelt argued that from the child's point of view, he was not
>>>>> drinking milk but triangular blue milk. This kind of "affectively
>>>>> colored
>>>>> whole" is what Vygotsky refers to as "Volkelt's scheme", or "Volkelt's
>>>>> schemata".
>>>>> 
>>>>> Volkelt's scheme came to a bad end. He eventually decided that we never
>>>>> grow out of unanalyzable affectively colored perception-behavior wholes,
>>>>> and this would explain the indivisible and inseparable devotion of the
>>>>> German volk to their Fuhrer. So in later work Vygotsky is very careful
>>>>> to
>>>>> distance himself from Volkelt even in his explanations of infant
>>>>> 
>>>> behavior:
>>>> 
>>>>> in the Lectures on Pedology he argues that ALL THREE layers of behavior
>>>>> (that is, instinct, habit, and intelligence) are present in infancy.
>>>>> 
>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>> Macquarie University
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 10:50 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Does anyone have a copy of "Volkelt's diagram" to hand that is referred
>>>>>> 
>>>>> to
>>>>> 
>>>>>> in The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions (1997,
>>>>>> 
>>>>> p.85
>>>> 
>>>>> and onwards in ch. 4)?  I don't think a reference is given.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> Huw
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch