Hello everybody,
I think that Dewey was getting at a similar idea. For him, knowing entails the application of intelligence to a problem, i.e. changing the conditions existing in reality in order to see what happens. Though (unlike Vygotsky as discussed earlier), disruption is part of the process of understanding, not the product. Here's a relevant quotation from his lectures (Quest for Certainty):
Action is the means by which a problematic situation is resolved. Such is the net outcome of the method of science. There is nothing extraordinary about this conclusion. Interaction is a universal trait of natural existence. "Action" is the name given to one mode of this interaction, namely, that named from the standpoint of an organism. When interaction has for its consequence the settling of future conditions under which a life-process goes on, it is an "act". If it be admitted that knowing is something which occurs within nature, then it follows as a truism that knowing is an existential overt act. Only if the one who engages in knowing be outside of of nature and behold it from some external locus can it be denied that knowing is an act which modifies what previously existed, and that its worth consists in the consequences of the modification. The spectator theory of knowing may, humanly speaking, have been inevitable when thought was viewed as an exercise of a "reason" independent of the body, which by means of purely logical operations attained truth. It is an anachronism now that we have the model of experimental procedure before us and are aware of the role of organic acts in all mental processes. (pp. 233-234)
for what it's worth,
adam
Adam Lefstein
Kings College London
adam.lefstein@kcl.ac.uk
adaml@netvision.net.il
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Barowy" <wbarowy@attbi.com>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: FW: improv
> On Wednesday 13 August 2003 12:40 am, Eugen via Judith Vera Diamondstone
> promulgated:
>
> > 3) I want to disrupt whatever findings will be in my future
> > teaching... Like Vygotsky, I believe that I do not fully understand a
> > phenomenon until I can disrupt and change it.
> >
>
> Eugene -- where does this orientation appear in his writing? Is it explicit
> (citable)?
>
> bb
>
>
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