[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
HENRY SHONERD
hshonerd@gmail.com
Mon Aug 17 16:16:44 PDT 2020
David,
When I was about 13, I went to a Kabuki theater piece in Tokyo. My dad was in the Navy in Yokosuka (close to Tokyo) in 1956-57, and the family was with him. I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on. It certainly wasn’t romantic to me, but I doubt it was anti-romantic to the Japanese. Maybe I could “get it” now, but I doubt it. I wonder if most Japanese now would “get it”. Is this an interesting question for cultural psychology and Vygotsky?
Henry
> On Aug 17, 2020, at 4:44 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think we all tend to read our current opinions into our Vygotsky, Michael. The only real advantage I claim for my own reading of "The Psychology of the Actor's Creative Work" is that it is unpopular, eccentric, counter-conventional, or at least stridently anti-romantic, and it will serve as a tonic or at least a foil for people on this list.
>
> So this is a late work, if we are to believe the textological note. It belongs to the period Vygotsky is writing "Teaching on the Emotions", where he uses the actor's paradox as evidence against Lange and James (1999: 117) and where he seems to be developing a theory of higher emotions consistent with Spinoza's distinction between emotions that are passions (caused by the environment) and those which are active (self-caused), by which he means caused by understanding and knowledge (and not by acts of recall and imitation).
>
> Vygotsky counterposes Stanislavsky's system to the system of psychotechnical selection ('talent-scouting, acting-aptitude tests, your comparison with Ribot is one that Vygotsky himself makes, and it is very a propos). He seems to wish a plague upon both, because both conflate the actor's own emotions with the shareable, social emotions that actors have to build on stage. You are of course right that this is what gives that emotion a conditional, historically specific, and even class specific character--and you are right that Stanislavsky, but not Craig, was convinced of this, even if Stanislavsky developed a technique that eventually ran directly counter to it (the excesses of "method" acting in Hollywood).
>
> I prefer to think of art as a special social technique of sharing ideas--similar to academic discourse--and not a form of self-deception. But I'll admit that this is the direct result of my own artistic training: we don't try to reproduce what we see when we paint: we try to communicate what we are thinking about it. I was an actor once too, and we were trained to be very careful not to do snuff porn on stage, not even in our heads. It is basically the same mistake that we all commit when we conflate our current opinions with Vygotsky's.
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New article in Mind, Culture, and Activity:
> Realizations: non-causal but real relationships in and between Halliday, Hasan, and Vygotsky
>
> Some free e-prints today available at:
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXLptBUCTg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!W8PZ43eu4LC1xSAffVdIDqmaRIq4PDLOb-P4KTvfV_DUJXqxOtYGf2tEuR4oh4ukrPPgQg$>
>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXK-7ZVk0w$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!W8PZ43eu4LC1xSAffVdIDqmaRIq4PDLOb-P4KTvfV_DUJXqxOtYGf2tEuR4oh4ut7JrDdw$>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 10:15 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
> Hi David,
>
>
>
> I honestly don’t know why Stanislavski’s nephew was sent to Siberia. It just seems to have spooked him. I never read Selenick’s book. Everything I have read about the 1912 production I have read has been from Stanislavski’s perspective, primarily Bennedetti so it would be an interesting read.
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> As for Diderot. Why would you say that Vygotsky sided with Diderot (actually sided with directors who followed Diderot and avoided lived experience). This seems almost the opposite of what Vygotsky was after in his later writings. Diderot in an Actor’s Paradox claimed the actor had to make the choice to avoid emotion/affect. It was genuine but it was disorganized and performances became too volatile. I was recently watching a movie about actor auditions (Every Little Step She Takes). There was one episode that speaks directly to Diderot. An actress gives a great, emotional reading. She gets called back and reads again. The director asks he to do what she did the first time. She screams, I don’t know what I did the first time, I don’t know why it was good. That is the Actor’s Paradox in a nutshell. Stanislavski was I think the first to try and solve this paradox. The combine affective memory with text. I see Vygotsky trying to do much the same thing in development, and I think it gives us a window into the relationship between spontaneous concepts and scientific concepts (did you know Ribot called emotional memory spontaneous. I wonder if it was the same word).
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> I also disagree with your interpretation of Stanislavski and inner speech. I would call him anything from mentalese. As a matter of fact I think you could make a really good argument that Vygotsky took his idea of inner speech directly from the first few chapters of An Actor’s Work. The similarities are uncanny. Now before you write back that An Actor’s work was not published until 1938, there were chapters in circulation as early as 1928. What I find important is that Gurevich, who was acting as his editor (I begin to wonder how much she actually wrote) was worried about Stanislavski’s use of psychological phrases. Even though Stanislavski seemed to be allergic to read anything but plays he thought of himself as a psychologist. According to Bennedetti, Gurevich gave the manuscript to three psychologists to look over. Is it logical to make the argument that Vygotsky might have been one of those psychologists? The reason for my original query. But there are so many similarities between those early chapters of an Actor’s Work and especially chapters six and seven of Thinking and Speech.
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> I don’t know if Vygotsky’s ideas on affect evolved. Again, I think he might have read Stanislavski and found a way in to discussing this. Perhaps the most influential thing (for me) I have read in this second reading of Vygotsky is Mike’s introduction to the special issue of MCA on Spinoza. I think it is right on point except I would replace the cryptic and opaque Spinoza with the over the top Stanislavski.
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> Okay, enough for now. Got to get back to salt mines.
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> Michael
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Monday, August 17, 2020 4:45 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> Michael--
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> There's a good book on the 1912 production (you've probably read it).
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> Senelick, L (1982) Gordon Craig's Moscow Hamlet. Westport, CN and London: Greenwood.
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> I have a chapter on it in my own book, 'The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit" (Sense: 2014). My impression is that the stage version Vygotsky is hard on in Psychology of Art is actually the Second Moscow Art Theatre production of 1924, which is one of the revivals of Stanislavsky/Craig you are talking about.
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> Stanislavsky was from a very wealthy family, and most wealthy families were active counter-revolutionaries during the Civil War. The Alekseivs were certainly what you could call conservative, and they were all quite displeased with Constantin's acting career. Are you sure that the nephew was sent to Siberia for artistic reasons?
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> (I have always felt that Vygotsky was more inclined to Diderot than Stanislavsky, and would have supported Brecht and Olivier against Stanislavsky and Mel Gibson. But maybe we need to ask WHICH Vygotsky, because his views on emotion certainly evolve a lot, and he is only inclined to view higher emotions as the product of reflection in the sense of ideation than as reflection in the sense of reproduction in the 1930s, when he writes the actor essay. I think the main problem with his use of Stanislavsky's method in Thinking and Speech is that it assumes a kind of 'mentalese' which is only a description of emotion. Vygotsky would really require at least three planes--volitional affective impulse, non-verbal thought, and verbal thinking. Only the last one could be put into words, and then the syntax would be very different from what Stanislavsky is using in his scripts. There is a similar problem in the different ways that Virginial Woolf and James Joyce treat inner speech--one of them tries to write about it and the other tries to write it.)
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>
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> David Kellogg
>
> Sangmyung University
>
>
>
> New Article in Mind, Culture, and Activity:
>
> Realizations: non-causal but real relationships in and between Halliday, Hasan, and Vygotsky <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/url310.tandfonline.com/ls/click?upn=odl8Fji2pFaByYDqV3bjGMQo8st9of2228V6AcSFNq3t86qU90pAx-2BEad4OTI0D6Bi1fwTdsuN-2BfXNLD3YVMjcLIX-2BmEuxF9NP5zGw-2BdLfY-3D7ljy_X7XaRk1WbLfx0WH87lwk8dq9sJwzGg6rYuMbUaEYJVSc-2Brn9o4kZxBH7VyDFXQG2cW-2FVpvW8kKmgCrEcZ9b01hknKR451ObdcFj2BjoQzt7GbzMiYiThGgitFYjHGo14NDXURJCBt80ZRKh9rhZiCz3ERpw5ZHeOlHPYX1rSnIqI9nfjq4FunlRWMWO46RMruhVV-2BsN-2BP3WHvbuOtvoLOg8W0MWktZcDt85Q8BK7UYuIOL31Osd02-2BMwIuIZ3U6ud9iCFOaXu9e0DjKARw9ftcuTIz2WiuLgDtTkR2I8YcY-3D__;!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs26bXpP7Q$>
> Some free e-prints available.
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXLptBUCTg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs3BnshQdA$>
>
>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXK-7ZVk0w$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs0U-run5w$>
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> On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 9:11 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
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> Hi David,
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>
>
> Actually the Hamlet of 1912 was even more consequential than you might think. It seems Isadora Duncan got Stanislavski and Craig together. Craig came to Russia but there were problems from the start, and pretty soon they were actually directing separately. Stanislavski saw this as his great opportunity to bring his ‘system’ (which I believe influenced Vygotsky a great deal) to an international production and a Shakespeare play. Up to that point he used his system mostly in workshop productions with Russian playwright working with the MAT. Stanislavsky was doing another small production simultaneously. Anyway, Craig, who was upset about the money he was receiving eventually took less of a hand in the production. He was a symbolist but I think not in the way Russians were symbolists, in other words he saw himself as the director creating the symbols rather than the actors exploring the sub-texts of the words. He also wanted Hamlet to be portrayed in the traditional bombastic, over the top Elizabethan fashion. Stanislavski wanted the actor playing Hamlet to really explore his emotions in the context of his system. The production only ran for a few weeks as most people do not like change (which makes me think Vygotsky at the young age did not see it) so it was a financial flop for the MAT but an international critical success and was in many ways a springboard for Stanislavski’s fame. My reading on Vygotsky’s essay on Hamlet, and Psychology of Art in general, was that he read a great many of the writings on the production, which continued for years. I feel he came down distinctly on the side of Stanislavski in his essay. Of course there is no way to know this for sure, except he could have never written that essay if there had never been the 1912 production. It changed the way people look at theater.
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> As for socialist realism becoming state policy in 1932, that might be right. But Stanislavski was already retired from directing and he did a number of productions promoting socialist realism (he was not enamored with it, but it let the MAT keep working). Also his nephew had been exiled to Siberia. So it may have been an important component before it was state policy.
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> Michael
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2020 6:00 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> Michael--
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>
>
> Actually, socialist realism was only declared official state policy in 1932--Lenin had been dead for eight years. During most of Vygotsky's career the arts scene in the USSR was probably the liveliest and freest in the world. But slightly crazy too--see the attached photograph “Every Komsomol (male Young Communist League member) can and must satisfy his sexual needs” and the woman has to hold a sign that says “Every Komsomolka (female Young Communist League member) should aid him in this, otherwise she’s a philistine”). This is the kind of thing Vygotsky was fighting AGAINST in his sex education work with Zalkind. My wife grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and I can tell you that it was not at all the same thing.
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> In 1912, when Vygotsky was sixteen and visiting Moscow for the first time, there was a famous production of Hamlet than in some ways still influences us today: it was a little bit as if you had the Olivier production on stage and Zeffirelli doing the lighting and props. Stanislavsky wanted to treat Hamlet as historical characters, but the stage director and producer was the English symbolist Gordon Craig, who actually wanted, at one point, to turn it into a one man show, wiith every character except Hamlet in a mask. He got his way with the props, which were highly abstract and geometrical, but Stanislavsky got his way with the actual production, which (I gather) was gritty and grimey.
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> I would love to know if the Hamlet Vygotsky saw and wrote about was the original Stanislavsky-Craig emulsion or if it was some toned down restaging of the original 1912 production. Do you know?
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> David Kellogg
>
> Sangmyung University
>
>
>
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
>
> Outlines, Spring 2020
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXIJFB91dQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!WC2B2d3sHzBVQzHe3_Gk-N5cH4sDTZXudPEFrikW3AbMDxvPNWZML6XSytkIU2nP5psr4Q$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXK-7ZVk0w$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WC2B2d3sHzBVQzHe3_Gk-N5cH4sDTZXudPEFrikW3AbMDxvPNWZML6XSytkIU2mAEEqXaA$>
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> On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 6:12 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
>
> A couple of things, especially about the Uzbekistan experiments. As I have alluded to in some earlier posts I have been doing some reading on theater during the time Vygotsky was writing. One thing I have come across multiple times is the issue of socialist realism. The idea (and this is probably not a very good definition) is that we have to understand people as they really are and think, but we also have to accept that humans can become better actors (broadly defined) and thinkers under a socialist system. It seems the people pushing this was somewhat akin to cadres in the cultural revolution. In other words you better do it. Even Stanislavski, who both Lenin and Stalin loved, was forced to do a number of productions that promoted socialist realism. If you did not toe the line you were sent to Siberia (or worse). I am sure this is discussed somewhere in relationship to Vygotsky but I wonder if we she take that into account when thinking about things like the Uzbekistan experiment.
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> A second thing. I wonder if sometimes we have a tendency to over think and over philosophize Vygotsky. In some ways he was just trying to get things done and a concept like conscious awareness in Thinking and Speech is mostly a means to solving a problem, not any philosophical statement. The problem it seems to me is that we do not have consistent conceptual systems based solely on our experience. A five year old can have five different best friends on five days on the playground depending on what people brought for lunch or who got to the swings first. Still, it is these affective based concepts that drive our activity. But we don’t offer use these concepts with any conscious use of attention or memory or any of our other intellectual functions. “Hmmm, Jerry brought salami today, maybe I should think about making him my best friend.” On the other hand social concepts are developed separately from our experiences and our emotions. They are developed specifically to organize and bring consistency to our feelings. But they are meaningless from an affective, everyday perspective. Why would we even want to think about them. In order to bring them into our lives we have to consciously engage in volitional activities using them. So we have to have conscious awareness. How then do you bring the two together, for which he takes the remainder of chapter six.
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> Dewey also was really, really inconsistent in the way he used words. I would argue he used words as tools not as philosophical statements. You have to read the texts and figure it out.
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> Michael
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2020 8:15 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> Hi Mike,
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> Well you and I may differ on this. My interpretation is that in the passage that Anthony gave us, LSV is talking about the growing consciousness *of their own thinking* on the part of school-age children. (In Thought & Language he shifts a bit on whether this happens in middle childhood or adolescence, but that needn't concern us.) That is to say, he is writing about what he calls “introspection."
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> As evidence for this interpretation let me cite a couple of other passages (these are from the excellent Kellogg translation) where I think the point is made more clearly:
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> 100 "I make a knot. I do it consciously. I cannot, however, tell you exactly how I did it. My conscious act is unconscious, because my attention is focused on the act of the tying, but not on how I do it. Consciousness is always some piece of reality. The object of my consciousness is tying the knot, a knot, and what was happening to it but not those actions that I make when tying, not how I do it. But the object of consciousness can be just that - then it will be awareness. Awareness is an act of consciousness, the object of which is itself the very same activity of consciousness”
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> 102 "Even Piaget's research showed that introspection does not begin to develop in any significant degree until school age. Further investigations have shown that the development of introspection in the school age contains something similar to what occurs in the development of the external perception and observation in the transition from infancy to early childhood. As is well known, the most important change in external perception of this period [i.e. infancy to early childhood] is that a child from a wordless and, consequently, meaningless perception, to a semantic, verbal and objective perception. The same can be said of introspection on the threshold of school age. The child is moving from mute introspection to speech and words. He develops an internal semantic perception of his own mental processes…. I realize that I can recall, i.e. I do recall the subjectivity of my own consciousness."
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> 104 "By their very nature, spontaneous concepts include the fact that they are unconscious. Children know how they operate spontaneously but are not aware of them. This is what we saw in the children's concept of "because." Obviously, by themselves, spontaneous concepts need to be unconscious, because consideration is always directed to their objects, rather than to the act of thought which is grasping it.”
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> 106 "only in a system [of concepts] can the concept become the object of awareness and only in a system can the child acquire volitional control [of concepts]."
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> In his Lectures on Child Psychology LSV is very clear, in my view, that at each stage the child has consciousness of different aspects of the world and of their own psychological processes. For example:
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> "In an infant, there is no intellectual perception: he perceives a room but does not separately perceive chairs, a table, etc.; he will perceive everything as an undivided whole in contrast to the adult, who sees figures against a background. How does a child perceive his own movements in early childhood? He is happy, unhappy, but does not know that he is happy, just as an infant when he is hungry does not know that he is hungry. There is a great difference between feeling hunger and knowing that I am hungry. In early childhood, the child does not know his own experiences…. Precisely as a three-year-old child discovers his relation to other people, a seven-year-old discovers the fact of his own experiences.” (p. 291)
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> Of course, one might find it objectionable that LSV might suggest that non-literate peoples might be unaware of their own thinking. But I agree with Andy, in such cultures there may well be systematic instruction in systems of concepts — legal, religious… — that would have the same effect as LSV says that school instruction does in the west.
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> Stay safe,
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> Martin
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> On Aug 15, 2020, at 6:06 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
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> I was not being ironic, David
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> If scientific concepts are required for conscious awareness (as specified in the quotation I was asked to respond to) and people who
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> have not been to school do not acquire Piagetian concepts related to formal operations (for example) or other measure of "thinking in
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> scientific concepts) if seems to follow that they have not achieved conscious awareness.
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> LSV writes about non-literate, indigenous, peoples that they are capable of complexes, but not true concepts (I think the use of the term.
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> "scientific" is not helpful here). Luria interprets his data on self-consciousness that are a part of the same monograph as his work on syllogisms,
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> classification, etc among Uzbekis who had experienced various degrees of involvement in modern (e.g. Russian) forms of life as evidence for
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> what might be termed "lack of conscious awareness I am not sure."
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> mike
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> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 3:31 PM David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
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> Maybe I missed an ironic intention, Michael, but on August 11 Anthony asked about the meaning of a couple of paragraphs from Thinking and Speech.
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> Here is the passage in question, from Thinking and Speech, Ch. 6, pp. 190-1:
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> "To perceive something in a different way means to acquire new potentials for acting with respect to it. At the chess board, to see differently is to play differently. By generalizing the process of activity itself, I acquire the potential for new relationships with it. To speak crudely, it is as if this process has been isolated from the general activity of consciousness. I am conscious of the fact that I remember. I make my own remembering the object of consciousness. An isolation arises here. In a certain sense, any generalization or abstraction isolates its object. This is why conscious awareness – understood as generalization – leads directly to mastery.
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> Thus, the foundation of conscious awareness is the generalization or abstraction of the mental processes, which leads to their mastery. Instruction has a decisive role in this process. Scientific concepts have a unique relationship to the object. This relationship is mediated through other concepts that themselves have an internal hierarchical system of interrelationships. It is apparently in this domain of the scientific concept that conscious awareness of concepts or the generalization and mastery of concepts emerges for the first time. And once a new structure of generalization has arisen in one sphere of thought, it can – like any structure – be transferred without training to all remaining domains of concepts and thought. Thus, conscious awareness enters through the gate opened up by the scientific concept."
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> Mike’s reply, in total was:
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> I understand that to mean that humans who have not achieved scientific/real concepts do not have conscious awareness.
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> What am I missing?
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> Mike
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> David
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2020 4:36 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
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> David,
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> Are you saying that either Mike Cole or Lev Vygotsky, or both, are claiming that 5-year old children (for example) lack conscious awareness of the world they live in?
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> Puzzled...
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> Martin
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> On Aug 14, 2020, at 9:16 PM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
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> Andy,
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> That “any ‘actual’ concept is the intersection or merging of both the scientific and spontaneous path,” speaks to their complementarity, making them akin to Type 1 and Type 2 processing I referred to in my post.
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> But they’re also hierarchically related, since according to Mike’s interpretation of a Vygotsky’s passage cited by Anthony a few days ago, “humans who have not achieved scientific/real concepts do not have conscious awareness.”
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> I do not question Vygotsky’s genius. What I do question is the coherence of the interpretive frames that have evolved from his work. As Michael observed in a recent post, “like the writer he wanted to be he [Vygotsky] used phrases and ideas less as truths and more to move his narrative forward.” What I always wonder in eavesdropping on XMCA is whether the issues we discuss are resolvable, or is the theoretical backdrop to our conversation so heterogeneous as to make the possibility of resolution illusory.
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> David
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 2020 10:32 AM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> No David, as I said, the term "scientific concept" as it is understood nowadays, tends to mislead. The distinction for Vygotsky is entirely, as you say, developmental, and it is not a categorisation either (as in putting things into boxes), and nothing to do with "sophistication." "Scientific concept" refers to the path of development that begins with an abstract (decontextualised) concept acquired through instruction in some more or less formal institution. "Spontaneous concept" refers to the path of development which begins with everyday experience, closely connected with immediate sensori-motor interaction and perception, i.e., it begins from the concrete, whereas the "scientific" is beginning from the abstract.
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> Any "actual" concept is the intersection or merging of both the scientific and spontaneous path. For example (1) everyday life is full of ideas which have their source in institutions, but have made their way out of the institutional context into everyday life. On the other hand, for example (2) any scientific concept worth its salt has made its way out of the classroom and become connected with practice, like the book-learning of the medical graduate who's spent 6 months in A&E.
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> I admit, this is not clear from Vygotsky's prose. But here's the thing: when you're reading a great thinker and what they're saying seems silly, trying reading it more generously, because there's probably a reason this writer has gained the reputation of being a great thinker.
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> Andy
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> Andy Blunden
> Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fnam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com*2F*3Furl*3Dhttps*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fbrill.com*2Fview*2Ftitle*2F54574__*3B!!Mih3wA!XxSEPVIR0yRJgFaNSBm_i4WM3CddjlgSG_ngNcugdSCaXGC-tM-WRY9GIob6WVqti5Nn5Q*24*26data*3D02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7Ca67ad4b8e1054ad0908108d840677d4e*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637330160531086326*26sdata*3DklbbGOD961jWAJJ2y9AC4ITYXCnaDGFBvC0IbUJKVVs*3D*26reserved*3D0__*3BJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!Xj5wWxgfwuTDZiCehf_tnNDlXD6gP8BpwnjrYGS24qDQcMEd3gC6xhsU3N_JiNLOorai4A*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4c9f97baa48249eab87b08d841637595*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637331242718851133&sdata=W*2FK*2BTbTCBGe1eDIjlq4*2BhdhmoNfNxW11ayTlKsOia*2FA*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUqKioqKioqKioqKioqJSUqKioqKioqKiUlKiUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!WoFSvqRItZRFG-Wb6AmS0wx0inVUDXaV3gD2ZV6rpV81b-0KImklvCD1pGLY8v7_UV-zxA$>
> Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fnam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com*2F*3Furl*3Dhttps*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fwww.ethicalpolitics.org*2Fablunden*2Findex.htm__*3B!!Mih3wA!XxSEPVIR0yRJgFaNSBm_i4WM3CddjlgSG_ngNcugdSCaXGC-tM-WRY9GIob6WVoUDL1M-A*24*26data*3D02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7Ca67ad4b8e1054ad0908108d840677d4e*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637330160531096322*26sdata*3DUFQ8UqQhHon5sIjNEsW88BFc3G*2FEZq0s1nUehQfL3W4*3D*26reserved*3D0__*3BJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!Xj5wWxgfwuTDZiCehf_tnNDlXD6gP8BpwnjrYGS24qDQcMEd3gC6xhsU3N_JiNLEfO6ohg*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4c9f97baa48249eab87b08d841637595*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637331242718861146&sdata=hQHaTHs78nCNPgn9gG2NkTNb*2BHrhTO8uhtoAzo5bpdE*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUqKioqKioqKioqKiolJSoqKioqKioqJSUqKiUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!WoFSvqRItZRFG-Wb6AmS0wx0inVUDXaV3gD2ZV6rpV81b-0KImklvCD1pGLY8v77et7hHw$>
> On 15/08/2020 1:14 am, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
> Thanks for your accessible example, Michael.
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>
> Vygotsky’s scientific / spontaneous distinction between types of concepts has always struck me as such an unfortunate solution to the problem of differential sophistication in modes of reasoning. I’m sure this problem must have deep roots in classical and contemporary philosophy, even as it is reflected in cognitive psychology’s Dual Process Theory that at its “theoretical core amounts to a dichotomous view of two types of processes…: type 1—intuitive, fast, automatic, nonconscious, effortless, contextualized, error-prone, and type 2—reflective, slow, deliberate, cogitative, effortful, decontextualized, normatively correct” (Varga & Hamburger, 2014). What externalizing this distinction as different kinds of cognitive products (this or that kind of concept) seems to do is distract/detract from the sociogenetic character of development. Surely, a sociogenetic approach seeks to interpret these different forms of reasoning as differential discursive practices, embedded in different cultural contexts (Scribner, Cole, etc.). But talking about different kinds of concepts seems like the wrong departure point for that journey.
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> David
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 2020 7:03 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> Hi Andy, Henry, Anna Lisa,
>
>
>
> Let me start by saying that this is completely restricted to the way conscious awareness is used in Thinking and Speech. If it is use differently in other places this perspective may be wrong. To my mind (with the proviso that my mind if often wrong) Vygotsky is using the idea of conscious awareness for a specific purpose. To differentiate the role of spontaneous concepts with non-spontaneous concepts. Spontaneous concepts are based initially in affective memory and they give energy and motivation to many of our activities. However we are not consciously aware of them. To go back to chess, I am at the pool and my friend comes up to me and says “Chess?” I say yes. I have no conscious awareness of the concept of chess in my life, why I say yes so easily why it may be a way to make a social connection between me and my friend. It is residue of my affective memory (I don’t know how much Vygotsky was using Ribot when making this argument). We are playing chess and I remember that my brother showed me the non-spontaneous/scientific concept of the bishop’s gambit. As this point in my life I have to think about it and whether I want to use it. I must summon the intellectual functions of memory and attention as I think about the use of the bishop’s gambit. This then is conscious awareness of the scientific concept. I used the bishop’s gambit and win the game and I applaud myself. I got home and tell my brother, the bishop’s gambit was great, thanks. I am mediating the scientific concept of the bishop’s gambit with my everyday concept of playing chess. Voila, development!!!!
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> I don’t know if Vygotsky uses conscious awareness differently elsewhere.
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> Michael
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> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2020 11:51 PM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)
>
>
>
> Henry, my aim was just to introduce Annalisa and whoever to the scientific way that the terms "conscious awareness" and "consciousness" are used in CHAT. I say "scientific" in the sense that in CHAT we have a system of concepts and associated word meanings which have, if you like, conventional meanings. There is nothing wrong with "automatic and controlled processing" and "ballistic processing" but so far as I am aware these terms were not in Vygotsky's vocabulary. I could be wrong of course and I am sure I will be rapidly corrected if this is the case.
>
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> --
>
> I<image001.jpg> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFgnQRyK9kw$>The Angel's View of History
>
> It is only in a social context that subjectivism and objectivism, spiritualism and materialism, activity and passivity cease to be antinomies, and thus cease to exist as such antinomies. The resolution of the theoretical contradictions is possible only through practical means, only through the practical energy of humans. (Marx, 1844).
>
> Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!UoEVGPw-NlwGJ1uFJ4Fi-95Ax8XIgfPeP_rAxOQDskoq-IkE0tbzT7SagL-1mXLYHbOGmA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFglySosYvA$>
> Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!XaZ0ldsk3LvHtURqQPa9pqhSzqJcTkfT9WpcH9iXCnnFdDWAkGk2rg5ikc9GFgkzDUEbGA$>
> Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lchc.ucsd.edu/__;!!KGKeukY!ji0gqdjldexgATihzgPnPYay6rvvh9I-ydkDxJ6UtfV9X-x5XFtXmKGtowQioPBLBZI$>.
>
> Narrative history of LCHC: lchcautobio.ucsd.edu <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lchcautobio.ucsd.edu/__;!!KGKeukY!ji0gqdjldexgATihzgPnPYay6rvvh9I-ydkDxJ6UtfV9X-x5XFtXmKGtowQiQEfFUzs$>.
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