Re: FW: [xmca] Wells article

I believe that Sasha was referring to subjectivity as we usually encounter
the term
(signed)
mary poppins

On 10/10/07, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
>
>
> Paul:
>
> Would you like to qualitify that?
>
> eric
>
>
>
> Paul Dillon
> <phd_crit_think@ To: "eXtended Mind,
> Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> yahoo.com> cc:
> Sent by: Subject: Re: FW: [xmca]
> Wells article
> xmca-bounces@web
> er.ucsd.edu
>
>
> 10/10/2007 06:49
> AM
> Please respond
> to "eXtended
> Mind, Culture,
> Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
> sorrytosay??
>
> well, ok.
>
> the quality of being a suject?????
>
> expeealdochiouscalafragilstic, is a word too right??
>
> Paul
>
> Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Paul,
>
> sorry to say, but "subjectness", according to Webster 1913, in fact IS the
> word in the English language:
>
> http://www.google.ca/search?q=subjectness
>
> Cheers
>
> :)
>
>
> Dear Sasha,
>
> many thanks for your concise yet remarkably thorough and clear comment on
> such sophisticated issues!
>
>
>
> --- Paul Dillon
> wrote:
>
> > Sasha,
> >
> > I'm confused. I don't know what you mean by "subjectness" since this
> > isn't a word in the English language. As such, the three dimensions of
> > it remain beyond my ken.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > Alexander Surmava wrote:
> >
> >
> > Paul,
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm afraid that in understanding of nature of subjectness we are taking
> > the
> > problem from radically different perspectives. I distinguish between
> > three
> > categories: subjectness, subjectivness, and personality(ness).
> > Subjectness
> > occur in specific, organic or alive form of interaction, it is (along
> > with
> > the object positioned by him) an attribute of object-oriented activity.
> > It
> > doesn't coincide with subjectivness and even less with consciousness or
> > personality. Abstract subjectness is a characteristic of activity of
> > unicellular organisms or plants. Subjectivness is an attribute of
> > multicellular organic activity, selfsensation or abstract zoopsyche. On
> > this
> > level we have a special type of object-oriented activity, which is
> > necessarily mediated by selfdirected, or reflexive activity. It means
> > that a
> > multicellular animal can act according the objective shape of its
> > object, or
> > more exactly according to the shape of objective field, only in case if
> > subactive organs of this animal are acting against each other. Taking an
> > apple from the tree I can't act as a solid, indivisible, unilaterally
> > directed "activity", but as an alive activity, as an activity which can
> > touch the apple and can withdraw my hand from it. Such type of activity
> > is
> > something substantially contrary to mechanic movement and can be
> > realized by
> > complicated system of subactive muscles acting one against another.
> >
> > Finally the consciousness occur only in human object oriented activity
> > mediated by another person. Human personality appears only in case when
> > (minimum) two human beings are solving a common objective task in other
> > words they conjointly act against their common object and realize it in
> > active hand in hand and in the same time contradictory interaction. Here
> > we
> > have a new, higher level of reflexivity and selfconsciousness as it is.
> > All
> > this was formulated in Dialectical psychology as an attempt to overcome
> > a
> > great number of Cartesian contradictions in classical CHAT - in LSV and
> > ANL.
> > Thus Leont'ev insists that he formulates materialistic Theory of
> > activity,
> > and in the same time interprets activity as some magic process which is
> > wedging between mechanical stimulus and mechanical reaction. Vygotsky
> > from
> > his side tries to liberate a human being from mechanical
> > Stimulus-Reactive
> > determinism applying to so called cultural sign. In the same time he
> > fails
> > to explain how totally mechanical marionette can invent this sign and
> > how
> > the meaning of this sign can interact with wooden marionette.
> >
> >
> >
> > As for the real way to muster concept (Begriff) I think that much more
> > productive than Hegel's speculative formalisms, will be an attempt to
> > elaborate a new form of old Marxist idea of integration of learning and
> > productive labour.
> >
> > When Luria asked illiterated Uzbek peasants to exclude something
> > unnecessary
> > from a group including irrigation ditch or "aryk", soil, spade and
> > melon,
> > they vigorously refuse to do such a stupid choice because everything in
> > the
> > list is necessary to grow melon. Vygotsky commented the situation so
> > that
> > those peasants has not scientific concept but still type of "complex"
> > thinking while literate children, having school experience and solved
> > this
> > task easily are closer to scientific type of thinking.
> >
> > Let's wonder: who - the experienced (but alas illiterate) Uzbek peasant
> > or
> > verbal schoolchild is closer to real comprehension of melon cultivation,
> > is
> > closer to real concept (Begriff)? The question I think is quite
> > rhetoric.
> >
> > Evidently, a modern student can hardly acquire say differential
> > calculus, or
> > theoretic psychology in abstract praxis. But as evident is that the
> > first
> > step to real Begriff is the spontaneous active movement meeting an
> > opposition of a real object.
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Sasha
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > On
> > Behalf Of Paul Dillon
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 5:09 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] Wells article
> >
> >
> >
> > Sasha,
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the detailed reply to my queries.
> >
> >
> >
> > I totally agree that the subject-object distinction cannot be reduced to
> > the active/passive (yin/yang) distinction. But I can also state from
> > experiences with a certain type of Mexican sage (salvia divinorum) that
> > body
> > consciousness can disolve completely (inability to locate or more legs,
> > arms, or any other part of the body) while "experience" continues, but
> > withou any possibility of sustaining or identifying the locus (even
> > imaginary) of a sense of personal "ownership of or identification with
> > the
> > experience itself-the possibility of even talking about it being
> > something
> > like the concept of Vorstellung you describe in your response, and
> > neither
> > can the thoughts accompanying the experience be separated from the
> > experience itself (no, noema-noeisis distinction to use Husserl's
> > terminology) since the boundaries of subject/object constantly change
> > into
> > each other, much like the description of Being and Nothing in the first
> > part
> > of Hegel's Logic. The anthropologist Michael Taussig has described this
> > state both in relationship to the experience of being torture (resulting
> > in
> > the Stockholm syndrome) and to the ayahuasca (banesteriopsis caapi)
> > experience which is central to Amazonian shamanism. Very similar at the
> > experiential level to Hegel's descriptionn of "fear of death" in the
> > section on the Master-Slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Mind.
> >
> >
> >
> > But that brings up the adequacy of your identification of receiving the
> > bridge's blow as evidence of some subjectivity. I think it comes down to
> > the forms in which consciousness becomes domesticated into some form of
> > regularity/normalcy which is of course necessary for biological survival
> > but might have nothing at all to do with the real structure of the
> > conscious
> > experience out of which our normalized experience of "reality" -- the
> > experience of the bridge's blow or a tooth ache as happening to "me" --
> > has
> > been cultivated through the process of our socialization.
> >
> >
> >
> > Your explanation of the Vorstellung-Begriff relationship is more or less
> > how I understood it. Your use of the teaching example especially
> > approrpite
> > since every honest teacher knows that it's one thing to have learned
> > something as a student and another thing to have to teach it. Multiple
> > choice tests probe that parrot like ability to repeat information
> > (Vorstellung) and there are lots of A students who can't demonstrate
> > much
> > understanding about the material upon probing - but to be able to teach
> > about some object/field, not just stand in front of a class likewise
> > parroting, something student's can pick up on quickly, but to be able to
> > answer totally unexpected questions to the student's satisfaction,
> > requires
> > the ability to get into the "Begriff", right??, and thereby be able to
> > adapt the presentation of the "object" to different contexts and
> > cricumstances raised in the question or illustrate that the question
> > doesn't
> > really fit the object. In this vein, doesn't
> >
> > hegel arrive to the concept(Begriff) after discussing the sublation of
> > the
> > ground (Grund) in which it appears?
> >
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Oct 10 13:03 PDT 2007