Fernanda--
Can you provide a full reference for Liberali and Fuga (2006) and the source
of the Vygotsky quotation?
That way readers like me can track things down and (hopefully!) sort them
out.
mike
On 12/2/06, Fernanda Liberali <liberali@uol.com.br> wrote:
>
> I suggest reading Spinoza's descripton of the Substance/ Nature and
> attributes. This quote from Vygotsky is almost exactly what Spinoza says in
> the Ethics.
> A quote form a discussion of Spinoza:
> "...the idea of a single Substance which is absolute, universal and
> infinite. It is an active and self-generating force, the cause of itself, in
> itself and by itself; hence, everything propagated by this force was
> generated since eternity. Therefore, this Substance cannot be constituted
> by distinct and separable parts, as dualist monotheists, based on binary
> logics, used to envisage. This single Substance consists of indefinite
> endless attributes. These attributes are conceived as modifications on the
> substance /Nature/ God, of which human beings can only distinguish two:
> extension and thought, inextricable and intricate, as they have to do with
> one and only indivisible Substance. From extension derives materiality,
> which means the bodies as infinite ways of extension; and, from thought,
> derive ideas and souls, its finite modes. Everything that takes place in the
> attribute of extension also happens in the attribute of thought, as things
> and ideas have the same origin and they follow the same laws and principles,
> though in a qualitatively distinct manner. These attributes are not
> deductible or dependent, but parallel, i.e., there is no kind of
> domination or submission of one over the other. In short, if the body is
> affected, so is the soul. Consequently, the long Cartesian hierarchic
> tradition, which defines the soul as superior to the body, is broken."
> (Liberali And Fuga, 2006)
>
> Fernanda
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Martin Packer" <packer@duq.edu>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 4:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD
>
>
> Natalia, thanks very much. The cyrillic didn't come through, but I can
> piece
> together the English:
>
> "after all a cornerstone of materialism is a proposition about (that)
> consciousness and the brain are, both, a product (of nature), (and) a part
> of nature, (the one) that reflects the rest of nature"
>
> Might you be able to take a look at the other two excerpts in the original
> Russian?
>
> Let me think about this 'out loud' a little. This is the point in Crisis
> where Vygotsky is specifying what a truly Marxist psychology, a 'general'
> psychology, must study. A science, he insists, studies not appearances but
> what really exists. Optics, for example, studies mirror surfaces and light
> rays, not the images we see in the mirror, for the latter are phantoms. A
> scientific psychology must study the real processes that can give rise to
> such appearances, not (just) the appearances. [It's not clear to me how
> far
> to go with this seeming analogy between the way a mirror reflects and the
> way the brain/Cs 'reflects the rest of nature'.] So any descriptive,
> intuitionist phenomenology must be rejected. What really exists? A
> materialist maintains that the brain exists, and consciousness too. V
> cites
> Lenin to the effect that what is matter, what is objective, is what exists
> independently of human consciousness. And, seemingly paradoxically,
> consciousness can exist outside our consciousness: for we can be conscious
> without being self-conscious. I can see without knowing that I see. So a
> general psychology must study consciousness, but to know the mind we can't
> rely on introspection, in part because in introspection mind splits into
> subject and object: a dualism arises in the act of self-reflection. We
> can't
> establish a psychological science only on the basis of what we experience
> directly (as Husserl tried to do); it must be based on knowledge, which is
> the result of analysis, not merely of experience. And what is analysis?
> Complicated answer put briefly: analysis lies at the intersection of
> methodology and practice: it is the exhaustive study of a single case in
> all
> its connections, taken as a social microcosm. It involves what Marx
> (following Hegel) called abstraction.
>
> I'll confess I'm still not clear what V is proposing as the solutions to
> the
> epistemological and ontological problems that he has distinguished. It
> looks
> to me as though he is saying that the epistemological problem - that
> concerning the relation between subject and object - arises only when one
> accepts uncritically the dualism that arises in introspection (or 'blind
> empiricism'?). So once one rejects introspection this problem dissolves.
> The
> implication is that if one begins not with introspection but with
> practice,
> one avoids any subject-object dualism. The ontological problem -
> concerning
> the relation between mind and matter - is what he's trying to study, no?
> How
> is a brain-in-a-body-in-a-social-world the basis for consciousness, then
> self-consciousness, then self-mastery and knowledge?
>
> Hmmm
>
> Martin
>
>
> > Hi Martin,
> > I found it --- in Russian, vol.1 of "Sobranie Sochinenii", on page 416.
> > It reads in Russian as very similar to the English quote your posted
> above:
> >
> > "Âåäü -- after all-- ê›àåóãîëüíûì êàìíåì ìàòå›èàëèçìà -- a corneestone
> of
> > materialism -- ÿâëÿåòñÿ ïîëîæåíèå î òîì, -- is a proposition about, ---
> ÷òî
> > ñîçíàíèå è ìîçã åñòü ï›îäóêò --- (that) consciousness and the brain are,
> > both, a product (of nature),--- ÷àñòü ï›è›îäû, ---(and) a part of
> nature, --
> > îò›àæàflùàflöàÿ îñòàëüíófl ï›è›îäó -- (the one) that reflects the rest of
> > nature"
> >
> > Or something like this.
> >
> > Hope this is helpful, and not making things more confusing.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Natalia.
>
>
> On 11/30/06 2:47 PM, "Natalia Gajdamaschko" <nataliag@sfu.ca> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:55:29 -0500 xmca@weber.ucsd.edu wrote:
> >>
> >> A few pages later:
> >>
> >> ""After all, a cornerstone of materialism is the proposition that
> >> consciousness and the brain are a product, a part of nature, which
> reflect
> >> the rest of nature" (327).
> >>
> >> The last sentence is not grammatical English, so something has clearly
> > gone
> >> wrong with the translation.
> >>
> >> If anyone has access to the original Russian and could comment,that
> >> would be
> >> great. (Page numbers are from the version in The Essential Vygotsky.)
> >>
> >> Martin
> >
> >
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 03 2007 - 07:06:17 PST