[Xmca-l] Re: concepts and Concept Creep

[Anthony Barra]

Oh this is awesome, thank you.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 7:20 PM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anthony:
>
> You will find a MUCH more scientific discussion of conceptual inflation in
> Vygotsky's "Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology". See especially
> Section 3.
>
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/crisis/psycri01.htm#p300
>
> Why do I say that this discussion is more scientific? Consider any English
> expression with more than two adjectives in front of a noun, e.g.
>
> the big black leather handbag
> a fat old lady
> those two splendid electric locomotive trains
>
> You can see that the farther you are from the noun the more "subjective"
> the words are. The closer you get to the noun the more "objective" they
> are. Halliday calls the one closest to the noun the "classifier", and the
> one that is before it an "epithet".
>
> Your article is simpy making the point that when a particular classifier
> is widely used OUTSIDE a conceptual hierarchy (of categories and
> subcategories that answer the question "what TYPE of X?") we find it
> becomes an EPITHET (of qualities that answer the question "How do I feel
> about X?"). Vygotsky is  explaining exactly HOW this happens...and why.  To
> me, that's what science really does!
>
> Mike Cole remarks that every pencil carries in its structure a history of
> writing. I am not so sure about that--tools are a little opaque to me. But
> I know that every nominal group carries in it a kind of history of its
> meaning....
>
>
>
>
>
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article: 'Commentary: On the originality of Vygotsky's "Thought and
> Word" i
> in *Mind Culture and Activity*
> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1711775
> Some free e-prints available at:
>
> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SK2DR3TYBMJ42MFPYRFY/full?target=10.1080/10749039.2020.1711775
>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works
> Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>
>  https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 8:45 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I have looked (fruitlessly) through the archives for references to
>> Australian psychologist Nick Haslam's term, concept creep.
>>
>> Can anybody point me to a discussion - preferably Vygotskian in nature -
>> of "concept creep"?  I imagine the term would be discussed in relation to
>> concept-development (and the role of social pressures on word-meaning).
>>
>> Thank you in advance.
>>
>> The term is elaborated nicely in this interesting and provocative article
>> from Gurwinder Bhogal:
>> https://rabbitholemag.com/how-progress-blinds-people-to-progress/
>>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> Anthony
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20200305/a7140af8/attachment.html