[Xmca-l] Re: Language, mind and objectivity
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Sun Jan 27 17:30:17 PST 2019
Right! Vygotsky's early speech on Reflexology said it all (I
was not original):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/reflexology.htm
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 28/01/2019 5:32 am, James Ma wrote:
> Andy, I can see your point. No theory is capable of
> telling the full story, so synergism is perhaps a
> solution. I think in social sciences and humanities
> there's no exactness or preciseness but approximation and
> appropriation.
> James
>
>
> Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org
> <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> 于 2019年1月25日周五 15:35写道：
>
> What you say about language, James, is equally true of
> History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Social Theory,
> Philosophy ... and perception, is it not?
>
> andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 26/01/2019 2:23 am, James Ma wrote:
>> Hello Fellows,
>>
>> I'd like to resume early discussion on language,
>> music and philosophy with a separate header to
>> address the intersection of language, mind and
>> objectivity.
>>
>> I now start by perusing Andy's message below. As it
>> stands, his counterargument to mine is a little
>> sloppy and, more to the point, barely scratches the
>> surface. My argument centres on a position that there
>> is no way to talk about language without using
>> language. Any language is thus to be scrutinised
>> through the medium of itself (or another language).
>> In doing so, one can't escape from being insider of
>> that language. I elaborate my position as below,
>> which might serve as pointers for discussion or
>> reflection:
>>
>> First, language faculty reduces to mind. In studying
>> the mind, one needs to attend to the use of mind in
>> two different senses: a mind as the object (that is
>> being studied) and a mind as the subject (that is
>> doing the study).
>>
>> Second, to understand how mind functions in the
>> world, it is necessary to bring perception into
>> focus. It seems to be a rather naive realistic view
>> that "in speech and writing, language is objective
>> and actual, so we can also observe it". This doesn't
>> entirely qualify as a case of perceptual recognition
>> in that it latches on sense-data out of which one
>> makes inference, without taking into consideration an
>> interaction of three relations in perception, i.e.
>> sense-data, the object behind sense-data, and the
>> subject (observer). There seems to be a missing
>> subjective angle from which the object is viewed.
>> Moreover, inference processing is not simply
>> conscious or deliberate; it also sets free implicit,
>> involuntary or even irrational dispositions of the
>> mind. In short, perception is interpretative
>> and subjective because it is participatory in nature.
>> I believe that all claims to knowledge answer in the
>> end to perception. Taking for example language
>> teaching, it involves a human being working with
>> another human being, in which case you have to
>> consider the effect of consciousness and
>> intersubjectivity. There is no thought-free
>> perception or perception-free thought - what you get
>> in the mind is not the same as what you perceive!
>>
>> Third, writing, which has the life of its own, can't
>> be analysed without being impinged by the observer's
>> own perception. Recent research in TESOL emphasises
>> the role of learner identity in second language
>> acquisition.
>>
>> Perhaps we should think that the world is already the
>> best representation of itself, to which human beings
>> have limited access. I found Thomas Nagel's
>> explanation of objectivity an eye-opener and a
>> mind-liberator!
>>
>> James
>> /
>> /
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 at 22:54, Andy Blunden
>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> It is clearly wrong to say that we can't
>> study language objectively because we exist
>> and think in it - in speech and writing,
>> language is objective and actual, so we can
>> also observe it. But to study language
>> objectively, from "outside," requires the
>> student to acquire a certain distance from
>> it. Teaching grammar is one way of achieving
>> that, even writing too, I guess, and anyone
>> who learns a second language has a point from
>> which to view their first language. Thus we
>> can learn that "Je ne sais pas" is not
>> necessarily a double negative. But is the
>> interviewer who asks an artist to explain
>> their painting failing to stand outside
>> language to see that there is something else.
>> Like the psychologists who ask subjects
>> questions and take the answer to be what the
>> person "really" thought. It's the old problem
>> of Kant's supposed "thing-in-itself" beyond
>> experience which (in my opinion) Hegel so
>> thoroughly debunked
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 4:52 AM James Ma
>>>> <jamesma320@gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:jamesma320@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Andy, here're my thoughts with
>>>> respect to your message:
>>>>
>>>> I think "default", as a state of
>>>> the human mind, is intuitive and /a
>>>> posteriori/ rather than of
>>>> something we get hung up on
>>>> deliberately or voluntarily. This
>>>> state of mind is also multifaceted,
>>>> depending on the context in which
>>>> we find ourselves. Perhaps there
>>>> might be a prototype of default
>>>> that is somehow intrinsic, but I'm
>>>> not sure about that.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, Saussure's structuralism is
>>>> profoundly influential, without
>>>> which post-Saussurean thought,
>>>> including post-structuralism,
>>>> wouldn't have existed. Seemingly,
>>>> none of these theorists could have
>>>> worked out their ideas without the
>>>> inspiration and challenge of
>>>> Saussure. Take for example the
>>>> Russian linguist Jakobson, which I
>>>> think would suffice (never mind
>>>> those Francophone geniuses you
>>>> might have referred to!). Jakobson
>>>> extended and modified Saussure's
>>>> signs, using communicative
>>>> functions as the object of
>>>> linguistic studies (instead of
>>>> standardised rules of a given
>>>> language, i.e. /langue/ in
>>>> Saussure's terms). He replaced
>>>> langue with "code" to denote the
>>>> goal-directedness of communicative
>>>> functions. Each of the codes was
>>>> thus associated with its own langue
>>>> as a larger system.
>>>>
>>>> It seems to me that Saussure's
>>>> semiology is not simply dualistic.
>>>> There's more to it, e.g. the system
>>>> of signification bridging between a
>>>> concept (signified) and a sound
>>>> image (signifier). Strictly
>>>> speaking, the system of
>>>> signification is not concerned with
>>>> language but linguistics within
>>>> which language lends itself
>>>> to scrutiny and related
>>>> concepts become valid. From
>>>> Jakobson's viewpoint, this system
>>>> is more than a normalised
>>>> collective norm; it contains
>>>> personal meanings not necessarily
>>>> compatible with that norm. Saussure
>>>> would say this norm is the /parole/
>>>> that involves an individual's
>>>> preference and creativity. I find
>>>> Jakobson's code quite liberating -
>>>> it helps explain the workings of
>>>> Chinese dialects (different to
>>>> dialects within the British
>>>> English), e.g. the grammatical
>>>> structure of Shanghainese, which is
>>>> in many aspects at variance with
>>>> Mandarin (the official language or
>>>> predominant dialect).
>>>>
>>>> By the way, I don't think we can
>>>> study a language objectively
>>>> because we are already users of
>>>> that language when studying it,
>>>> i.e. we must remain insiders of
>>>> that language in order to study it,
>>>> plus the fact that we have the will
>>>> to meaning, so to speak.
>>>>
>>>> James
>>>> */_______________________________________________________/*
>>>>
>>>> /*James Ma *Independent Scholar
>>>> //https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
>>>> /
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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