[Xmca-l] Re: Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4 article for discussion

[Wolff-Michael Roth]

and I forgot to refer to the point Vygotsky makes (*Thinking and Speech*):
"Thought is not expressed but completed in the word" (p. 250).
Merleau-Ponty (*Phenomenology*) also makes this point; so does Levinas (in
'Le Dit et le Dire' or *Otherwise than Being*); and so does Bakhtin (
*Philosophy*, 1993), in the distinction between Kantian "theoretical
cognition" and participatory thinking.
Michael


Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Applied Cognitive Science
MacLaurin Building A567
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New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
<https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 8:37 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The first thing I note in the text David sent is the attribution of ideas
> to people. I think about this issue differently. Ideas, because abstract,
> are not of people. They are aspects of discourses of our community. We
> espouse such discourses and contribute to developing them, but they always
> belong to us and never to me---recall the last paragraphs of *Thinking
> and Speech: *the word is a reality for two but impossible for one.
>
> So what the article I authored presents is an ordering of phenomena in
> which *qualitatively* new forms arise. The description of the emergence
> of *qualitatively* new forms is the very core of Thom's *catastrophe
> theory*. This theory provides us with a way of classifying particular
> phenomena---and in this way, it is as concrete an endeavor as any other
> tied to our communal activities. Thus, unlike what the paragraph in bullet
> (b) states, the published text is not about pure abstraction. It is about a
> way of including Vygotsky's neoformation among other phenomena of
> neoformations. Moreover , the article provides a way in which authors,
> *concretely*, arrive at satisfying certain requirements for phenomena to
> be developmental rather than merely incremental. In this way, the article
> satisfies what bullet (a) states. It provides for the methodological steps
> to be taken to be able to ascertain such phenomena. I cannot see any
> attempts being made in the text to assimilate adult forms of development to
> infant and child development. Instead, it makes all of these forms
> empirical issues. How do you show that there is a change to a qualitatively
> new form? This is the question the article answers.
>
> I am surprised by bullet (c), which attributes something to me (my
> phantasy?). I am particularly surprised that David, who knows his Vygotsky
> so intimately, would subscribe to that idea. It was Vygotsky who defined
> consciousness in this way: "Consciousness is the experience of experiences
> just like experiences are simply experiences of objects" (Vygotsky, 1997
> [vol 4], p. 71–72)----in Russian: "Сознание есть переживание переживаний,
> точно таким же образом, как переживания просто суть переживания предметов"
> (Vygotskij, 1982 [vol 1], p. 89). In the same text, Vygotsky refers to Marx
> and the doubling of experience in human labor. Marx (in the *German
> Ideology*) writes that his conception of history "does not explain praxis
> based on the idea, [but] explains the formation of ideas out of material
> praxis" (1978 [German], p. 38). Consciousness follows and arises from
> praxis, it does not precede praxis. (see also L. Suchman's work on the
> relation between [abstract] plans and situated action, and H. Garfinkel on
> what it means to know an instruction, and my own work on the radical
> uncertainty in scientific discovery work, where I show that even scientists
> having done some procedure for 30 years still find themselves knowing what
> they have done only [sometimes hours or days] after having done it).
>
> That point Vygotsky makes about consciousness is the same that we find in
> Marx, when he writes that consciousness [Bewußtsein] cannot ever be
> anything else than conscious [bewußtes] being [Sein] (in *German Ideology*).
> In the same vein, Heidegger distinguishes Being [Sein] from beings
> [Seiendes]; and G.H. Mead does a similar move when he shows that
> consciousness is the presence of the distant object only attained in the
> future. I could continue the list with a series of French philosophers,
> developing these ideas further. And, we can rally Bakhtin (the one of *The
> Philosophy of the Act*) and Mead (*The Philosophy of the Act* [he, too]
> and *The Philosophy of the Present*).
>
> I would never claim that consciousness is individual---the word itself
> implies that consciousness is knowing [Lat. *scīre*] together [Lat.
> *co[n,m]-*]. It would not be smart claiming it to be individual, given
> the long history of scholars showing us why it has to be otherwise: Marx,
> Il'enkov, Mamardashvili, Mead, and the list goes on.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
>
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 3:08 AM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Alfredo:
>>
>> Actually, I think there are three threads we can twist together.
>>
>> a) Do adults develop? This is one of the major issues that divided
>> Vygotsky
>> from the "psycho-technicians" of his time (e.g. Isaac Spielrein). Vygotsky
>> was consistent: the child is not a short adult, and the adult is not a
>> senile child, so child development cannot be seen as a kind of dress
>> rehearsal for adult development, nor can adult development be seen as
>> continuing child development by other means: there is a qualitative
>> difference between the adolescent and the young adult that does not exist
>> even between the schoolchild and the adolescent.
>>
>> b) Did Vygotsky ever rise to the concrete? Should he even have tried? This
>> is one of the issues that divides Sasha from Wolff-Michael, and also
>> divides Wolff-Michael from me. Sasha believes that without rising to the
>> concrete, we cannot speak of the Marxist method at all. To me that
>> necessarily means making the concept of neoformation more specific and
>> more
>> age-dependent--but Wolff-Michael wants to make it much more general and
>> consequently abstract.
>>
>> c)  What is "perezhivanie" (as a technical term) and what would it mean
>> for
>> it to change "dialectically"? Wolff-Michael has set a cat amongst the
>> pigeons by defining consciousness itself as "perizhivanie of
>> perizhivanie".  On the one hand, this seems to suggest that consciousness
>> is an afterthought, and that children cannot have any consciousness at
>> all;
>> it also seems (to me) to imply that consciousness is essentially
>> individual, the product of reflection upon reflections (and there is a
>> similar argument being made, rather sloppily, by Michael Luntley in the
>> current Educational Philosophical and Theory...
>>
>> Luntley, M. (2017) Forgetski Vygotsky, Educational Philosophy and Theory,
>> 49:10, 957-970, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2016.1248341
>>
>> And yet there are two things about Wolff-Michael's formula that do appeal
>> to me:
>>
>> 1. The idea that dialectical development is essentially differentiation
>> and
>> not replacement of one form by another. If consciousness is essentially
>> perizhivanie turned back on itself (like language turned back on itself)
>> it
>> is easy to see how we develop--by unraveling it.
>>
>> 2. The idea that consciousness is the "meaning of meaning". Of course,
>> that's not exactly what he said, but it is what I get when I turn it back
>> on itself....
>>
>>
>> David Kellogg
>>
>> Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
>> Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
>> Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
>>
>> Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
>>
>> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 7:05 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Just a reminder that the article for discussion on neoformation is now
>> > open access at the MCA T&F pages.
>> > http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2016.1179327
>> >
>> > There recently were questions in this list concerning adult development.
>> > There was then no mention to this article, which I think was already
>> > published, but it turns out that it discusses a developmental turn-over
>> in
>> > the professional and everyday life of an adult teacher, using and
>> > discussing the concept of neoformation and the associated law of
>> transition
>> > of quantity into quality. Vygotsky introduced the concept in writings
>> about
>> > child development, and so I assume there may be issues or challenges
>> > specific to the extension of these notions beyond child development. I
>> > wonder what others in this list and outside it think, how and whether
>> those
>> > interested in adult development find the contributions present in the
>> > article relevant/appealing/problematic...
>> >
>> > Alfredo
>> > ________________________________________
>> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> > on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> > Sent: 07 December 2017 19:33
>> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4 article
>> > for    discussion
>> >
>> > Steemed xmca'ers,
>> >
>> >
>> > the year is close to its end and we have yet to discuss a selected
>> article
>> > from Issue 4. The choice this time is an article written by
>> Wolff-Michael
>> > Roth: "Neoformation: A Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change?".
>> >
>> >
>> > The article, which is attached and will be made open access for a brief
>> > time soon, brings up the concept of "neoformation", a Vygotskian notion
>> > that has appeared more than once in xmca but which is not so common in
>> the
>> > literature, despite having quite a methodological import in Vygotsky's
>> > writings.
>> >
>> >
>> > I believe the topic is timely given parallel discussions and critiques
>> to
>> > Vygotsky in xmca and in recent literature. Moreover, the article brings
>> > with it a companion, David's Kellogg commentary (which is open access
>> right
>> > now), and a response by Michael. So its a 3 for 1 treat!
>> >
>> >
>> > The whole issue is published here:
>> >
>> > http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/current?nav=tocList
>> >
>> >
>> > Michael has kindly agreed to join the conversation in the coming days,
>> and
>> > I encourage you all to have a look at the paper and not to be shy
>> bringing
>> > in comments and questions. I think this is a unique opportunity we have
>> for
>> > digging into the different ways in which Vygotsky's legacy may live on
>> in
>> > current and future CHAT and CHAT-related research/literature.
>> >
>> >
>> > Alfredo
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>