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

Sun Aug 27 04:03:59 PDT 2017

Andy, Haidy, and Larry,

this is a very interesting discussion, and I think the list is not only patient but happy enough to have discussion between 2, with the 'n' number not mattering at all, as long as it is generative dialogue, and generative of good. 

I, as probably many others, are travelling these days to conferences, including ISCAR, so people will probably have limited time for actively joining, but all these materials are important to generate. 

Haidy, best of lucks to your son! By the way, I thought your formulation that he "Cosmos IS of all parts but the Cosmos runs not partially but momentarily" was very illuminating. 
Thanks,
Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪‬ <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>
Sent: 27 August 2017 12:45
To: ablunden@mira.net; ‪eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity‬
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading

Andy,
I'm just checking an article by my son who's a doctorate in linguistics in Farsi. It's urgent .

But just ...
As far as I see Hegel sees nothing in static states . As soon as he uses a philosophical term , he goes to its not-being as proof of the former's Being. This goes also with Finites. Nothing does he pose or posit without simultaneously uprooting it with a contradiction . In addition to Lenin's highlights , I've highlighted many other things for myself not for you and not for those who insisted me deal with Hegel in firsthand reading. But when happily you see it worth dealing with in collective debates , I'll be a participant , too.

 The more I read/think of Hegel's Notion as sort of 'matter' , I see no bit of a trace of it being such. Everything returns to Notion as God,Spirit, Absolute,Idea.

Aside from your mentioning part as a non-scientific term , I didn't say I won't believe in parts and wholes . What I just meant was that it's not enough to say 'a whole is a whole despite its containing parts' ; it was about 'activity' and you do know of Leontiev's (Leontiev is not my concern here) firm belief in the molarity , integralness , unity in diversity of activity. David in particular stressed that there is nothing in activity save action and he was right but you demanded other parts sort of ridiculously. Considering such a concept , definitely and absolutely there's no part here and no OTHER parts for that matter. There're 'moments'. Because what counts is the angle of your visioning and relations and dependencies not 'exclusive' parts you mentioned. Exclusive means something unrelated to an other. We do know activity for Leontiev is VIEWED as an integral whole (in motion not laid there) instigated by a motive required by a division of labour participants in it eying the resultant portion ; action viewed as something to be performed consciously in accordance with a GOAL ; and OPERATIONS again viewed as the conditioned way of achieving the very action in the direction of Goal. Reaching a village through mountains or a flat paved asphalt track does not divide action in two.

And now there's talk of 'organism' not a piece of wood and we know of organismic links and relations. Though with the very wood in its state of being burnt we could have the moment of sending smoke to the air. Hegel has his example of stone.

With the State Hegel sees it as living and moving and approaching an end , manipulating and being manipulated .
You say :The point is that none of the organs (or moments) can live other than as parts of the whole, and vice versa. Right! Because a living body does not know rest ; parts here act as moments ; compare living limbs with dead amputated decayed ones ; could you significantly use the same utterance with them as such?

Sure ! This is of much interest! Especially you concluding ...
 "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."
Excuse me if there are redundancies. This last utterance of yours convinced me of agreeing to agree!
Cheers !
Haydi

      From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
 To: ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; "‪eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
 Sent: Sunday, 27 August 2017, 6:37:43
 Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading

 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
 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?
 >
 >