[Xmca-l] Re: ZPD and DST!

[Huw Lloyd]

Thank you for the paper, Michael. I have skim-read this and am largely in
agreement with the content.  However, I think I disagree about some implied
premises.  My sense is that these issues are largely a symptom of
undeveloped systems and theoretical skills in this area, which I would say
is essential for real progress. On that basis I would not suggest that
people omit the use of certain terms, but rather that they keep tripping
over them until they study them more carefully.

A few pointers, perhaps:
1. Field is synonymous with medium (a cognate of media in the
non-fashionable sense).
2. The 'mis-use' of tool/sign mediation as in non-unitary forms in CHAT is,
I believe, largely a result of construing the object of activity socially
rather than psychologically, i.e. in which orientation is the field/medium.
(Some elaboration here:
https://www.academia.edu/24660665/A_Comparison_of_Seven_Historical_Research_Orientations_within_CHAT_up_to_2001_
)
3. In "thesis-antithesis" dialectics there is a medium implicated.

Best,
Huw


On 31 March 2017 at 00:42, 배희철 <ggladduck@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, Roth.
> I want a copy.
>
> 2017-03-31 7:26 GMT+09:00 Wolff-Michael Roth <wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> >:
>
> > Hi all, I did not realize that my reference wasn't updated. The paper is
> > here:
> > https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12124-016-9376-0
> >
> > and by personal request Alfredo or I will mail a copy to those not
> > operating at a uni with access to Springer Link.
> >
> > 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 Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 2:33 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi David, you will disagree even more with this one:
> > >
> > >
> > > Roth, W.-M., & Jornet, A. (in press). Theorizing with/out "mediators."
> > > Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science.
> > >
> > > But people like Feliks Mikhailov, and also Ekaterina Zavershneva
> indicate
> > > that toward the end of his life, Vygotsy was moving away from
> mediation.
> > We
> > > give an extended argument for theorizing without mediators in the
> > article.
> > >
> > > But I hope you understand that I am not out to interpret and find out
> > what
> > > Vygotsky really said even if he did not say it. I think you are well
> > > positioned to do THAT kind of research. I want to move on. And,
> frankly,
> > I
> > > have no clue what people are saying when they write that something is
> > > mediated. It seems to me that they are hiding or refraining from going
> > > after what I am interested in. I am not interested in knowing that a
> tool
> > > mediates something. I am interested in what the tool actually does,
> what
> > > are the events in which tools participate, shape people and get shaped
> by
> > > them.
> > >
> > > In the end, all this is about finding suitable discourses, and
> > > descriptions, for doing the kinds of things we want to do.
> > >
> > > m
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > --------------------
> > > 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 Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 2:22 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> I think the Roth article I would recommend isn't the editorial, but
> > rather
> > >> this one:
> > >>
> > >> Roth, W-M. 2007. On Mediation: Towards a Cultural Historical
> > >> Understanding.
> > >> Theory and Psychology 17 (5): 655-680.
> > >>
> > >> There's a lot I disagree with in this paper (e.g. I disagree with the
> > idea
> > >> that if mediation "explains" everything then it explains nothing--it
> is
> > >> like saying that if perception applies to all visible phenomena then
> it
> > >> applies to none of them). But here's why I prefer it to Saeed's paper:
> > >>
> > >> a) Roth gets to concrete examples from direct experience almost
> > >> immediately
> > >> (fish feeding, on p. 656). This gives me something to go back to when
> I
> > >> get
> > >> lost in abstraction, and I need it.
> > >>
> > >> b) Instead of using Theory A to illuminate Theory B, Roth goes back
> into
> > >> the historical origins of Theory A and discovers, immanently, Theory
> B,
> > C,
> > >> etc.. This has two advantages: it avoids chalk-and-cheese eclecticism,
> > and
> > >> it helps me understand how Theory A was formed in the first place.
> With
> > >> Saeed's paper, I find myself missing: 1) an account of the CRITICAL
> > >> DISTINCTIONS between the two theories, 2) an explanation of how each
> > MAKES
> > >> UP for what the other lacks, and 3) some argument for long term
> > >> COMPATABILITY, some explication of why the emulsion will not
> > re-separate,
> > >> like vinegar and oil.
> > >>
> > >> c) For Vygotsky--no, for mediation more generally--the key problem is
> > >> volition, free will, choice. Vygotsky once said that the most
> > interesting
> > >> problem in the whole of psychology, bar none, is what a human being
> > would
> > >> really do in the situation of Buridan's donkey (that is a situation of
> > >> volition, of free will, of choice where the outcomes were either
> > >> apparently
> > >> equal or equally unknown). This isn't true of DST, which has, as Saeed
> > >> admits, an "emergentist" account of volition (to put it uncharitably,
> > >> handwaving and magic). At the very least, choice is late emerging in a
> > DST
> > >> account, and that makes, for example, the child's early and
> > >> successful acquisition of speech very hard to explain.
> > >>
> > >> That said, Saeed--I DID appreciate the part on p. 86 where you remind
> us
> > >> that learning and development are distinct but linked. As
> Wolff-Michael
> > >> says, the point has been made before, but I think that we've got to
> keep
> > >> saying this, until people really see that mixing up "microgenesis" and
> > >> ontogenesis is, in our own time, the same kind of error that mixing up
> > >> ontogenesis and phylogenesis was in Vygotsky's. If I read one more
> > article
> > >> which invokes the ZPD for some trivial incident of learning, I'm
> > getting a
> > >> tattoo that says: "Look here, mate, just because it didn't kill ya
> > doesn't
> > >> mean it made ya any stronger".
> > >>
> > >> David Kellogg
> > >> Macquarie University
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> >
>