[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)

Andy Blunden andyb@marxists.org
Tue Aug 18 19:13:47 PDT 2020


Martin, how would you respond to a Behaviourist or a "brain 
scientist" who responded to what you have just said by 
saying: "At last you agree with me! Mind does not exist! It 
is an illusion!"?

andy

------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYxASIfGVw$ >
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyxVPFOdA$ >
On 19/08/2020 11:45 am, Martin Packer wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> I can’t quite tell from your message whether "Mind is the 
> Body's Idea of Itself” comes from Vygotsky or from 17th 
> century Dutch painting, but I love it! I’ve been working 
> unsuccessfully for years trying to convince psychologists 
> that trying to study ‘mind’ is a fruitless endeavor.
>
> But the statement must be Vygotsky's because it is so 
> consistent with his metaphor in Crisis: to believe that 
> mind exists and can be studied is like thinking the 
> reflection of a candle in a mirror is a second real 
> candle, and trying to study it while paying no attention 
> to either the mirror or the real candle.
>
> Sorry not to have been paying attention: which text is 
> this from?
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>> On Aug 18, 2020, at 5:46 PM, David Kellogg 
>> <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Henry:
>>
>> As far as I know, there are many different schools of 
>> Kabuki, including a 'social realist' one and a much more 
>> stylized one. But like Stanislavsky's method, all of them 
>> are "depth" approaches which seek out inner truth by 
>> deep-diving into something called 'character'. For me, 
>> Noh is a much more "heights" approach, and like Brecht it 
>> involves holding character at a distance and trying to 
>> form overall judgements about it rather than getting lost 
>> in the details of a personality. There is a similar 
>> tension in Chinese opera, between Shanghai Opera 
>> (deep-diving) and Beijing (stylized). I'm not sure 
>> I could call that a grammar; it looks more like 
>> granularity on stage (consider, for example, the use of 
>> make-up, the importance of costume, and place of recitative).
>>
>> Michael probably knows more than I do about Stanislavsky. 
>> But when you are in a conversation and somebody says 
>> something like "You've completely lost me", there are 
>> three possibilities. One is just interpersonal--I'm not 
>> very interested in what you are saying and I've got other 
>> things to do. Another possibility is more ideational--I 
>> can't follow what you are saying--maybe because of the 
>> lexicogrammar you use or because of the unfamiliar ideas 
>> you have--and I need some other way of understanding 
>> it, like a familiar example or a story. A third is 
>> textual: I am interested in what you say and I recognize 
>> the setting and the characters you are referring to, but 
>> I can't really get my arms around the interpretative 
>> frame. Usually the problems I have communicating are of 
>> the textual type--not always, but more often than not.
>>
>> We're having a similar problem with our new book, which 
>> is about the emotions: Vygotsky has left us a fragment, 
>> and it's long, circuitous and assumes a very thorough 
>> knowledge of seventeenth century philosophy. So we want 
>> to turn it into a kind of comic book, using seventeenth 
>> century Dutch paintings, which include a lot of the ideas 
>> that I think are most troublesome (e.g. "Deus Sive 
>> Natura", "Mind is the Body's Idea of Itself", "Freedom is 
>> an illusion, but recognition of necessity is real"). That 
>> format in itself can create an interpretive frame that 
>> people have trouble with (can I take this seriously--it's 
>> a comic book!). I was looking forward to mansplaining in 
>> a face to face meeting with our readers this Saturday, 
>> but that's now been cancelled because of the spike we are 
>> having in Seoul (like our first one, incubated by a 
>> religious sect owing fealty to the remnants of the former 
>> military dictatorship and to Donald Trump).
>>
>> If you compare Cognitive Grammar to Systemic-Functional 
>> Grammar, you'll notice three differences right away.
>>
>> a) Cognitive Grammar assumes a COGNITIVE semantics. 
>> Systemic-Functional Grammar treats 'cognitive processes' 
>> as a black box and studies visible social-semiotic 
>> processes instead.
>> b) Cognitive Grammar has, as you say, TWO strata--form 
>> and meaning. Systemic-Functional grammar has three, and 
>> allows for coupling all three in different ways, because 
>> a two stratal model, particularly one that emphasizes 
>> fixed units of redounding elements, is essentially 
>> replicative and cannot account for development.
>> c) Cognitive Grammar is, as we have said before, 
>> speculative. Systemic-Functional Grammar depends on a 
>> dialectic of research into empirical facts in many 
>> languages and theoretical generalizations, all of which 
>> (to date, anyway) avoid universalization.
>>
>> I remember asking Ruqaiya Hasan about Langacker and 
>> cognitive grammar. She told me that when they were in 
>> Singapore together, Langacker complained that his 
>> cognitive grammar was being largely ignored. "And what 
>> about Halliday?" Ruqaiya asked. Fortunately, MCA is NOT 
>> ignoring Halliday! (See link below!)
>>
>> 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!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYxRvZeb0Q$  
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!WzhE4UmkZC17BnEoGQS1fRQ5ws_X1EarH5Yqn8YDscsZhL7pAkoHazqpRwBbKJIMxdHi6w$>
>>
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's 
>> Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyJeyU36Q$  
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WzhE4UmkZC17BnEoGQS1fRQ5ws_X1EarH5Yqn8YDscsZhL7pAkoHazqpRwBbKJIh1AzN2g$>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 10:21 AM HENRY SHONERD 
>> <hshonerd@gmail.com <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     David,
>>     I am guessing that your apochyphal story and analysis
>>     has something to do with how languaging works.
>>     Langacker--a proponent of what he calls Cognitive
>>     Grammar,--asserts that a/grammar/, is a structured
>>     inventory of conventional linguistic units, a
>>     linguistic unit being a symbolic coupling of form and
>>     meaning for linguistic purposes. I find that
>>     definition useful. How does that relate, if at all,
>>     to what you have been trying to explain to Michael G?
>>
>>     And yes, believe it or not,I was wondering about Noh
>>     theater. To be honest, what I saw could have been
>>     Noh, but I am pretty sure my parents told me it was
>>     Kabuki. I can’t ask them now, but I think they would
>>     have remembered when they were living. So back to my
>>     question in the first paragraph: Do
>>     Kabuki/Stanislavsky and/or Noh/Brecht draw on any
>>     theatrical grammar? Keeping in mind that any grammar
>>     in theater would have to draw massively on gesture,
>>     in ways that written language would not. And gesture
>>     may have its own grammar.
>>
>>     I should add that Langacker recognizes that grammars
>>     are built through use and are as much in the context
>>     of language usage as in the head(s) of the user(s).
>>     Though he also recognizes that Cognitive Grammar is
>>     short on the analysis of real language in context.
>>     This is an old conversation I have had with you, but
>>     it seems relevant here. I am thinking now about
>>     improvisation, which we assume is mostly true of
>>     “natural” language use, though Langacker argues that
>>     much language use is based on the use of common
>>     phrases, rather than being very “creative", like my
>>     first phrase in the first paragraph of this post: “I
>>     am guessing…” and “believe it or not” that starts the
>>     second paragraph, and the “I should add” that starts
>>     this paragraph. These are all over-learned linguistic
>>     units
>>
>>     I think what I am getting to is the distinction
>>     between grammar and discourse, how they bleed into
>>     one another and how every use of language is in some
>>     sense staged.
>>
>>     Henry
>>
>>
>>>     On Aug 17, 2020, at 5:51 PM, David Kellogg
>>>     <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>
>>>     wrote:
>>>
>>>     There is a completely apocryphal story in China
>>>     about Stanislavsky and Brecht. They are both
>>>     visiting a liberated area in my wife's home province
>>>     of Shaanxi. There is a village production of the
>>>     White Haired Girl, in which the heroine is raped by
>>>     the landlord's son, Huang Shiren. To prevent the
>>>     rape, a peasant in the audience draws a pistol and
>>>     shoots the actor through the heart. Since the whole
>>>     village has been reading Chairman's Mao's essay on
>>>     the necessity of holding funerals for martyrs, "In
>>>     Memory of Dr. Norman Bethune", there is a funeral
>>>     the next day. Stanislavskky presents a wreath of
>>>     white carnations with the legend, "To the greatest
>>>     actor in China, a martyr to his art". Brecht's envoy
>>>     reads "To the worst actor in the world, on a
>>>     particularly bad night."
>>>
>>>     Isaiah Berlin argued that romanticism was a great
>>>     shift from enlightenment rationalism: for the
>>>     romantic, it doesn't matter what you believe so long
>>>     as you sincerely believe it (this is why German
>>>     romanticism produced both communists and fascists).
>>>     For the romantic actor, it doesn't matter what you
>>>     feel so long as the feeling is deeply felt. The
>>>     anti-romantic view--and Brecht was an
>>>     anti-romantic--is that it doesn't matter whether you
>>>     deeply feel the feeling or not; the only thing that
>>>     matters is what people learn from it and whether it
>>>     will help or harm them.
>>>
>>>     Why do we despise or pity a teacher or a politican
>>>     who is merely a showman? Because a communication
>>>     that fails to communicate an idea, or which
>>>     communicates only the pulchritude of the
>>>     communcator, is simply off topic. If Anthony takes
>>>     away from my video "Spinoza, Chess, and Other Magic
>>>     Gateways" only the story about the Danish chess
>>>     grandmaster in Beijing, I have done nothing but
>>>     entertain or enthrall him.So for example if you read
>>>     the little story about Brecht and Stanislavsky as a
>>>     biographical account, or a colorful anecdote that
>>>     has nothing to do with my argument, I have failed as
>>>     a communicator (Alas, I often do!).
>>>
>>>     A good friend of mine is a well-known novelist in
>>>     the USA. She told me once that she became a novelist
>>>     because she learned that words can not only report
>>>     an experience but reproduce it. I must have wrinkled
>>>     my nose at that, because we got off into a
>>>     discussion on whether inner speech can actually be
>>>     written down or not (which is essentially the point
>>>     that divides Woolf and Joyce). As a novelist, she
>>>     said it could; as a linguist, I said it couldn't.
>>>
>>>     If we take Stanislavsky's annotated scripts
>>>     literally, then the emotional subtext attributed to
>>>     Chatskii and Sophia are a kind of mentalese: their
>>>     external language is simply an editing or a
>>>     translation of the inner subtext. But that's not
>>>     what verbal thinking is at all; it is entirely
>>>     predicative, and incomprehensible without its
>>>     internal context.
>>>
>>>     (Henry--compare Kabuki with Noh. Kabuki is
>>>     Stanislavsky. Noh is Brecht.)
>>>
>>>     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!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYxRvZeb0Q$ 
>>>     <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!XgGKXuGHbf-4OH_o5GvbFeTXs47ccHePHKYFG8MHBzAxxDUiIJk2_bjxgY7zjfrVE7ftQA$>
>>>
>>>     New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S.
>>>     Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations
>>>     of Pedology"
>>>     https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyJeyU36Q$ 
>>>     <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!XgGKXuGHbf-4OH_o5GvbFeTXs47ccHePHKYFG8MHBzAxxDUiIJk2_bjxgY7zjfo9s_ZqtA$>
>>>
>>>
>>>     On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 8:28 AM Glassman, Michael
>>>     <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>>
>>>     wrote:
>>>
>>>         David,
>>>
>>>         You completely lost me.
>>>
>>>         Michael
>>>
>>>         *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 6:44 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)
>>>
>>>         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!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYxRvZeb0Q$ 
>>>         <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!W8PZ43eu4LC1xSAffVdIDqmaRIq4PDLOb-P4KTvfV_DUJXqxOtYGf2tEuR4oh4ukrPPgQg$>
>>>
>>>         New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S.
>>>         Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One:
>>>         Foundations of Pedology"
>>>
>>>         https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyJeyU36Q$ 
>>>         <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.
>>>
>>>             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).
>>>
>>>             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.
>>>
>>>             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.
>>>
>>>             Okay, enough for now. Got to get back to
>>>             salt mines.
>>>
>>>             Michael
>>>
>>>             *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--
>>>
>>>             There's a good book on the 1912 production
>>>             (you've probably read it).
>>>
>>>             Senelick, L (1982) Gordon Craig's Moscow
>>>             Hamlet. Westport, CN and London: Greenwood.
>>>
>>>             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.
>>>
>>>             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?
>>>
>>>             (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.)
>>>
>>>             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$>
>>>
>>>             Some free e-prints available.
>>>
>>>             https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYxRvZeb0Q$ 
>>>             <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs3BnshQdA$>
>>>
>>>              New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: /L.S.
>>>             Vygotsky's Pedological Works/ /Volume One:
>>>             Foundations of Pedology/"
>>>
>>>             https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyJeyU36Q$ 
>>>             <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs0U-run5w$>
>>>
>>>             On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 9:11 PM Glassman,
>>>             Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu
>>>             <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                 Hi David,
>>>
>>>                 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.
>>>
>>>                 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.
>>>
>>>                 Michael
>>>
>>>                 *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--
>>>
>>>                 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.
>>>
>>>                 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.
>>>
>>>                 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?
>>>
>>>
>>>                 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!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYwlhg5e8A$ 
>>>                 <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!WC2B2d3sHzBVQzHe3_Gk-N5cH4sDTZXudPEFrikW3AbMDxvPNWZML6XSytkIU2nP5psr4Q$>
>>>
>>>                 New Translation with Nikolai Veresov:
>>>                 /L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works/
>>>                 /Volume One: Foundations of Pedology/"
>>>
>>>                 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYyJeyU36Q$ 
>>>                 <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WC2B2d3sHzBVQzHe3_Gk-N5cH4sDTZXudPEFrikW3AbMDxvPNWZML6XSytkIU2mAEEqXaA$>
>>>
>>>                 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.
>>>
>>>                     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.
>>>
>>>                     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.
>>>
>>>                     Michael
>>>
>>>                     *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,
>>>
>>>                     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."
>>>
>>>                     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:
>>>
>>>                         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”
>>>
>>>                         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."
>>>
>>>                         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.”
>>>
>>>                         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]."
>>>
>>>                     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:
>>>
>>>                         "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)
>>>
>>>                     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.
>>>
>>>                     Stay safe,
>>>
>>>                     Martin
>>>
>>>                         On Aug 15, 2020, at 6:06 PM,
>>>                         mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu
>>>                         <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                         I was not being ironic, David
>>>
>>>                         If scientific concepts are
>>>                         required for conscious awareness
>>>                         (as specified in the quotation I
>>>                         was asked to respond to) and
>>>                         people who
>>>
>>>                         have not been to school do not
>>>                         acquire Piagetian concepts
>>>                         related to formal operations
>>>                         (for example) or other measure
>>>                         of "thinking in
>>>
>>>                         scientific concepts) if seems to
>>>                         follow that they have not
>>>                         achieved conscious awareness.
>>>
>>>                         LSV writes about non-literate,
>>>                         indigenous, peoples that they
>>>                         are capable of complexes, but
>>>                         not true concepts (I think the
>>>                         use of the term.
>>>
>>>                         "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,
>>>
>>>                         classification, etc among
>>>                         Uzbekis who had experienced
>>>                         various degrees of involvement
>>>                         in modern (e.g. Russian) forms
>>>                         of life as evidence for
>>>
>>>                         what might be termed "lack of
>>>                         conscious awareness I am not sure."
>>>
>>>                         mike
>>>
>>>                         On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 3:31 PM
>>>                         David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu
>>>                         <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                             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/.
>>>
>>>                             *Here is the passage in
>>>                             question*, from /Thinking
>>>                             and Speech/, Ch. 6, pp. 190-1:
>>>
>>>                             "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.
>>>
>>>                             /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/."
>>>
>>>                             Mike’s reply, in total was:
>>>
>>>                             I understand that to mean
>>>                             that humans who have not
>>>                             achieved scientific/real
>>>                             concepts do not have
>>>                             conscious awareness.
>>>
>>>                             What am I missing?
>>>
>>>                             Mike
>>>
>>>                             David
>>>
>>>                             *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)
>>>
>>>                             David,
>>>
>>>                             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?
>>>
>>>                             Puzzled...
>>>
>>>                             Martin
>>>
>>>                                 On Aug 14, 2020, at 9:16
>>>                                 PM, David H Kirshner
>>>                                 <dkirsh@lsu.edu
>>>                                 <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>>
>>>                                 wrote:
>>>
>>>                                 Andy,
>>>
>>>                                 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.
>>>
>>>                                 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.”
>>>
>>>                                 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.
>>>
>>>                                 David
>>>
>>>                                 *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.
>>>
>>>                                 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.
>>>
>>>                                 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.
>>>
>>>                                 Andy
>>>
>>>                                 ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>                                 *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.
>>>
>>>                                     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.
>>>
>>>                                     David
>>>
>>>                                     *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!!!!
>>>
>>>                                     I don’t know if
>>>                                     Vygotsky uses
>>>                                     conscious awareness
>>>                                     differently elsewhere.
>>>
>>>                                     Michael
>>>
>>>                                     *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.
>>>
>>>
>>>                         -- 
>>>
>>>                         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!R53F7Q9dcfsf21mBbSTgVC6YexgI8_72x0cMqLYMWUp85LCvtsnoQuEedW_4rYzgbqXpew$ 
>>>                         <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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