[Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical

[David H Kirshner]

I'm replying, here, also to Michael's question about the pragmatic view of language, and perhaps also to Peter's observations about non-deliberative speech.

As I understand Vygotsky, thought is developed initially as internalized speech. 
And much verbalized speech constitutes thinking out loud. 

If we are using speech to think, this would seem to preclude using it instrumentally to affect the world. 

David


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of robsub@ariadne.org.uk
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 10:36 AM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical

Is there not a sense in which humans do design language? Perhaps our ancestors did not deliberately develop the noises they made, but since then people do develop their languages to meet particular needs and motives. Are we not constantly developing a language to enable discussion of CHAT?

 From another angle perhaps while "language" was not designed, "some languages" may have been.

Esperanto was deliberately developed for unification purposes.

And Klingon and Na'vi were developed for whatever reasons we might attribute - aesthetic, commercial, status seeking....

Or, maybe the issue of when a language becomes a tool is the same as other tools. We pick up a rock to smash open a shell; later we smash the rock to create one we can hold more easily; later on we rub our new rock against another to produce a sharper edge. At what point does the rock become a tool?

On 19/03/2018 14:57, David H Kirshner wrote:
> I hope this question is addressed.
> Language is different from technology in the sense that it has not been designed by humans (who still struggle to understand it's structures).
> Of course, a rock which is used as a weapon also has not been designed by humans.
> Still, in picking up a rock to use as a weapon, the wielder is cognizant of its size and shape, and uses it deliberatively and strategically.
> In some cases, language is used in a similar deliberative and strategic sense to accomplish ends. But as I understand it, the Vygotskian understanding of language as a tool references language in its non-deliberative and strategic deployment, so the usual prescriptions that apply to understanding tools and technologies does not apply.
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 9:13 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> Isn't spoken language a technology?
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 9:08 AM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> The thing that intrigues me  is that it seems that spoken language pre-dates (at 150-350,000 years ago) the rapid development in technology.
> I thought the migration patterns were pretty well settled by now, and 
> that "hobbit" found in Flores is a diversion),
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 19/03/2018 11:50 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> Somewhere in the discussion of Monica and Fernando's article, 
>> Fernando made the remark that history does not know "ifs". Similarly, 
>> Monica implied at one point that large technological changes must be 
>> taken as given; they are not something over which humans have 
>> control. But even if we accept the "Out of Africa" story which this 
>> article undermines, we are left with the apparently conscious 
>> decision of early hominids to leave the home continent, something none of the other great apes ever determined upon.
>> Vygotsky remarked that rudiments of all four forms of higher 
>> behavior--instinct, enculturation, creativity, and free will that is 
>> none of these--appear even in infancy. So it appears that free will 
>> was always part of anthropogenesis, and consequently that 
>> history--including present history--knows nothing but ifs. We just 
>> don't see the others because we are sitting in one of them.
>>
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>>
>> Recent Article in *Early Years*
>>
>> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises, and 
>> the child’s first interrogatives 
>> <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
>>
>> Free e-print available at:
>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 7:33 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> This synoptic story of the current state of research on human 
>>> origins seems relevant to the cultural-historical folks around.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/human-evolution-
>>> australia-asia/?utm_source=SAPIENS.org+Subscribers&utm_
>>> campaign=1b31c25316-Email+Blast+12.22.2017&utm_medium=
>>> email&utm_term=0_18b7e41cd8-1b31c25316-199570669
>>>
>
>
>