Re: [xmca] Vygotsky ´ s historicism

I like that formulation a lot, Martin. Little chance to gain general
agreement, but perhaps a chance
for some finer grained pointers toward a more satisfactory formulation.

thanks
mike

On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> No, I agree with your characterization of "embryology onwards..." When V
> writes of "psychological [mental] functions" perhaps the problem is with
> me
> rather than him, but it's very easy to take for granted that perception,
> attention, memory, emotion, thought are distinct mental systems. We all
> see
> to now exactly what each one is, and we think we can consider them
> separately.
>
> OK, let's assume the problem is with me. So V immediately redefines
> psychological functions as "forms of the activity of consciousness." In
> Sasha's terms, this would be "object-directed activity," no? If
> consciousness is real and objective, to be located in the interaction
> between person and environment, as I have argued, then the different forms
> of its activity would also be real and objective, always aspects of a
> whole,
> albeit one that is organized differently over ontogenesis.
>
> Martin
>
> On 4/6/08 1:29 PM, "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Martin and Sasha-
> >
> > I am having trouble following all the differernt threads and have this
> idea
> > it would be a good idea
> > to summarize where we think each of them stands in terms of points
> agreed
> > upon, appoints clearly
> > disagreed about, and points of confusion (on the assumption we can
> > distinguish)!! A brief comment on
> > a move made here by Martin that strikes me as a misdirection: I Bold in
> red
> > the part I want to focus on below.
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Sasha,
> >>
> >> I would like to respond to just two of the points in your message,
> though
> >> I
> >> think they are central. The first is something I've begun to think
> about
> >> but
> >> have not taken very far.* It has been troubling me that Vygotsky adopts
> a
> >> notion of "psychological functions" which seems from the start to
> divide
> >> consciousness into separate components which then have to be stitched
> back
> >> together again.* I've been Goggling without much success to try to
> >> discover
> >> the history of this 'functionalism,' and some of it seems to be
> medieval,
> >> some of it even Greek (though perhaps the translations can be
> >> questioned?).
> >> I'd welcome eduction on this from any/everybody out there!
> >>
> >
> > Where does this idea come from? We don'[t need lsv to know that at
> birth,
> > and before
> > birth for normal term infants, that the different "psychological
> functions"
> > are no "separate
> > components". From early embryology onward (at least!!) we are dealing
> with a
> > complex,
> > morphologically and functionally differentiated organism|environment
> (even
> > layers of
> > envrionment), the CONFIGURATIONS of which change over development. We
> are
> > not talking
> > about stitching together Frankenstein here, we are talking about organic
> > evolution. Both
> > organism, "its" enviroment, and their inter-relationships are all and
> always
> > changing vis a vis
> > each other.
> >
> > That is how I understand the starting point of our analysis. Is this not
> > something we can agree upon?
> > And if not, what is a formulation we might be able to start with??
> > mike
> >
> >>
> >> It seems that one would indeed, as you sugest, want to both start and
> end
> >> with monism: the neonate doesn't have distinct fuctions such as memory,
> >> attention, emotion. The adult has a smoothly integrated system of such
> >> functions. It's certainly the case that Vygotsky avoided trying to
> analyse
> >> these functions separately, and indeed insisted in Thought and Language
> >> that
> >> what was new in his appoach was that it was the study of their
> >> *relations*.
> >> For example, although Thought & Language seems to be a study of two
> >> distinct
> >> functions and their interrelation, Vygotsky began the book by insisting
> >> that
> >> consciousness has to be understood as a unity of functions and that any
> >> analysis of these two has to be conducted against a background of all
> the
> >> others.
> >>
> >> But why talk of "functions" at all?
> >>
> >> On 4/2/08 3:54 PM, "Alexander Surmava" <monada@netvox.ru> wrote:
> >>
> >>> To correspond this
> >>> statement with dialectical logic we have to turn it upside down and
> >> state
> >>> something like this: perception is an abstract form of conceptual
> >> thinking
> >>> while ³multiple psychological functions² do not ³work together²
> because
> >> they
> >>> do not exist anywhere beyond multiple psychological theories. (By the
> >> way,
> >>> A.Leont¹ev in his late years realized the necessity of formulation
> >> basically
> >>> new, monistic, not knocked together from different ³psychological
> >> functions²
> >>> psychological theory but let this task to us ­ his successors.)
> >>
> >> Your second point is that we need to pay attention not just to the ape
> but
> >> also to the man. Here too I fully agree with you. When I read Vygotsky
> it
> >> is
> >> with later thinkers in view, though for me it is not Leont'ev but
> thinkers
> >> (and actors) such as Bourdieu and Foucault. I'm not suggesting this
> choice
> >> of thinkers is better than yours, only that it's easier for me because
> >> these
> >> later thinkers are located within work I am more familiar with, such as
> >> critical theory and phenomenology.
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >>> When the fact of development take place, when after Kant do
> >>> appear firstly Hegel and lately Marx we have only one chance to
> >> understand
> >>> both later thinker and his predecessor starting from the later, more
> >>> developed theory. It sounds as paradox, but that is objective
> >> dialectical
> >>> paradox of the process of cognition.
> >>
> >>
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> >>
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Received on Sun Apr 6 13:49 PDT 2008