[Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical

[Andy Blunden]

Oh dear! I had no idea what I was going to open here.

All my lights - Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky - make a
qualitative distinction between sign-use and tool-use and
Vygotsky made a big deal of the distinction, and for his own
reasons, at the time, wrote with some passion against the
idea of lumping the two together as "artefact-mediated
actions." While I think that the evolutionary origins of
these two forms of action are tied up together, I have long
been intrigued by the question of which leads which, and
whether this is a sensible question at all? Engels was sure
that cooperative tool-use stimulated the need for language
but I am not so sure. There is a philosophical-type argument
which says that by fashioning external objects as proxies
for human powers fosters the mental shift required for
symbolic speech. But there are lots of things people can do
together before they make tools.

But I am interested in the paleontology of this. The changes
in the position of the larynx in particular which made
speech physically possible for hominids, and on the other
hand, the evidence of stone tools. The 150,000-350,000 years
ago figure comes from linguistic analysis to do with the
rate of phoneme loss, but the descended larynx must
presumably predate the use of a universal language by a long
time. Some people put the origins of speech-ability back to
2 million years ago, and stone tools go back further. But
then again, stone tools didn't develop much at all for
millions of years, and the really rapid development in
tool-use is very recent, much more recent than the origin of
universal languages.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 20/03/2018 2:08 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> So are you completely throwing out the Pragmatist view of language, that is was developed by humans to meet needs within their particular development canals? (pace Waddington). Are you taking a Chomskina view?
>
> As far as Vygotsky, I have a bias as seeing him have strong affiliations with the American pragmatist of the early 20th century.
>
> What would the cultural historical view be (the reason it might be okay to keep the subject line).
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David H Kirshner
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 10:57 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Cultural historical
>
> 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
>>>
>
>
>