[Xmca-l] Re: Saussure vs Peirce

[Haydi Zulfei]

 Hi Martin,
Many thanks for your scholarly co-operation and all clarifications! As in your invaluable books and numerous papers , this piece and previous pieces narrate for me the story of a scholar who so enthusiastically has traversed the path of scientific research , has tried to crystallize his findings on the Campus and in classes during thirty years , in seminars and gatherings (and if I am a bit qualified) has , despite his humble words , strong roots both in philosophy and psychology and maybe in other disciplines. Whoever reads the short piece below must understand the dimensions of competencies you work with and the fluent and smooth and shiny prose by which you crystallize your deep thoughts. Not only have I benefited from your writings but also have my son and daughter who teach classes who have hijacked the said book on their first visit and observation. 
Haydi  
    On Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 7:07:08 PM GMT+4:30, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:  
 
 Hi Haydi,

Some years ago I worked my way as far as possible through Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, and I also read a number of commentaries on this book and on Hegel’s larger project. I learned that there are as many interpretations are there are commentators, and that I am no expert on Hegel!

Nor on Marx, but I understand the suggestion that Marx turned Hegel on his head to be referring to the idea that the force or phenomenon that brings about historical change is not Geist but human practical activity. Any proposal that concepts unfold all by themselves raises in me the simplistic objection that concepts cannot exist without people. Of course, if humans become extinct the universe will continue to unfold, but presumably without the help of concepts. These are, at least, my ontological assumptions.

So yes, I would view a focus on the dance of disembodied concepts as an alienated viewpoint. And I view the laws of nature and society as always human creations, and so always as fallible, as revisable, and as formulated in service of human goals and purposes at a particular moment. These laws are attempts to hold fast in the flux, uncertainly, and mortality of existence. 

And I agree that it is real people dealing with real circumstances who imagine, who create, and who have flights of fantasy. What I find objectionable in dualism is the reduction of mind to an individual, interior space of representations, ideas, and concepts. With such a conception, *only* fantasy is possible. I prefer to think and talk about “consciousness” instead of “mind,” where consciousness is (an aspect of) our life and activity in a world that sustains us but always goes beyond our efforts to understand it. Our thinking, and our formulation of the problems that we think about, involve, yes, “distinction but not disunity” in our relation to the world.

Martin

On Apr 15, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com> wrote:
 
Hi Martin,

We are all happy you are back safe and healthy.

The trio , the book , the separate draft , the once messageto Huw are all excellent. You understand where to agree where to disagree.

You say you oppose Positivists because they say they acceptthings they can touch as tangibles. Right.

You say you don’t give so much value to Kant because despitethe fact that he assumes a world outside the Mind , he terminates as anagnostic. Right.

Andy’s stance is obvious. Hegel is no idealist and he’s notalone in this. You are one. 

And my problem is how to compromise Hegel with this yourbrilliant saying:

THE ALTERNATIVE , IN BRIEF , IS THAT HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF THEWORLD ARISES IN AND FROM OUR PRACTICAL  ACTIVITYOF LIVING IN THAT WORLD.

All through Hegel’s work the primacy of the IDEA blinks atyou. In one place he stresses that his only concern is with concepts. His worldis not YOUR world as stated so succinctly arising in and from … He of coursedeals with this world but in alienation. If he were not for the IDEA , he wouldnot have thought of the public and civil rights and social institutions ashaving been constituted by their relation to an abstract iconic deemed assuperior and all competent as the Monarch , the embodiment and realization ofthe Institution of the Monarchy as something instilled in mentalities.

What I then take in your phraseology is that you tend todeny the objectivity and necessity of the rules of Nature and Society whichalways show themselves within the sphere of your activity in objective materialcircumstances you apparently know yourself committed to in Brilliant expression(Dialectics in Nature reflecting in Logic as well). When we replace interestswith Needs we actually part ways with the workings of this world and seekshelter in the subjective world of interests and interested humans not theactual ones. Circumstances do not always dance to the rhythms of our likings.In many times we get entangled in impositions. How can we escape dislikings?Again by the very changing thoughts of the very changing world dressed in rules, categories , concepts , theories according to the tenets of theorization andscientific research , say , paradigms you say.

Subjectivity is not realized Utilitarian way. 

By the way , know-how is fused , jointed , concomitant tothe Practical Activity , long way to be called science.

>From the time our ancestors said farewell to the visualfield and the concrete situation , flights of thinking started in unboundedwonderlands. This we also have with ontogenesis. Part of this flight turn backand come to fruition just if they follow and conform to the very said rules ofafore-mentioned discussion. By this again one sees an inclination towardsunbounded agency. Some flights are mere phantoms. Some are sweet dreamingsnecessary to a life compensation. Some are strong enough to turn intolife-world transformations. Different points of views are visions and if theyare not Cartesian as you stress , they ultimately submit themselves to therules of the Ontology of This World. But in the beginning of your discussion awhile ago you stressed you don’t talk of visions but of a world in which realmen and real objects and real processes reign. How this could be regarding yourBrilliant expression? All sciences in a final count are abstractions fromobjective reality manipulated and acted upon by human agents. This means distinction does not mean disunity. We should notforget the contiguousness of the objective world with all concomitant to it asforms of its unique existence. Science now exhibits the 6.5 billion times theSun-size Black Hole with so huge a Mass. Have we been swallowed by the clearPic?

All of us claim that we oppose Cartesianism. [I ALSO remainfervently opposed to ontological dualism (the belief that two kinds of entityexist: mental entities and material entities IN ISOLATION FROM EACH OTHER BUTJUST ONE SECONDARILY RELATED TO THE OTHER MEANING ONCE THERE WAS THE WORLDWITHOUT MEN AND THEIR THOUGHTS)]. This is Monism not Dualism. Dualism , nay ,Pluralism occurs when we say “I think it’s clear that EVERY scientific PARADIGM(What’s a Paradigm?) HAS ITS OWN* ontology.” I would say :DERIVED EXISTENCE-implicit ontology- once inquiringly interrogated-meaningwithout men it’s gone! Derived existences or ontologies are but EPISTEMS! governed by the Mind.       

Haydi 


    On Sunday, April 14, 2019, 9:42:45 PM GMT+4:30, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:  
 
 Hi Haydi,
First, let me apologize for the length of the book. I used to think that writers are paid by the word. Sadly that’s rarely true, but old habits die hard.
If you have read on, you will have discovered that central to the book is an argument that Kant was responsible for a mistaken view of knowledge, one that continues to dominate today: the view that all that humans can know is our representations of the world, and never the world itself, “in itself.”  These representations may be cognitive or they may be linguistic but, in the Kantian view, the world as we experience it is in some sense ‘constituted’ (or ‘constructed’) by these representations. The world has the appearance of objectivity, but is in fact subjective. Nonetheless, Kant argued, we need to assume that a world exists outside our representations, although we can never know it. 
I am no philosopher, but I try to argue for an alternative to Kant’s view. Or rather, I review a series of counter arguments made by various philosophers and social scientists (and the first was Hegel, as Andy noted). The alternative, in brief, is that human knowledge of the world arises in and from our practical activity of living in that world. There is nothing that in principle we cannot know, though since our knowledge arises from practical know-how it will always reflect human interests. But that’s not a problem: humans don’t seek, not do we obtain, disinterested knowledge; we seek knowledge that will help us solve practical problems. 
There is always, don’t you think, an aspect of imagination in our actions in, and knowledge of, the world? When we engage with any concrete entity we are of necessity imagining how it will behave in the future, or simply what it will look like from a different point of view.
My views of the ontology of science have shifted a bit over the years. I remain fervently opposed to ontological dualism (the belief that two kinds of entity exist: mental entities and material entities). But I’m no longer a monist. I think it’s clear that every scientific paradigm has its own ontology. I think Latour is convincing when he argues that every institution has its own ontology. 
Martin




On Mar 18, 2019, at 11:30 AM, Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com> wrote:
 Martin,
This sounds very well. And I have to say I've been reading your thick (400+) book and that I should continue to read it to the end but *one thing* : as we've also had it before when you first talked about "What is science?" , sent the separate draft (Now read and pinned to the book to make it just thicker) , yes , one thing : "To define a word solely as a sign for a concept seem to me to abstract it from its conversational, that's to say , **real world, context. A word *can* be a sign for a concept, but in practice it will also be a reference to a **real or imagined?? **concrete entity." 
1. Concrete entity in a REAL world. So far I've spotted and marked just two cases in your book where "real" means "material" as we intend to mean "corporeal". Last time I understood you excepted the Natural World while you tried to give independence to the Qual Science or Research as having the REAL ENTITIES AND BODIES etc. By "implicit ontology" you meant , I think , derived existence. What is your take on the interactions between the independent  existences (yet cognizable in themselves#Kant) and derived existences (tied to the existence of a Mind). Taking a science as an instance , how you define its ontology and epistemology?
2. Also here I would like to inquire about the existence of a "concrete entity" in an imagined world if I'm not mistaken.
And I seek permission to draw Andy's attention to the fact that concepts find their ways to words not words in a reverse direction to concepts. Any concept could be or is a word but not that ANY word could necessarily be a concept. 
Haydi   
    On Monday, March 18, 2019, 6:02:14 PM GMT+3:30, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:  
 
 Yes, it is indeed a trivial example. And yes, I agree that one needs all the utterances in a conversation to understand it. And equally, one needs all the conversation to understand a single utterance. More importantly, so do the speakers. But certainly an utterance can be comprised of a single word (Well; Rubbish; Eureka; or anything else), or even silence. And this implies that one needs all the conversation to understand a single word. To define a word solely as a sign for a concept seem to me to abstract it from its conversational, that's to say real world, context. A word *can* be a sign for a concept, but in practice it will also be a reference to a real or imagined concrete entity. To the extent that a science is a mediator, a tool, and not an abstract system it seems to me important to keep focus on how words are used in ongoing processes of conceptualization.
Martin




On Mar 17, 2019, at 7:27 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
 

Martin, I get the point, but any complex process is made up of units, many of them.  That's the point of using analysis by units. The excerpt you give is a trivial one. In general you need all the numerous utterances in a conversation to understand an extended interaction. It is like Engestrom who thinks when two activities interact, we have to have a new "fourth  generation" unit, i.e., two activity systems interacting. But that is only because he took the activity system as a system not a unit in the first place.

Andy
 
   Andy Blunden
 http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm  On 18/03/2019 9:14 am, Martin Packer wrote:
  
 
 Seems to me, David, that the notion that the basic unit is the pair is precisely what helps us understand an exchange such as: 
  A. How are you? B. Fine, thanks, and you? A. XXX 
  One pair is constituted by “How are you” and “Fine, thanks,” while “and you?” is the first part of a projected second pair. This is why one might have the intuition that speaker B is doing more than one thing (though I’d suggest 2, not 3), and that something more is expected from speaker A.  
  Martin 
  
  
  
 
 On Mar 17, 2019, at 4:17 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote: 
  Well, Bakhtin is full of precisely the kind of sloppiness that Andy is deploring, Helena. So for example Bakhtin says that a whole novel can be considered as an utterance. You take down the book and open it. The novelist has something to say to you. He says it. And then you close the book and you put it back on the shelf. 
  That's all very well, and it's very useful as a way of showing that literature is not some "state within a state": it is also made of language stuff, by people who have a historical existence and not just an afterlife. But it doesn't help Andy (or me, or my wife who studies these things full time) distinguish sub-units within the novel which will help us understand how novels are structured, how this structure has changed with their function, and how the very functions have changed as literature has evolved. And these WERE the problems which Bakhtin set himself  (e.g. in "Novel and Epic" and elsewhere). 
  We see the same problem from the other end (micro-rather than macroscopic) with the minimal pair (originally, in the work of Sacks, "adjacency pair"). It's all very well and it's very useful as a way of understanding how conversations get structured as they go along, how people know when its their turn to talk and how they know when the rules have been broken. But it doesn't help us to understand, for example, why we all feel that when you say "How are you?" and somebody says "Fine, thanks, and you?" there seem to be three utterances in the second pair part, and the exchange as a whole doesn't seem finished, even though if we are using turns as the element (pair part) of the minimal pair, it really should be. 
  Craig Brandist remarks that Bakhtin uses the term "dialogue" in so many different ways that he has rendered it meaningless. I think the same thing is true of the way he uses "utterance". 
 
  David Kellogg
            Sangmyung University 
  New Article;  
   David Kellogg (2019) THE STORYTELLER’S TALE: VYGOTSKY’S ‘VRASHCHIVANIYA’, THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT AND ‘INGROWING’ IN THE WEEKEND STORIES OF KOREAN CHILDREN, British Journal of Educational Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2019.1569200                                  
  Some e-prints available at: 
  https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GSS2cTAVAz2jaRdPIkvj/full?target=10.1080/00071005.2019.1569200 
  
  
           
    
  On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 1:47 AM Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com> wrote:
  
 I find it useful to think of an utterance as bounded on two ends: on one, by the utterance to which it responds, on the other, by the utterance that responds to it. Thus you can discern utterances within utterances. Minimally, a two -part exchange, as Martin says; maximally, a whole stream of briefer utterances bounded by their prompt and response.   
     Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com 
     
  
  
 On Mar 17, 2019, at 9:32 AM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote: 
   According to conversation analysts, the minimal unit in conversation is the adjacency pair: a two-part exchange in which the second utterance is functionally dependent on the first.  Question-answer; greeting-greeting; request-reply, and so on. An utterance, then, is both a turn and a move within a conversation.  An utterance is *not* “complete in itself” - it is a component in a larger organization: at least a pair, and usually a much longer sequence. 
     Martin 
     
 
  
 
 On Mar 16, 2019, at 3:11 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote: 
  
I would  have appreciated a definition of some kind of what the writer actually means by "utterance." In absence of that "the word, as a  compressed version of the utterance" is nonsense, or at least a step backwards because it obliterates a concept. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind saying that the two are together the micro- and macro-units of dialogue (or something having that meaning). The same as Leontyev has two  units of activity: action and activity, and Marx has two units of political economy: commodity and capital. To theorise a complex process you always need two units. 
 

The rest of what you have cited reminds me of what Constantin Stanislavskii said about the units of an actor's performance:

https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/stanislavskii.pdf

Andy
 
   Andy Blunden
 http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm  On 16/03/2019 5:42 pm, Arturo Escandon wrote:
  
  Thanks for that conceptual jewel, mate.   
  Let me bring here Akhutina to further show their complementariness: 
  The minimal holistic unit of conversation is the utterance. An utterance, unlike a sentence, is complete in itself. The  utterance always carries within it the marks and features of who is speaking to whom, for what reason and in what situation; it is  polyphonic. An utterance develops from a motivation, “a volitional objective” and progresses through inner speech to  external speech. The prime mover of the semantic progression (from the inner word that is comprehensible to me alone to the external speech that he, the listener, will understand) is the comparison of my subjective, evanescent sense, which I attribute  to the given word, and its objective (constant for both me and my listener) meaning.Thus, the major building material for speech production is the living two-voice word. But polyphony is a feature of the utterance as expressed in the word; the word carrying personal sense is  an abbreviation of the utterance. Thus, the utterance and the word, as a compressed version of the utterance, are the units of speech acts, communication, and consciousness. 
  Best 
  Arturo 
  
    -- 
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