RE: [xmca] Vygotsky ´ s historicism

As many of you know, Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" -- along with
some of his other 'popular' books ("The Blank Slate", "The Stuff of
Thought", etc.) -- provides an engaging entry into the Chomskyan
(language-thought-mind) program/paradigm . . . although both in the original
and the recent paperback re-issue, Pinker notes (a) that he doesn't buy all
the Universal-Grammar/Innate-Ideas details of the 'program', and (b) that
The-Man-Himself issues a new variety of his view(s) every year or two! Of
course, we're talking here about Chomsky's, um, (linguistic) scholarship and
not his, uh, politics . . .

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Peter Moxhay
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 7:20 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: [xmca] Vygotsky ´ s historicism

Michael,

You wrote:

>.I don't think Illyenkov was talking directly to the learning paradox
here.

Yes, you're right. I guess I thought of this article because Ilyenkov
comes back to his constant theme that thinking (the ideal) does not
reside in language (in a broad sense, including diagrams & signs of all
sorts) -- to believe this (he writes elsewhere) is as naive a
naturalistic error as to hold that thinking (the ideal) resides in brain
structures. The ideal appears in the transitions from the material
object (predmet) to the signs and back again.

I don't know enough about Chomsky -- would Ilyenkov have said he makes
either of these two errors? Does it matter, for the learning paradox?

You ask an intriguing question, but I'm completely unsure whether
Ilyenkov's notion of the ideal provides any help in understanding the
learning paradox...

Peter

>>> "Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu> 04/08/08 3:12 PM >>>
Peter,

I don't think Illyenkov was talking directly to the learning paradox
here. The article was written in 1974 and the debate between Chomsky
and Piaget was in 1975.

There is a chance I suppose that he actually answered the question
before the debate (Piaget would have liked that), but I really don't see
it in the article.

It seems to me an article that sort of tries to refute visual (rote?
direct?) learning. His main these seems to be, and maybe I have this
wrong, that actually you use understandings of the object and its
development in the process of engaging in (progressive?) activity with
the object. I think perhaps that Chomsky might say where does the
knowledge that allows the child to master the activity come from? Does
it come from the child's activity or does it come from the way the
object is used in activity? For instance a child picks up a knife and
uses it to cut wood. Is this idealist in that the child thinks, hmmm
the essence of this knife must be to cut, or is it realist in that the
cutting properties are in the knife and discovered there through
activity? Is Illyenkov the type of philosopher who uses materialism as
a jumping off point for idealism? But then we are back to the learning
paradox, at least according to how I am now reading this article.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Peter Moxhay
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 12:40 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: [xmca] Vygotsky ´ s historicism

Michael,

Isn't the learning paradox part of what Ilyenkov addresses in "Activity
and Knowledge" (available at marxists.org)?

Peter

>>> "Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu> 04/08/08 12:22 PM >>>
>>- making the case for the learning paradox (which has been discussed
on this list).
>>So I'm curious, how does Illyenkov deal with these problems - the
learning paradox and the possible arbitrariness of thought driven end
points.
 

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Received on Wed Apr 9 10:10 PDT 2008