[Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Unit of Analysis

Ivan Uemlianin ivan@llaisdy.com
Mon Sep 11 11:57:00 PDT 2017 

Dear All

Re "passive" I think I am just following standard interpretation of Spinoza. Here from the Ethics, part 3 definition 2:

... I say that we are passive as regards something when that something takes place within us, or follows from our nature externally, we being only the partial cause.

... nos pati dico cum in nobis aliquid fit vel ex nostra natura aliquid sequitur cujus nos non nisi partialis sumus causa.

Of course for Spinoza the only entity that is fully active (ie is its own adequate cause) is Substance as a whole, so everything is relative.

Ivan


--
festina lente


> On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:18, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> Aha! So we are not talking about a passive neonate. Whew.
> 
> Passibility is a new word for me, Michael. The OED's first two entries
> appear to incompass both Ivan and your usage:
> 
> 1. Chiefly *Theol.* The quality of being passible; capacity for suffering
> or sensation.
> 2. Passiveness; inaction; sloth. *Obs.* *rare*.
> To me, the addition of the word sensation to suffering broadens its meaning
> significantly.
> 
> Recently a Russian colleague suggested to me that Spinoza's use of the term
> passion would best be translated as perezhivanie. Certainly it bears a
> relationship to the concept of perezhivanie as that term is used by
> Vasiliuk.
> 
> mike
> 
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ivan, the word passive has some unfortunate connotation. The term
>> passibility--the capacity to suffer--seems to come with a range of
>> affordances (e.g., see my book *Passibility*).
>> 
>> 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 Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@llaisdy.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear Sasha
>>> 
>>> Passive as in driven by the passions. Isn't that how Spinoza would
>>> characterise animals and infants?
>>> 
>>> Ivan
>>> 
>>> --
>>> festina lente
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 11 Sep 2017, at 18:05, Alexandre Sourmava <avramus@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Ivan.
>>>> 
>>>> To say that "that the neo-nate is not active at all, but passive, and
>>> that therefore neo-nate behaviour is not activity" means to say that neo
>>> nate is not alive creature, but mechanic agregate of dead parts. And I am
>>> not sure that idea about passiveness of animals or neo-nate fallows from
>>> Spinoza :-).
>>>> 
>>>> Sasha
>>>> 
>>>>   扭抉扶快忱快抖抆扶我抗, 11 扼快扶找攸忌把攸 2017 18:07 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>>> 
>>> 扭我扼忘抖(忘):
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Yes, I think a further elaboration of this idea would lead
>>>> to an examination of needs and activity and sensuousness in
>>>> connection with needs and their development in connection
>>>> with activity.
>>>> 
>>>> Andy
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>>> On 12/09/2017 1:01 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks Andy, the sense of 'visceral' is much more nuanced
>>>>> in your text, yes, and quite different from what one could
>>>>> grasp from the previous e-mail. And I now follow your
>>>>> elaboration on micro- and macro-unit much better, so
>>>>> thanks for that. I was hoping, however, that the
>>>>> elaboration would lead to some acknowledgement of the role
>>>>> of needs, real needs, as key to what the word 'visceral'
>>>>> was suggesting here. I was thinking that rather than a
>>>>> 'grasping', we gain more track by talking of an orienting,
>>>>> which is how I read Marx and Engels, when Marx talks about
>>>>> the significance of 'revolutionary', 'practical-critical'
>>>>> activity, the fundamental fact of a need and its
>>>>> connections to its production and satisfaction.
>>>>> 
>>>>> A
>>>>> 
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>>>>> *Sent:* 09 September 2017 03:30
>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes, it is tough discussing these topics by email. All the
>>>>> issues you raise are treated in
>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-
>>> Hegel-Marx_public.pdf
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am *not* dividing the world into 'immediate, bodily,
>>>>> and sensuous' and 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'.
>>>>> The whole point is to begin by *not* dividing. By contrast
>>>>> for example, Newton explained natural processes (very
>>>>> successfully!) by describing a number of "forces"; a force
>>>>> is an example of something which is not visceral or
>>>>> sensuous (and also not discrete so it can't be a 'unit').
>>>>> The "expression" of a force can be visceral (think of the
>>>>> effect of gravity) but gravity itself is an invention
>>>>> needed to make a theory of physics work (like God's Will)
>>>>> but has no content other than its expression. People got
>>>>> by without it for millennia. This is not to say it does
>>>>> not have a sound basis in material reality. But it is
>>>>> abstract, in the sense that it exists only within the
>>>>> framework of a theory, and cannot therefore provide a
>>>>> starting point or foundation for a theory. To claim that a
>>>>> force exists is to reify an abstraction from a form of
>>>>> movement (constant acceleration between two bodies).
>>>>> Goethe called his method "delicate empiricism" but this is
>>>>> something quite different from the kind of empiricism
>>>>> which uncritically accepts theory-laden perceptions,
>>>>> discovers patterns in these perceptions and then reifies
>>>>> these patterns in forces and such abstractions.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you don't know about climatology then you can't guess
>>>>> the unit of analysis. Marx took from 1843 to about 1858 to
>>>>> determine a unit of analysis for economics. Vygotsky took
>>>>> from about 1924 to 1931 to determine a unit of analysis
>>>>> for intellect. And both these characters studied their
>>>>> field obsessively during that interval. This is why I
>>>>> insist that the unit of analysis is a *visceral concept*
>>>>> unifying a series of phenomena, something which gets to
>>>>> the heart of a process, and which therefore comes only
>>>>> through prolonged study, not something which is generated
>>>>> by some formula with a moment's reflection.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Each unit is the foundation of an entire science. But both
>>>>> Marx's Capital and Vygotsky's T&S identify a micro-unit
>>>>> but quickly move on to the real phenomenon of interest -
>>>>> capital and concepts respectively. But capital (which
>>>>> makes its appearance in chapter 4) cannot be understood
>>>>> without having first identified the real substance of
>>>>> value in the commodity. The rest of the book then proceeds
>>>>> on the basis of this unit, capital (i.e., a unit of
>>>>> capital, a firm). To ignore capital is to depict bourgeois
>>>>> society as a society of simple commodity exchange among
>>>>> equals - a total fiction. Likewise, Vygotsky's real aim it
>>>>> to elucidate the nature and development of concepts. He
>>>>> does not say it, and probably does not himself see it, but
>>>>> "concept" is a macro-unit (or molar unit in ANL's term),
>>>>> an aggregate of actions centred on a symbol or other
>>>>> artefact. The whole point of introducing the cell into
>>>>> biology was to understand the behaviour of *organisms*,
>>>>> not for the sake of creating the science of cell biology,
>>>>> though this was a side benefit of the discovery.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Andy
>>>>> 
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>>>> On 9/09/2017 5:31 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Andy, thanks for your clarification on the 'visceral'.
>>>>>> The way you describe it, though, suggests to me an
>>>>>> empiricist position that I know you do not ascribe to;
>>>>>> and so I'll take it that either I've missed the correct
>>>>>> reading, or that we are still developing language to talk
>>>>>> about this. In any case, I assume you do not mean that
>>>>>> whatever our object of study is, it is divided between
>>>>>> the visceral as the 'immediate, bodily, and sensuous' and
>>>>>> something else that, by implication, may have been said
>>>>>> to be 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous' (you may as
>>>>>> well mean precisely this, I am not sure).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I do not know what the climatologist's unit of analysis
>>>>>> is when discussing hurricanes either, but I do think that
>>>>>> Hurricanes Irma, Jos谷, etc, are expressions of a system
>>>>>> in a very similar way that any psychological fact is a
>>>>>> expression of the society as part of which it occurs. I
>>>>>> was thinking that, if we assumed for a second that we
>>>>>> know what the unit for studying of hurricanes is (some
>>>>>> concrete relation between climate or environment and
>>>>>> hurricane), 'feeling' the hurricane could be thought of
>>>>>> in may ways, only some of which may be helpful to advance
>>>>>> our scientific understanding of human praxis. The way you
>>>>>> seemed to refer to this 'visceral' aspect, as 'immediate,
>>>>>> embodied, and sensous' would make things hard, because,
>>>>>> are we 'feeling' the hurricane, or the wind blowing our
>>>>>> roofs away? In fact, is it the wind at all, or the many
>>>>>> micro particles of soil and other matter that are
>>>>>> smashing our skin as the hurricane passes above us, too
>>>>>> big, too complex, to be 'felt' in any way that captures
>>>>>> it all? And so, if your object of study is to be 'felt',
>>>>>> I don't think the definition of 'immediate, embodied, and
>>>>>> sensuous' helps unless we mean it WITHOUT it being the
>>>>>> opposite to 'mediated, disembodied, and a-sensuous'.
>>>>>> That is, if we do not oppose the immediate to the
>>>>>> mediated in the sense just implied (visceral is immediate
>>>>>> vs. 'not-visceral' is mediated). So, I am arguing in
>>>>>> favour of the claim that we need to have this visceral
>>>>>> relation that you mention, but I do think that we require
>>>>>> a much more sophisticated definition of 'visceral' than
>>>>>> the one that the three words already mentioned allow
>>>>>> for. I do 'feel' that in most of his later works,
>>>>>> Vygotsky was very concerned on emphasising the unity of
>>>>>> intellect and affect as the most important problem for
>>>>>> psychology for precisely this reason.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I have also my reservations with the distinction that you
>>>>>> draw in your e-mail between micro-unit and macro-unit. If
>>>>>> the question is the production of awareness, of the
>>>>>> 'experience of having a mind' that you are discussing
>>>>>> with Michael, then we have to find just one unit, not
>>>>>> two, not one micro and one macro. I am of course not
>>>>>> saying that one unit addresses all the problems one can
>>>>>> pose for psychology. But I do think that the very idea of
>>>>>> unit analysis implies that it constitutes your field of
>>>>>> inquiry for a particular problem (you've written about
>>>>>> this). You ask about Michael's mind, and Michael responds
>>>>>> that his mind is but one expression of a society.I would
>>>>>> add that whatever society is as a whole, it lives as
>>>>>> consciousness in and through each and every single one of
>>>>>> our consciousness; if so, the unit Vygotsky was
>>>>>> suggesting, the one denoting the unity of person and
>>>>>> situation, seems to me well suited; not a micro-unit that
>>>>>> is micro with respect to the macro-activity.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you take the Spinozist position that 'a true idea must
>>>>>> agree with that of which it is the idea', and then agree
>>>>>> with Vygotsky that ideas are not intellect on the one
>>>>>> hand, and affect on the other, but a very special
>>>>>> relation (a unity) between the two, then we need a notion
>>>>>> of 'visceral and sensous' that is adequate to our 'idea'
>>>>>> or field of inquiry. We can then ask questions about the
>>>>>> affects of phenomena, of hurricanes, for example, as
>>>>>> Latour writes about the 'affects of capitalism'. And we
>>>>>> would do so without implying an opposition between
>>>>>> the feeling and the felt, but some production process
>>>>>> that accounts for both. Perezhivanie then, in my view, is
>>>>>> not so much about experience as it is about human
>>>>>> situations; historical events, which happen to have some
>>>>>> individual people having them as inherent part of their
>>>>>> being precisely that: historical events (a mindless or
>>>>>> totally unconscious event would not be historical).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I am no fun of frightening away people in the list with
>>>>>> too long posts like this one, but I think the issue is
>>>>>> complex and requires some elaboration. I hope xmca is
>>>>>> also appreciated for allowing going deep into questions
>>>>>> that otherwise seem to alway remain elusive.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Alfredo
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>>>>>> *Sent:* 08 September 2017 04:11
>>>>>> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Alfredo, by "visceral" I mean it is something you know
>>>>>> through your immediate, bodily and sensuous interaction
>>>>>> with something. In this sense I am with Lakoff and
>>>>>> Johnson here (though not being American I don't see guns
>>>>>> as quite so fundamental to the human condition). Consider
>>>>>> what Marx did when began Capital not from the abstract
>>>>>> concept of "value" but from the action of exchanging
>>>>>> commodities . Commodity exchange is just one form of
>>>>>> value, but it is the most ancient, most visceral, most
>>>>>> "real" and most fundamental form of value - as Marx shows
>>>>>> in s. 3 of Chapter 1, v. I.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I have never studied climatology, Alfredo, to the extent
>>>>>> of grasping what their unit of analysis is.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In any social system, including classroom activity, the
>>>>>> micro-unit is an artefact-mediated action and the
>>>>>> macro-units are the activities. That is the basic CHAT
>>>>>> approach. But that is far from the whole picture isn't
>>>>>> it? What chronotope determines classroom activity - are
>>>>>> we training people to be productive workers or are we
>>>>>> participating in social movements or are we engaged in
>>>>>> transforming relations of domination in the classroom or
>>>>>> are we part of a centuries-old struggle to understand and
>>>>>> change the world? The action/activity just gives us one
>>>>>> range of insights, but we might analyse the classroom
>>>>>> from different perspectives.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
>>>>>>> On 8/09/2017 7:58 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>>>>>>> I am very curious about what "visceral" means here (Andy), and
>>> particularly how that relates to the 'interrelations' that David D. is
>>> mentioning, and that on the 'perspective of the researcher'.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I was thinking of the Hurricanes going on now as the expressions of
>> a
>>> system, one that sustains category 5 hurricanes in *this* particulars
>> ways
>>> that are called Irma, Jos谷, etc. How the 'visceral' relation may be like
>>> when the object is a physical system (a hurricane and the climate system
>>> that sustains it), and when it is a social system (e.g., a classroom
>>> conflict and the system that sustains it).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Alfredo
>>>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>>>> From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu  <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.
>>> edu>  on behalf of David Dirlam<modesofpractice@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> Sent: 07 September 2017 19:41
>>>>>>> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The issues that have arisen in this discussion clarify the
>> conception
>>> of
>>>>>>> what sort of entity a "unit" is. Both and Andy and Martin stress the
>>>>>>> importance of the observer. Anyone with some experience should have
>>> some
>>>>>>> sense of it (Martin's point). But Andy added the notion that experts
>>> need
>>>>>>> basically to be able to agree reliably on examples of the unit
>>> (worded like
>>>>>>> the psychological researcher I am, but I'm sure Andy will correct me
>>> if I
>>>>>>> missed his meaning).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> We also need to address two other aspects of units--their
>>> classifiability
>>>>>>> and the types of relations between them. What makes water not an
>>> element,
>>>>>>> but a compound, are the relations between the subunits (the chemical
>>> bonds
>>>>>>> between the elements) as well as those with other molecules of water
>>> (how
>>>>>>> fast they travel relative to each other), which was David Kellogg's
>>> point.
>>>>>>> So the analogy to activity is that it is like the molecule, while
>>> actions
>>>>>>> are like the elements. What is new to this discussion is that the
>>> activity
>>>>>>> must contain not only actions, but also relationships between them.
>>> If we
>>>>>>> move up to the biological realm, we find a great increase in the
>>> complexity
>>>>>>> of the analogy. Bodies are made up of more than cells, and I'm not
>>> just
>>>>>>> referring to entities like extracellular fluid. The identifiability,
>>>>>>> classification, and interrelations between cells and their
>>> constituents all
>>>>>>> help to make the unit so interesting to science. Likewise, the
>>> constituents
>>>>>>> of activities are more than actions. Yrjo's triangles illustrate
>> that.
>>>>>>> Also, we need to be able to identify an activity, classify
>>> activities, and
>>>>>>> discern the interrelations between them and their constituents.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think that is getting us close to David Kellogg's aim of
>>> characterizing
>>>>>>> the meaning of unit. But glad, like him, to read corrections.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> David
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:08 PM, Andy Blunden<ablunden@mira.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need to
>>> aspire to
>>>>>>>> is *visceral* and sensuous. There are "everyday" concepts which are
>>> utterly
>>>>>>>> abstract and saturated with ideology and received knowledge. For
>>> example,
>>>>>>>> Marx's concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not
>>> the
>>>>>>>> "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>>>>>> https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Isn＊t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one
>>> might
>>>>>>>>> say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon
>>> that is
>>>>>>>>> to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the
>>> course of
>>>>>>>>> investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific
>> concept?
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> just wondering
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Martin
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson<greg.a.thompson@
>> gmail.com
>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of
>>> unit of
>>>>>>>>>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's
>>> Introduction
>>>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>>>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short
>>> of it
>>>>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>>>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the
>>>>>>>>>> essential features of the whole".
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Here is their longer explanation:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept
>> "unit
>>> of
>>>>>>>>>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an
>>> adequate
>>>>>>>>>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis -
>>> one
>>>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>>>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study
>>> water, a
>>>>>>>>>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an
>>>>>>>>>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen
>>> and
>>>>>>>>>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not
>>> illuminate
>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use
>>>>>>>>>> requires
>>>>>>>>>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology,
>>>>>>>>>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these
>>> linguistic
>>>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>>>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication,
>> but
>>>>>>>>>> natural
>>>>>>>>>> language use also involves social action in a context that
>>> includes other
>>>>>>>>>> actors and socially significant regularities."
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at:
>>>>>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduct
>>>>>>>>>> ion_to_Discourse_and_Education
>>>>>>>>>> )
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for
>> thinking
>>>>>>>>>> about
>>>>>>>>>> unit of analysis.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> -greg
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>>>>>>>>> Assistant Professor
>>>>>>>>>> Department of Anthropology
>>>>>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>>>>>>>>>> Brigham Young University
>>>>>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602
>>>>>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
>>>>>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>

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