Hi Bill,
this is great, thank you a lot, so subtly and competently re-composed
and edited -- this is much better and different from what I often
have gotten from professional editors! My notes have gained a lot in
readability. The reader profits and also myself not the least because
I better see how my English is working and can be improved.
So I can think to go on and partly respond to questions and partly
keep to the inner logic. The latter soon requires a piece on the
notion of generative semiosis and it is an open question whether to
introduce the function circle or spiral before or after semiosis. The
latter may be better in so far I can believe that most readers on
this list are not fully unfamiliar with the idea of the function
circle. Naturally there are more of the basic and phil-of-science
questions; but those can come anytime.
Jennifer, you have risen the question of "compatibilty" with the
Gibsonian ecological approach to visual perception etc.
I think there is not really much beyond the key term and its basic
meaning that organisms and their environments have to be understood
together. Which is already quite compared with the most of psychology
today. But there is an attitude like (bio-)evolution is closed and
whether individual nor -- even less -- culture have a realistic place
in this approach. The notion of "picking up information" is an empty
phrase when it is carried beyond instincts.
There may be more affinities with Barker's ecological psychology.
Both these approaches root more or less evidently in the thinking of
the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology: Gibson had been cooperating
with Koffka who had brought up that idea in the first chapter of
Gestalt Psychology of 1935 but never elaborated it in detail; Barker
had been cooperating with Lewin in the perspective of people growing
up and comporting always in a given Umwelt to be understood. Both
approaches were developed in niches within an environment almost
totally behavioristic and were sort of bound in often less than
fertile discussions. This is not meant as critique of the two
approaches. In my view they are just much too special and have a
limited potential to carry us essential steps in the direction
understanding the culturality and historicity of the human condition.
I think it important to know of the difference. All too often, a word
simply releases an AHA effect and can cover what's below.
Best, Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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