[Xmca-l] Re: Hegelian sources of CHAT

[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Henry,

If you're familiar with the text the issue is straightforward.

LSV reveals pre-formal concepts, formal concepts, and post-formal concepts
(through his methods / critiques).

I am simply drawing Andy's attention to an apparent mis-mapping between
LSV's pre-formal and Hegel's formal and LSV's formal and Hegel's post
formal.

The labelling of dialectical added confusion. As a process it can be
applied across different 'levels', although LSV seems to reserve it (in
vol. 1) for his unit-based analysis.

Best,
Huw


On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 17:52, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Andy and Huw,
> This is a perfect example of what I was talking about in the discussion of
> your article on Academia: Two philosophers having a dialog about the same
> pholosophical object, a dialog manifesting an experience of common
> understanding. In the same way that two mathematicians might agree on a
> mathematical proof. I have to believe that you are not bull shitting, that
> you really have understood each other via your language. So, of course this
> is of interest to a linguist, even though he/I don’t really get the
> “proof”. I may not understand the arguments you are making, but I can
> imagine, based on slogging through thinking as a lingist, what it’s like to
> get it.
>
> I think this relates to the problem in the world of a lack of trust in
> scientific expertise, in expertise in general. Where concpetual thinking
> reigns. So many climate deniers. So many Brexiters. But can you blame them
> entirely? Probably it would be better to say that trust isn’t enough. The
> problem is a lack of connection between trust and the creative imagination.
> It’s what Beth Fernholt and her pals have sent to the New Yorker.
>
> Henry
>
>
> On Sep 27, 2019, at 6:40 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Huw.
>
> The interconnectedness of the "four concepts," I agree, they imply each
> other, but nonetheless, they remain distinct insights. Just because you get
> one, you don't necessarily get the others.
>
> Hegel uses the expression "true concept" only rarely. Generally, he simply
> uses the word "concept," and uses a variety of other terms like "mere
> conception" or "representation" or "category" to indicate something short
> of a concept, properly so called, but there is no strict categorisation for
> Hegel. Hegel is not talking about Psychology, let alone child psychology.
> Like with Vygotsky, all thought-forms (or forms of activity) are just
> phases (or stages) in the development of a concept. Reading your message, I
> think I am using the term "true concept" in much the same way you are.
>
> (This is not relevant to my article, but I distinguish "true concept" from
> "actual concept." All the various forms of "complexive thinking" fall
> short, so to speak, of "true concepts," and further development takes an
> abstract concept, such as learnt in lecture 101 of a topic, to an "actual
> concept". But that is not relevant here. Hegel barely touches on these
> issues.)
>
> I don't agree with your specific categories, but yes, for Vygotsky,
> chapters 4, 5 and 6 are all talking about concepts in a developmental
> sense. There are about 10 distinct stages for Vygotsky. And they are not
> equivalent to any series of stages identified by Hegel. Vgotsky's "stages"
> were drawn from a specific experiment with children; Hegel's Logic is cast
> somewhat differently (the Logic is not a series of stages) and has a domain
> much larger than Psychology.
>
> The experienced doctor does not use what I would call "formal concepts" in
> her work, which are what I would call the concepts they learnt in
> Diagnostics 101 when they were a student. After 20 years of experience,
> these formal concepts have accrued practical life experience, and remain
> true concepts, but are no longer "formal." Of course, the student was not
> taught pseudoconcepts in Diagnostics 101. But all this is nothing to do
> with the article in question.
>
> Hegel and Vygotsky are talking about different things, but even in terms
> of the subject matter, but especially in terms of the conceptual form,
> there is more Hegel in "Thinking and Speech" than initially meets the eye.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Hegel for Social Movements <https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
> Home Page <https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
> On 27/09/2019 4:32 pm, Huw Lloyd wrote:
>
> The "four concepts", for me, are four aspects of one understanding -- they
> imply each other.
>
> Quoting this passage:
>
> "The ‘abstract generality’ referred to above by Hegel, Vygotsky aptly
> called a ‘pseudoconcept’ - a form of abstract generalization, uniting
> objects by shared common features, which resembles conceptual thinking
> because, within a limited domain ofexperience, they subsume the same
> objects and situations as the true concept indicated by the same word.
> The pseudoconcept is not the exclusive achievement of the child. In our
> everyday lives, our thinking frequently occurs in pseudoconcepts. From the
> perspective of dialectical logic, the concepts that we find in our living
> speech are not concepts in the true sense of the word. They are actually
> general representations of things. There is no doubt, however, that these
> representations are a transitional stage between complexes or
> pseudoconcepts and true concepts. (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 155)"
>
> My impression from your text, Andy, is that you are misreading Vygotsky's
> "Thinking and Speech". Implicit LSV's whole text of vol. 1 is an
> appreciation for different kinds of conception (3 levels: pseudo, formal,
> and dialectical), but the terminology of "concept" is only applied to the
> formal concept, i.e. where Vygotsky writes "concept" one can read "formal
> concept".
>
> In vol. 1, the analysis of the trajectory of the thought of the child is
> towards a growing achievement of employing formal concepts. These formal
> concepts are only called "true concepts" (not to be confused with Hegel's
> true concept) in relation to the pseudo (fake or untrue) formal concepts.
> The pseudo concepts pertain to a form of cognition that is considered by
> Vygotsky (quite sensibly) to precede the concepts of formal logic.  This is
> quite obvious to any thorough-going psychological reading of the text.
>
> However, within the frame of analysis of the text there is another form of
> conception which is Vygotsky's approach towards a dialectical
> understanding. None of Vygotsky's utterances about dialectics (in this
> volume) should be conflated with the "true concept" which he is using as a
> short-hand for the "true formal concept", similarly none of Vygotsky's
> utterances about "pseudo concepts" should be confused with formal concepts.
>
> I hope that helps,
> Huw
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 at 06:37, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>
>> I'd dearly like to get some discussion going on this:
>>
>> It will be shown that at least four foundational concepts of Cultural
>> Historical Activity Theory were previously formulated by Hegel, viz., (1)
>> the unit of analysis as a key concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2)
>> the centrality of artifact-mediated actions, (3) the definitive distinction
>> between goal and motive in activities, and (4) the distinction between a
>> true concept and a pseudoconcept.
>>
>>
>> https://www.academia.edu/s/7d70db6eb3/the-hegelian-sources-of-cultural-historical-activity-theory
>>
>> Andy
>> --
>> ------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Hegel for Social Movements <https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
>> Home Page <https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20190927/c33f5c6c/attachment.html