Dear Friends,
It was interesting to read Peter's thoughts on sense=inner speech, and
meaning=external speech. This seems to be somewhat verified by Vygotsky
in Kozulin's 1994 edition of Thought and Language, p. 246. However,
this discussion becomes so difficult so quickly, when going into the
problems of "word meaning"--"meaning and referent"--"meaning and
sign"..etc. Frederic Paulhan offered the distinction between sense and
meaning, and Vygotsky wrote that "The sense of a word, according to him
[Paulhan], is the sum of all the psychological events aroused in our
consciousness by the word. It is a dynamic, fluid, complex whole, which
has several zones of unequal stability. Meaning is only one of the zones
of sense, the most stable and precise zone....Meaning remains stable
throughout the changes of sense" (p. 244-245). Later V. stated that
words and sense are relatively independent of each other (p. 246).
Here are some of the problems I have been dealing with and would
appreciate any help. My thoughts are based within my understanding of
the cultural-historical tradition (e.g. Spinoza, Marx, Humboldt) more
than the sociocultural tradition, so please bear with me:
1) I am most confused regarding "sense," as it often appears to be a
subcomponent of "meaning," but this is not the case in the quote given
above. It is perhaps common to think of "sense" as being something
"inside," and "meaning" as representing something "outside." How can we
discuss "sense" (which cannot be connected with words only) without
discussing the theory of "images"?? Theories of images have been written
about by Stetsenko, Davydov & Zinchenko, Eisenstein, Smirnov, etc....
2) It seems difficult to discuss "sense and meaning" without a dialectic
in place, perhaps a dialectic more complex than the traditional Hegelian
dialectic. It would probably imply viewing both "sense and meaning" as
having two distinct origins and trajectories of development. However,
this is often interpreted as "dualism," and a basic understanding of the
Spinozian tradition is to overcome the problems of Cartesiasn dualisms
when possible.Then, can these aspects actually be dealt with in the
abstract?
3) What about the role of "function" within Vygotskian terminology?
Vygotsky stated in Kozulin, 1994, that "Every thought moves, grows and
develops, fulfills a function, solves a problem" (p.218). This seems to
be left out of so many discussions on "sense and meaning." This returns
to the problem of discussing "sense and meaning" in the abstract...is it
possible to have such a discussion without the genetic-developmental
stance of an asymmetrical dialectic related to psychological,
linguistic, other......"functions"?
4) Most of all, I am really struggling with a definition of "sense"
(which is understood as an internal, individual mechanism)....and what
that means today, especially where there is a trend to get away from
areas such as "internalization," within sociocultural theory. Regarding
"meaning," Vygotsky stated that "Each word has meaning...Meaning does
not coincide with logical meaning (nonsense has meaning)...the constant
claim in all authors: the meaning of all words is fixed, meaning does
not develop..Meaning is the path from the thought to the word...<Meaning
is not the sum of all the psychological operations which stand behind
the word> Meaning is something more specific--it is the internal
structure of the sign operation. It is what is lying between the thought
and the word. Meaning is not equal to word, not equal to the thought
(Vygotsky in the Collected Works, Vol. 3, p. 132). In psychology
"meaning" was understood by V. to be "frozen"; while in linguistics it
referred to the development of the word.....my problem is that "meaning"
in Vygotsky's understanding is not absolute, as other thinkers believed.
This corresponds with the paradox of "monism"(within Spinozian
philosophy) being viewed as non-changing, and this is also questionable,
as it would not represent a living, but rather a static structure. In
other words, the comparision is monism=meaning, and dialectic=sense;
traditionally, one views the dialectic within monism (such as sense
within meaning), but monism has been viewed as the absolute even within
the Spinozian tradition, something non-changeable. I will quote from J.
Israel (1979, The language of dialectics and the dialectics of language,
London: Harvester Press), which represent thoughts I have never really
understood: "Hence, the notion of *totality does not imply that
dialectical reasoning attempts to overcome a dualistic ontological
position through a monistic reduction...Reduction also implies the
substitution of dualistic notions by monistic ones. But dialectical
thinking is not monistic. Dialectical reasoning attempts to transcend
dualism as well as monism, by operating within a 'unifed' framework, one
that presupposed the category of totality (pp.60-61).(* Totality refers
to a complete system, not anything totalitarian). There cannot be only
one "meaning" as there is not one "competence," since we have
psychological, logical, linguistic, and many other types of "meaning."
How do we transcend the dualism of
"sense and meaning"? We think of "meaning" and the outside world
validating most of human existence, and perhaps at this point "the
inside is out and the outside is in" as the Beatles would say. This
thought is perhaps not "meaningful" to many, but for me it is like
realizing that the earth revolves around the sun, when I have always
thought the reverse without even being totally aware of it. "Sense"
(even though I cannot define it) was always subordinated to "meaning,"
and I never questioned it until I read Peter's note.
5) I would just like to quote Nik Veresov in a draft of a paper he sent
concerning the problems of "sense and meaning" in Russia, although I do
not have the title his paper: "In 1928 Vygotsky was speaking about
"meaning-based structure" using the terms smysl [sense] synonymously
with znachenie [meaning]. This circumstance that is extremely important
was not taken into account in translations of Vygotsky's works.
Znachenie was very often translated as sense (or even significance) and
somtimes as meaning, whereas smysl was very often translated as meaning
ansd sometimes as sense."
Perhaps it is important is to see how the Russian readers determine the
use of these two terms, and see how it all fits into the world today.
Best, Dot Robbins
P.S. Just a quick personal note. There is still plenty of room for
participants at the International Vygotsky Society (IVS) Summer
School/Conference in Russia from June 20-30, 2000. We have a good group
of people right now, and it will be a very interesting, experiential
conference on the Zone of Proximal Development. Please tell others about
this conference. We will have approximately 20 participants from outside
of Russia, and about that number of Russians. You are more than welcome
to join us. If you are coming to the AERA conference and are interested
in speaking to the Russian organizers of the Summer School, please call
us in New Orleans at: #945-1669. We will be staying at a Bed and
Breakfast on 628 Frenchman Street.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:21:10 PDT