[Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading

Sat Aug 26 19:07:34 PDT 2017

Haydi, since this list has discussed the difference between 
'moments' and 'parts' before, I will beg the patience of the 
list by pointing to this passage in Hegel's Philosophy of 
Right which we are reading in our reading group today: 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prstate1.htm#PR278

Hegel is talking about states and organisms at the same time 
here. An organism is called an "organism" because it is made 
up of organs (which are moments) not parts. The point is 
that none of the organs (or moments) can live other than as 
parts of the whole, and vice versa. The interesting thing to 
me is that he contrasts the modern state (which is an 
organism, and whose various organs are 'moments') with the 
medieval state in which the monarch collected taxes and made 
war with other monarchs, while civil society was run by 
corporations and guilds, and the whole state was simply an 
"aggregate" of these "parts" not an organic whole, not yet 
conforming to the concept of a state. So the relation 
between a part and a moment is that parts can become moments 
through the development of an aggregate into an integral whole.

Hope this is of interest.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
On 23/08/2017 4:50 PM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:
> Andy,
>
> Right! A discussion being run just between two persons on 
> a Forum is not always beneficial ; it should be an 
> exception rather than the rule. It is good you warn us 
> against that!
>
> Additionally , each of us are reacting and feeling 
> responsible for what passes on the Forum collectively and 
> communicatively ; thank goodness we have good-willed 
> moderators!
>
> Though me a lesser student , I co-operated with you on 
> finding responses to the posed questions .
>
> On 'moments' I begged the information to the effect that , 
> as you now say , we are bound to be clear with our 
> circumlocutor as we expect him/her to thusly be ! Our 
> rightful challenges should not take the form of testing 
> especially when our addressee is a full intelligent 
> researcher himself!
>
> No , much of a headache inflicts us when we aim to 
> conceptually scan the Cosmos and the daily chores as well. 
> This point is all running all through your novel response. 
> There are lots of 'if's and 'in case of's and all 
> dependencies and relations .
>
> The gist of the matter was that we could speak of wholes 
> and parts in their static features in any domain as you 
> come with some but not in their unified oneness in motion 
> ; the Cosmos IS of all parts but the Cosmos runs not 
> partially but momentarily and any outright intervention 
> (based on miscalculations in our conceptions) brings it to 
> a halt and our mystics see the high manifestations of 
> these spectacular momentary visions in God as abstractions 
> but scientists also have their own visions in turn .
>
> You then will agree to be finished with the debate now . 
> Many thanks for your co-operation.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Haydi
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> *To:* "‪eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" 
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 23 August 2017, 4:39:33
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer 
> reading
>
> Haydi, I really can't deal with so many questions, certainly
> not if we want this to be more than a dialogue between the
> two of us. So I will respond to your first paragraph only.
>
> Here is Hegel on moments:
> https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slsubjec.htm#SL163 
>
> .
> It comes at the beginning of "The Concept" because it is
> only with the formation of a concept of the whole that
> moments of the whole can arise. Universal, Particular and
> Individual are the archetypes of "moments" for Hegel, but he
> also sees the Legislature, the Executive (public service)
> and the Crown (or President) as three moments of the state.
> The name of a thing is a whole -everyone is a person
> ("person" = Universal). But humanity is also made up
> communities, it being taken that a person cannot be a person
> unless they participate in some human community ("community"
> in this sense = particular). And every person is an
> individual, born at some time and place and dying in some
> time and place, with their own unique mind ("individual").
> Do you see the sense in which these 3 moments are all
> simultaneously the whole?
>
> All the various communities are parts of the whole of
> humanity, just as each individual is a part of a community.
> But we can equally say that the various demographic
> groupings (age, gender, employment, etc.) are parts of the
> whole. It depends on the units chosen, that is, of how the
> whole is conceived.
>
> Here is Hegel on whole and parts:
> https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slappear.htm#SL135 
>
> .
>
> Our mind does not create the problem; our minds are part  of
> the same social formation which creates the object we think
> about and reproduce in our activity. Nonetheless, it is
> always legitimate to ask how much of a basis a given "whole"
> has in the material world or in activity. For example, when
> a science first begins it orients to an object which is an
> Appearance (or Phenomenon) - some problem strikes the eye
> and people address themselves to it. For example, as a young
> man Marx was outraged by the injustices he saw around him in
> Germany - censorship, autocracy, persecution of the
> peasantry, etc - but after 20 years of study he formed a
> different conception of the whole - capitalism. David made
> the same point last week pointing to how Vygotsky said that
> some sciences addressed themselves to natural wholes
> (including pedology) while other sciences studied the
> general processes underlying phenomena (Psychology,
> Medicine, Biology, ...). So the whole is not arbitrary -
> different wholes, different units, different problems,
> different insights, different remedies.
>
> That's more than enough!
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
> On 23/08/2017 4:10 AM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:
> > Thank you for your solemn answering , Andy.
> >
> > I follow your responses not my questions. I admit too many
> > questions but they are related at least for me.
> >
> > I have not reached 'moment' in Hegel yet but first it was
> > Wolff-Michael years ago who referred to it on debates and
> > ever since I've got to be clear with it at no cost. If I
> > may ... I would say "each moment IS the whole" might be a
> > little bit faulty ; and it might cross your saying of
> > wholes and parts to David ; being a whole despite
> > containing parts ; you here differentiate between moments
> > and parts yet I do not get the distinction ; I would say
> > if moments and parts are matters of Natures of Phenomena
> > or again it's our 'mind' which creates the problem ,
> > ontology/epistemology things! ; is it the case that
> > whatever thing we're talking about , finites vs infinite ,
> > determinate
> > 
> being/emptiness/filledness/nothingness/transition/becoming/concepts/notion/ought/actuality 
>
> > vs clock parts , we can talk of wholes and parts?
> >
> >
>
>
>