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

[Anthony Barra]

David,
I can assure you that I took much more from your "Spinoza, Chess, and Other
Magic Gateways" video than a few enjoyable anecdotes.  That said, the use
of anecdotes to frame and ground the more abstract ideas was an effective
(and appreciated) tethering device.  And your particular way of
distinguishing spontaneous, scientific, and pseudoconcepts (
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/r3josz__;!!Mih3wA!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm3psdILlw$ ) was among the most helpful I've heard.
So thank you again ~
Anthony

On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 7:59 PM David Kellogg <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!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm0rlQ2qkg$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!XgGKXuGHbf-4OH_o5GvbFeTXs47ccHePHKYFG8MHBzAxxDUiIJk2_bjxgY7zjfrVE7ftQA$>
>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works
> Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm1_gE5_nQ$ 
> <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>
> wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>>
>>
>> You completely lost me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <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>
>> *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!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm0rlQ2qkg$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!W8PZ43eu4LC1xSAffVdIDqmaRIq4PDLOb-P4KTvfV_DUJXqxOtYGf2tEuR4oh4ukrPPgQg$>
>>
>>
>>
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works
>> Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm1_gE5_nQ$ 
>> <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>
>> 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 <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>
>> *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!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm0rlQ2qkg$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Y8YHS3SRW42VXPTVY2Z6/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1806329__;Lw!!Mih3wA!X-sPHj2yRj7CruRKtdoJzuSguNRxxRa07dqeIoZ9GHqxdbAkzGcN-Ue9sxFcWs3BnshQdA$>
>>
>>
>>
>>  New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
>> Works* *Volume One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>
>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm1_gE5_nQ$ 
>>
>> <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>
>> 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 <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>
>> *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!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm1kMw81jw$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!WC2B2d3sHzBVQzHe3_Gk-N5cH4sDTZXudPEFrikW3AbMDxvPNWZML6XSytkIU2nP5psr4Q$>
>>
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works* *Volume
>> One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>
>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm1_gE5_nQ$ 
>>
>> <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>
>> 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 <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>
>> *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> 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> 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 <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>
>> *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> 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 <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
>> *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 <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> <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>
>> <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 <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
>> *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[image: Image removed by sender. Angelus Novus]
>> <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!UQyDL6HbvvynrL3CYkFJUwJMomPnVT4CbLdD2EKyMavdYMT-sDA5pCl1cmTdOm3wS3MTkg$ 
>> <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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