[Xmca-l] Fwd: Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented activity and communication
David Kellogg
dkellogg60@gmail.com
Mon Oct 30 14:35:09 PDT 2017
I think that when your grandson feels fear, what the child feels is his
own fear and not your fear. As you point out, what is communicated is a
vague uneasiness and not urgent and immediately actionable thought "I'm
afraid that my grandson is going to electrocute himself" or even "Grandpa
is afraid that I am going to electrocute myself". I think that when Alan
Bennet's mother sees the cow, what she feels is the sensation of seeing
shapes and colors and remembering seeing such patterns in some concrete
context and not the precise location of a specifiable semantic address. So
it seems to me that Wittgenstein is confirmed and not confounded.
Vygosky says that when a wild goose is startled and the whole flock takes
wing, we should call it "contamination' rather than "communication". What
is "communicable" here is symptom not cause. The first goose is afraid of
something and not because the other geese are afraid. The other geese are
not afraid of whatever it was that startled the first goose; they are
afraid because the first goose is afraid, and that is all.
If you have a cold and sneeze, and I am sneezing because of the pepper on
my pickle sandwich, then I cannot say that I have caught your cold. There
is a well-known joke which makes the same point: if you scream in a
theatre, everybody tells you to shut up, but if you scream on an airplane
they all join in. In neither case, however, is there a feeling
communicated: in both cases, the only thing being communicated was the fact
of screaming, not the emotion that gave rise to it.
It makes a difference to an undamaged human brain. Here's Dr. Adolfo Garcia
demonstrating that there are good neurological reasons why you can say "My
grandson ate breakfast" and even "My grandson felt/thought that it was time
for breakfast'" but you cannot say "My grandson ate that it was time for
breakfast". Mental processes are one thing, and material processes are
another: a human brain knows the difference, and our languages reflect this
knowledge.
https://vimeo.com/111374335
Dr. Garcia has a good paper on this in Functions of Language:
https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/fol.23.3.02gar/details
If Alan Bennet's mum confirms Wittgenstein, but Alan Bennett thinks
Wittgenstein is confounded, can we really say that he has understood
Wittgenstein? if you prove my point, but you think you are actually
contradicting it, have we communicated or not?
David Kellogg
On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 10:36 PM, Julian Williams <
julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> David
>
> When I see my grandchild fall and bang their head I ‘feel their pain’ and
> wince even before I hear him cry… even more so, my grandson seems to feel
> my fear before I actually say anything about it (when they poke their
> finger into the socket), and even though he is too young to have any words
> for ‘fear’… when you see someone’s face twist in such and such a way, you
> mirror it and feel the sensation associated with the expression straight
> away, don’t you?
>
> At some level of perception, we do communicate without words. As Alan
> Bennet said in his diaries (when his demented mother pointed to a cow in
> the field and said ‘I know what they are but not what they are called’)
> “Thus Wittgenstein was confounded by my mother”.
>
> Am I missing your point?
>
> Julian
>
> On 26/10/2017, 11:58, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David
> Kellogg" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of
> dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> All Vygotsky says is that thinking is represented in the brain
> differently
> than immediate sensation. Vygotsky didn't have access to MRI scans or
> computerized tomography. In fact these can and do distinguish between
> verbs
> of sensation and verbs of verbal report. But what Vygotsky did have
> access
> to is the grammar of reported speech.
>
> In all languages that I know, it is possible to quote the words of
> another
> person. I can say, for example:
>
> Sasha says "Obviously, this has nothing to do with Marxism".
>
> I can also quote the thoughts of another person.
>
> Sasha thinks, "Obviously, this has nothing to with Marxism."
>
> I can do this even when there are no actual words, just as I can read
> Sasha's thoughts without him speaking them.
>
> However, in no languages that Iknow is it possible to quote the
> actions or
> the immediate sensations of another person. I cannot say, for example:
>
> "Sasha stood "Up""
>
> "Sasha felt 'Cold'".
>
> When I try to say this, what I end up saying is that Sasha thought a
> word
> meaning, not that he felt an immediate sensation.
>
> In Chinese we say, "The speaker has gone, and the tea is cold." This
> is
> originally a line from the revolutionary opera "Shajiabang", about a
> woman
> who runs a teahouse used by communists. In this scene, the children are
> acting out a visit by a Chinese quisling and a Japanese officer; they
> accuse the woman of communist sympathies, and she says that all people
> who
> come to her teahouse have sympathies, but as soon as they go, their
> tea is
> cold, and she throws it out (6:13).
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUYvyRMvCNU
>
> There is no way, as Wittgenstein says, to feel the toothache of another
> person; all you can do is to describe it in thoughts and words.
> Paradoxically, when we want to share thoughts, we can do it
> "immediately",
> because thoughts and words have already made the dialectical leap--the
> leap
> from idiolect into a sharable dialect.
>
> David Kellogg
>
>
>
>
>
> other verbs). First of all, notice that he is saying that
>
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 5:14 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
>
> > That is a tendency within our heritage, David. Some people
> > take the category of "labour" rather than "activity" to be
> > the key category.
> >
> > As I understand it, "labour," or "production," is activity
> > in the case where production and consumption and socially
> > mediated, but I think that activity whose object is an
> > object of consumption should be included within the basic
> > category of Activity Theory, even if there are important
> > psychological differences. Some are also concerned to
> > separate symbolic activity, such as speech or supervision of
> > labour, from the fundamental category, giving tool-use
> > priority over sign use, and use of the term "labour"
> > suggests that. Vygotsky expressed himself firmly against
> > this move.
> >
> > So use of "activity" rather than "labour" or vice versa does
> > reflect certain tensions within the tradition.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Tool%20and%
> > 20Sign%20in%20Vygotskys%20Development.pdf
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> > On 26/10/2017 6:14 PM, WEBSTER, DAVID S. wrote:
> > > Xmca seems to have a workerist tendency operating - for myself I
> have
> > always found that the work of generalising (in Vygotsky's sense) is a
> > labour of object-oriented activity. But that's just me
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alexander Surmava
> > > Sent: 26 October 2017 00:13
> > > To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; Mike
> Cole;
> > ivan-dgf; Martin John Packer; Haydi Zulfei
> > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented
> activity
> > and communication
> > >
> > > Dear Alfredo,
> > >
> > > thank you for your very accurate reaction. You definitely noticed
> the
> > main thing. Today, in the era of globalization and developed
> technologies,
> > the class antagonism between exploited people and their exploiters,
> between
> > capital and wage labor, assumes the appearance of the opposite
> between
> > different ethnic groups and cultures. Capital itself has always been
> a
> > global phenomenon, and a class of capitalists - a cosmopolitan class.
> > Putting military overcoats on workers and sending them to fight and
> to kill
> > each other under nationalist slogans, they continued to cooperate
> with
> > their exploitation colleagues, somehow continuing to receive
> dividends from
> > their enterprises located on the territory of their "enemy." Today
> Putin's
> > friends and henchmen who curse the "insidious West" take their
> capitals to
> > this West, buy property there, send their children to study there
> and go
> > there themselves to rest and be treated. And today Mr. Poroshenko -
> the
> > president of the country that was subje
> > > cted to the aggression of the neighboring state, owns chocolate
> > factories located on the territory of this country.
> > > In Russia, and in Western Europe, and in the United States, the
> policy
> > of the ruling classes is based today on inciting against each other
> the
> > working people of different ethnic groups and confessions, on their
> > juxtaposition of each other as superior and second-class creatures.
> > > And as an ideological justification of the enmity incited by the
> ruling
> > class towards working people of a different skin color, working
> people
> > speaking a different language and praying to other gods, public
> > consciousness is infected with totally false ideas constructed
> allegedly on
> > a scientific basis. All this is not new. One hundred years ago, the
> > dominant ideology rested on undisguised racism. Today, the same task
> is
> > being solved by more sophisticated means, appealing to so-called
> "cultural"
> > differences. Although the old ideology appealing to biological
> differences
> > has not disappeared. Only today it is covered by a new,
> molecular-genetic
> > argumentation, an appeal not only to livestock farming, but also to
> the
> > "psychology of culture".
> > > It is possible to unmask this bourgeois lie, not only in words but
> also
> > in deeds, if we can understand that human development is not the
> ability of
> > individuals to experience (perejivat’) the meaning of words, but to
> be
> > genuine subjects of object-oriented activity, the subjects of labor.
> > > If we stay on Vygotsky's theoretical positions, which believed
> that the
> > human psyche begins with acts of sensation that thinking is just a
> verbal
> > "generalization" of the material that our senses deliver to us, then
> any
> > wretched ideologist, with a well-suspended language, will seem to us
> the
> > owner of perfect wisdom, whereas a worker or a peasant doing his own
> work,
> > but not possessing the skill of ideological verbosity, will look
> something
> > inferior.
> > > If someone is shocked by such an evaluation of Vygotsky's theory,
> open
> > his "Thinking and speach" and reread this key paragraph.
> > >
> > >
> > > "It has been said that the dialectical leap is not only a
> transition
> > from matter that is incapable of sensation to matter that is capable
> of
> > sensation, but a transition from sensation to thought. This implies
> that
> > reality is reflected in consciousness in a qualitatively different
> way in
> > thinking than it is in immediate sensation. This qualitative
> difference is
> > primarily a function of a generalized reflection of reality.
> Therefore,
> > generalization in word meaning is an act of thinking in the true
> sense of
> > the word. At the same time, however, meaning is an inseparable part
> of the
> > word; it belongs not only to the domain of thought but to the domain
> of
> > speech. A word without meaning is not a word, but an empty sound. A
> word
> > without meaning no longer belongs to the domain of speech. One
> cannot say
> > of word meaning what we said earlier of the elements of the word
> taken
> > separately. Is word meaning speech or is it thought? It is both at
> one and
> > the same time; it is a unit of verbal thi
> > > nking. It is obvious, then, that our method must be that of
> semantic
> > analysis. Our method must rely on the analysts of the meaningful
> aspect of
> > speech; it must be a method for studying verbal meaning.
> > >
> > > We can reasonably anticipate that this method will produce answers
> to
> > our questions concerning the relationship between thinking and speech
> > because this relationship is already contained in the unit of
> analysis. In
> > studying the function, structure, and development of this unit, we
> will
> > come to understand a great deal that is of direct relevance to the
> problem
> > of the relationship of thinking to speech and to the nature of verbal
> > thinking."
> > >
> > >
> > > Obviously, such an "understanding" of thinking has not the
> slightest
> > relation to either Spinozism or Marxism. It is a naive attempt to
> combine
> > eclectically the old ideas of empirical psychology with the school
> textbook
> > of formal logic.
> > > (Of course, I understand that this paragraph needs more detailed
> > theoretical analysis. And I will not slow down this analysis in the
> very
> > near future. In the meantime, I only note that Vygotsky's assertion
> that
> > "generalization is a verbal act of thought" is a maximally aphoristic
> > expression of his idealistic position. For us, as for the
> materialists, the
> > generalization is a practical act and its instrument is the
> instrument of
> > labor. And the initial and universal instrument of generalization is
> not a
> > sign, but an instrument of labor. So the ax is a means of
> generalizing the
> > properties of wood. The ax is, in the same time, a means of
> analyzing all
> > the same wood. All this is obvious, looking through the optics of
> > Spinoza-Ilyenkov, that is, simply a Marxist definition of ideality.)
> > Theoretical conclusions made by Vygotsky from the results of Luria's
> trip
> > to Uzbekistan logically follow from the above. The Uzbek illiterate
> > peasant, not from school textbooks, but from his own labo
> > > r experience knowing how the earth, aryk, water, hoe and melon are
> > connected, and therefore refusing to produce meaningless formal
> logical
> > operations with words denoting these things, is declared a primitive
> > thinking by "complexes". Simultaneously, any school crap who knows
> how to
> > pronounce definitions from his textbook and familiar with the melon
> only
> > when it is bought, washed and cut by his mommy, is declared the
> bearer of
> > scientific consciousness.
> > >
> > > Only in this way can we, as psychologists and teachers, come to the
> > value of instruments of labor, not only for the distribution of
> material
> > wealth, but also for the distribution of the spiritual wealth, for
> the
> > distribution of the ability to think, for the distribution of
> culture. Only
> > in this way can we approach the Marxist definition of culture as the
> > totality of the means of its object-oriented activity accumulated by
> > humankind the means of its labor. Only on the path of such based on
> idea of
> > object-oriented activity understanding of man we will be able to get
> out of
> > the deadlock of the semiotic, with its symbolic arbitrariness.
> > > Vygotsky's merit is that he was the first who seriously set the
> task of
> > creating a Marxist psychology and his merit can be considered that
> the
> > first real step in this direction was made by his friend and student
> AN
> > Leontiev.Our task is to continue their mission.
> > > Sasha
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > От: Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > > Кому: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >;
> > Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>; ivan-dgf <ivan-dgf@migmail.ru>;
> Martin
> > John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>; Haydi Zulfei <
> > haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; Alexander Surmava <
> > alexander.surmava@yahoo.com>
> > > Отправлено: среда, 25 октября 2017 15:03
> > > Тема: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented activity
> and
> > communication
> > >
> > > #yiv0081188988 #yiv0081188988 -- P {margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:
> 0px;}#yiv0081188988
> > Dear Sasha, all,
> > >
> > > apologies for late response, as we've had some health issues at
> home
> > that fortunately are now dissipating but which have limited
> participation
> > anywhere else than home life.
> > >
> > > The real need of democratic pedagogy. That sounds like a concrete
> aspect
> > to begin moving on to what we had hoped at the beginning of this
> > conversation: how is this all gonna be of practical (real) relevance
> to us
> > and not only armchair discussion. So, in what sense is this 'real,'
> and is
> > this a 'need'? (I am not addressing Sasha alone, I am addressing any
> and
> > everyone)
> > >
> > > Alfredo
> > >
> > > From: Alexander Surmava <alexander.surmava@yahoo.com>
> > > Sent: 21 October 2017 13:36
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; Mike Cole; Alfredo Jornet
> Gil;
> > ivan-dgf; Martin John Packer; Haydi Zulfei
> > > Subject: Отв: [Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented
> activity
> > and communication Dear Martin,I think that if we're going to discuss
> the
> > method of Marx, then it is better to do it discussing his most
> mature work.
> > That is evidently "Das Kapital" and Ilyenkov's monograph "Dialectics
> of the
> > abstract and concrete in theoretical thinking". I am aware that
> there is a
> > point of view that the position of Marx as a humanist was adequately
> > presented in Gründrisse, whereas the humanistic core of Marx's
> theory was
> > allegedly lost in “Das Kapital”. Accordingly, Marxism is better to
> study
> > with the help of Gründrisse, and not with the help of “Das Kapital”.
> Along
> > with Ilyenkov I do not share this view.I'm afraid that the
> discussion of
> > this topic would take us too far from our psychological themes. I
> think
> > that we should not get stuck in discussing the order of "steps", but
> > immediately put our foot on the first "step" so that after that try
> to rise
> > from it to the seco
> > > nd, and so on ... Taking into account my not young age, it seems
> to me
> > that at least for me, it's time to move on from the discussion of the
> > method to the discussion of the subject, from the preparation to
> thinking,
> > to the thinking as such. Especially because the Method can not be
> studied
> > before and regardless of the study of the very subject. Perhaps this
> seems
> > paradoxical, but it is a paradox only for those who are not familiar
> with
> > the dialectic of Spinoza and Marx. Meanwhile, instead of discussing
> the
> > question - what is activity, or what is the psyche - we continue to
> carry
> > water in a sieve, discussing the singular or plural of the term
> activity.
> > Without a doubt, this topic is very useful for translators from
> Russian (or
> > German) language to English, but theoretically it is not very
> informative.
> > And besides, we are convinced that Andy Blunden completely exhausted
> this
> > topic a few years ago. Much more interesting would be to discuss the
> > question: what is the justificati
> > > on to declare Vygotsky the founder of activity theory. Where, in
> any
> > > of his works, Vygotsky introduces the concept of activity, not
> just uses
> > the term «activity» in the theoretical contexts in which it is used
> > habitually by idealistic psychology. “The activity (or activities) of
> > consciousness”, “the activity (or activities) of mental functions”,
> “speech
> > activity (or activities)”, the concrete activities of the
> personality”- all
> > this has nothing to do with object-oriented activity, with Spinoza
> and
> > Marx. It seems to me that our main mistake is that we are discussing
> the
> > subtleties of understanding the categories of activity by Vygotsky
> and
> > Leontyev, whereas we need something different. It is necessary to
> try to
> > formulate OUR OWN UNDERSTANDING of the activity, proceeding from THE
> REAL
> > NEED OF THE PRACTICE OF DEMOCRATIC PEDAGOGY.It is impossible to
> understand
> > activity based on Vygotsky's ideas, because there was no such
> theoretical
> > category in his theoretical system of views. AN Leontiev introduces a
> > category of object-oriented a
> > > ctivity into psychology, but his theory is of little use for
> solving
> > practical problems too, for saying “A”, Leontyev never said “B”.
> Having
> > proposed the principle of activity as the universal basis of the
> > psychological theory, its germ cell AN Leontiev did not go further
> failing
> > to concretize this correctly chosen abstract category.Once again,
> from
> > thehobby group of lovers of Vygotsky, with his "Сultural-Рistorical
> > Psychology" and AN Leontyev with his "Psychological Theory of
> Activity" we
> > all have to become community of researchers developing fundamentally
> new
> > approaches to education, based on dialectical, revolutionary method
> of
> > Marx.For the realization of this dream, it is necessary to begin not
> so
> > much - to learn to listen to each other... :-)Sincerely,Sasha
> > >
> > > От: Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > > Кому: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > > Отправлено: пятница, 20 октября 2017 3:08
> > > Тема: [Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented activity and
> > communication
> > >
> > > Right, Marx was himself well aware of this difference. My point is
> that
> > we have begin to talk about “the start” of Marx’s analysis, and
> about its
> > “stages,” but these should not be equated with the order of the
> treatment
> > in Capital.
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Oct 19, 2017, at 5:40 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablu
> > nden@mira.net>> wrote:
> > >
> > > https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
> > >
> > > Of course the method of presentation must differ in form
> > > from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the
> > > material in detail, to analyse its different forms of
> > > development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only
> > > after this work is done, can the actual movement be
> > > adequately described. If this is done successfully, if
> > > the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as
> > > in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a
> > > mere a priori construction.
> > >
> > > Andy
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Andy Blunden
> > > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> > > On 20/10/2017 3:23 AM, Martin John Packer wrote:
> > > Seems to me that if we’re going to talk about the details of Marx’s
> > analysis we need to look not at Capital but at the Grundrisse. The
> two have
> > virtually opposite organizations; it’s clear that the order of
> presentation
> > in Capital was not the order of analysis.
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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