Bruce,
I just noticed your message.
you said,
" can see what he's getting at in that no two individuals have exactly the
same consciousness but don't believe that this 'personal sense' can be
described purely in the non-social terms of the individual's consciousness
making sense of the world. It ignores the role of the socialisation process
and other forms of penetration of the social into individual consciousness.
It seems nearer to phenomenology than I would expect from Leontiev. Perhaps
someone can explain?"
I looked through the section on personal sense to try to find something that
would sum up his views, but the quote may not have been the best choice. He
gives an example of work in which money to buy food would be a motive
(personal sense).
Leont'ev makes a statement a little later (p. 94) that may help.
"There is no need to repeat that this internal movement of individual
consciousness has its origin in the movement of objective activity of man,
that behind its dramatic effects hide the dramatic effects of real life,
that for this reason scientific psychology of consciousness is not possible
outside the investigation of the activity of the subject, the forms of its
direct existence."
Leont'ev refers to meaning as objective, abstract and sense as its concrete,
psychological and sensual manifestation. It is not a-social or a-historical
but how meaning is experienced on the level of individual consciousness.
I hope this helps.
Nate
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/
schmolze@students.wisc.edu
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****************
"Overcoming the naturalistic concept of mental development calls for a
radically new approach
to the interrelation between child and society. We have been led to this
conclusion by a
special investigation of the historical emergence of role-playing. In
contrast to the view
that role playing is an eternal extra-historical phenomenon, we hypothesized
that role playing emerged at a specific stage of social development, as the
child's position in society changed
in the course of history. role-playing is an activity that is social in
origin and,
consequently, social in content."
D. B. El'konin
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****************
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Robinson [mailto:bruce.rob@btinternet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2000 1:06 PM
To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu'
Subject: RE: translation / sense
On Monday, April 03, 2000 7:44 PM, Eva Ekeblad [SMTP:eva.ekeblad@ped.gu.se]
wrote:
> At 20.45 -0700 0-04-02, Mike Cole scrobe:
> >And what terms did Frege use?
>
> Frege writes about *Sinn und Bedeutung*... I have unfortunately only a
> Swedish translation and it probably does more to further the confusion
than
> to straighten out curves -- it is translated into *Mening och betydelse*
> which seem also to be able to shift subjective/objective places in
> different discourses, like meaning and sense.
>
> But, *Bedeutung* as used by Frege seems to refer to the-object-referred
to
> (by a sign), while his *Sinn* refers to the WAY this object is given in a
> proposition. Thence his famous example with the Evening star/ /the
Morning
> star -- which have the same Bedeutung (refer to the same
thingy-in-the-sky)
> but different Sinn... now, is the English title of this essay *Sense and
> Reference* or *Meaning and Reference*? :-)
>
> Eva
>
I'm not sure about the exact title of the essay but the English terms
generally used are 'sense' and 'reference', while 'Bedeutung' in German
means meaning. So make of that what you will!
I haven't read all the contributions on this topic properly yet, but wonder
about the etymological relationship between 'sense' and 'the senses', which
I suppose goes back to Latin. Does this get us any closer to the
distinction?
I'm not sure about the Leontiev quote Nate put up:
"As distinct from meaning, personal sense, like the sensory fabric of
consciousness, does not have its own "supraindividual", "nonpsychological"
existence. If in the consciousness of the subject external sensitivity
connects meaning with the reality of the objective world, then the personal
sense connects then with the reality of his own life in this world, with
its motives. Personal sense also creates the partiality of human
consciousness."
I can see what he's getting at in that no two individuals have exactly the
same consciousness but don't believe that this 'personal sense' can be
described purely in the non-social terms of the individual's consciousness
making sense of the world. It ignores the role of the socialisation process
and other forms of penetration of the social into individual consciousness.
It seems nearer to phenomenology than I would expect from Leontiev. Perhaps
someone can explain?
I'll add a comment on Dot's remarks on monism and dialectics when I've got
time.
Bruce
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