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

[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Martin,

I don't think the usage of 'moment' in the link connects in a
straightforward way with its usage in the HMF volume.

I would also like to say that this notion of wholes and moments presented
in the blog is incomplete and incorrect.  For example, the assertion "You
don’t take the color away from the mac mouse to study it in another room"
is obviously false in the sense that you can walk into another room and
recall the experience of its colour.  Likewise the notion of a 'whole' that
is presented is rather crass, as if being an object that one can heft
somehow qualified it as being independent.

Best,
Huw




On 11 January 2016 at 01:20, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>