Re: [xmca] about emotions

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Andy
I just glanced at Scheff's site and he definitely is exploring the central topics being discussed about the place of emotion.  His part/whole framework which looks at "morphology" speaks to the relational interweaving of the "Single" case and the general.  
I definitely plan to dip into some of his articles posted to his website.  He seems to have a very expansive horizon of understanding of the sociological tradition.

Thanks for the reference.

A general comment about the place of emotion as viewed on CHAT.  It sure is contested exactly what emotion is and where to locate it? socially, or subjectively.

In Mead's "I -Me" dialectic is emotion located in the creative "I" or the "socially embedded "me"?

Still curious
Larry


----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009 4:07 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] about emotions
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> I just revisited Scheff's site after a long interval and I 
> am delighted with his methodological comments in :
> http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/main.php?id=1.html
> 
> * He traces the idea of "unit of analysis" which we know 
> from Vygotsky, not just back to Goethe (where I had got to) 
> but back to Spinoza!
> 
> * He uses what he calls "whole/part methods" which I find 
> quite intriguing;
> 
> * He talks about the kind of problems Mike has raised about 
> actions-in-context, i.e. cross-cultural research;
> 
> * Also likens the problem of understanding action-in-context 
> to the hermeneutic circle.
> 
> His stuff about emotion simply arises because he insists on 
> studying cultural and historical problems with the *whole* 
> of the human interactions involved, whereas historical 
> records and studies tend to factor out the emotions. This he 
> rightly disagrees with and tries to rectify.
> 
> I think anyone on the list would be interested in this 
> fellow's work. I gather Santa Barbara is not a million miles 
> from San Diego. :)
> 
> Andy
> 
> Jay Lemke wrote:
> > I have had Scheff on my reading list for a while, but was away 
> from the 
> > right kinds of libraries most of last year.
> > 
> > I'm afraid I just don't see why it's important to list 
> something as a 
> > "basic" emotion? That usually just means that someone wants it 
> to count 
> > as having academic or intellectual importance, or that they 
> want to link 
> > it to our baser animal nature, or that it's a candidate for 
> some sort of 
> > biological universal, pre-determined by evolution. All of 
> which agendas 
> > give me the creeps!
> > 
> > But I've heard good things about Scheff, so I will get round 
> to him soon.
> > 
> > How about this: there are several hundred "basic" emotions?
> > 
> > In any case, I was thinking of anthropological arguments about 
> "guilt 
> > cultures" vs. "shame cultures" and the kind of analysis 
> Achilles was 
> > citing from LSV about how feelings, whatever their biological 
> functions 
> > or antecdents, get infused and transformed by culture into 
> something a 
> > great deal more.
> > 
> > Thanks for the reminder about Scheff!
> > 
> > JAY.
> > 
> > Jay Lemke
> > Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> > Educational Studies
> > University of Michigan
> > Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> > www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> > 
> > Visiting Scholar
> > Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> > University of California -- San Diego
> > La Jolla, CA
> > USA 92093
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Nov 28, 2009, at 8:47 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
> > 
> >> Thomas Scheff
> >> http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/
> >> makes a good case that guilt is among the basic emotions, Jay.
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> Jay Lemke wrote:
> >>> Achilles, and friends --
> >>> I am not sure of the best interpretation of LSV's position 
> on these 
> >>> matters, but it seems to me to be in the spirit of his work 
> and the 
> >>> later CHAT tradition that we imagine a culturally informed 
> >>> "development" (probably with phylogenetic antecedents) in 
> which the 
> >>> "higher" functions develop out of the earlier ones by a 
> progessive 
> >>> layering or refinement, specialization, and differentiation -
> - both 
> >>> for higher feelings as well as higher cognitions.
> >>> Indeed I don't think we want to separate affect and 
> cognition, or 
> >>> feeling and meaning, emotion and reason, too much. A little 
> >>> distinction is useful to give us purchase on understanding 
> their 
> >>> integration. I would assume that in the developmental and 
> >>> evolutionary sequence, these two aspects of our adaptive 
> >>> operating-with-the-world, are initially less separable and 
> less 
> >>> distinguishable, aspects of a single functional process. And 
> that 
> >>> later in the sequence we LEARN to MAKE a distinction, and 
> perhaps 
> >>> even to FEEL a difference between them.
> >>> But it is their functional integration which is of the 
> greatest 
> >>> importance, not their difference (in my opinion). So to the 
> higher 
> >>> mental functions viewed cognitively (and it is not at all 
> clear that 
> >>> LSV did view them ONLY cognitively in our modern sense) 
> there must 
> >>> correspond also "higher feelings", what we might call 
> culturally 
> >>> refined or culturally differentiated and functionally 
> specialized 
> >>> feelings, which function as part of the whole engagement in 
> activity 
> >>> that enables us to sometimes get a bit ahead of our semi-
> predictable 
> >>> environments. Insight. Intuition. A feeling for the 
> organism. Good 
> >>> hunches. Good judgment. A nose for useful lines of research. 
> And so on.
> >>> Of course once we are immersed in a complex world of highly 
> >>> culturally differentiated feelings, we realize that their 
> functions 
> >>> are not simply practical, not simply dictated by 
> evolutionary 
> >>> fitness. Or at least not in very obvious ways. And so I have 
> taken to 
> >>> making a heuristic distinction of my own in terminology 
> among 
> >>> emotions (the more classical ones, triggered by 
> environmental events, 
> >>> with obvious adaptive significance, like those listed by 
> Darwin and 
> >>> borrowed by James, such as fear, anger, disgust, desire, 
> etc.), 
> >>> affects (which I use to mean the "higher" feelings, the more 
> >>> culturally specific and "refined" ones, like feeling noble 
> or feeling 
> >>> guilty), and feelings as such (the general category, of 
> which 
> >>> emotions and affects are subclasses, and which also includes 
> the more 
> >>> auto-perceptual feelings like feeling tired or feeling dizzy).
> >>> Again it is not so much the distinctions here that I value 
> >>> theoretically, but getting a sense of the scope of the whole 
> domain 
> >>> of feelings, and how to make sense of any particular feeling-
> type 
> >>> within it. (Distinguishing again between the uniqueness of a 
> >>> particular feeling on a particular occasion and the more 
> generic 
> >>> feeling-types recognized or recognizable culturally across 
> instances.)>>> Whew!  A lot to chew on ...
> >>> JAY.
> >>> Jay Lemke
> >>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> >>> Educational Studies
> >>> University of Michigan
> >>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> >>> Visiting Scholar
> >>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> >>> University of California -- San Diego
> >>> La Jolla, CA
> >>> USA 92093
> >>> On Nov 27, 2009, at 10:45 PM, Achilles Delari Junior wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Jay,
> >>>>
> >>>> Thank you very much.
> >>>>
> >>>> Something near to this distinction between feelings and emotions
> >>>> was posed by William James too, according Vygotsky, but James
> >>>> saw this distinction in terms that these social dimension 
> of affective
> >>>> world, the higher feelings, have almost nothing related to 
> biological,>>>> physiological, material, body, conditions. And 
> Vygotsky criticizes
> >>>> this like a way of dualistic thinking - this dualism can be 
> understood>>>> as based in ideological motivations too: "the 
> human is not an animal,
> >>>> nor a material been, but a divine been, in his higher, 
> superior 
> >>>> feelings..."
> >>>>
> >>>> A distinction between feelings and emotions is present in 
> Damasio too
> >>>> in neurofunctional terms... But Vygotsky proposed the 
> question of
> >>>> a systemic inter-relationship in that the lower can turns 
> higher, and
> >>>> vice versa... I don't know what we can thing about this... 
> In this
> >>>> case, distinction between feelings and emotions are useful, 
> but if
> >>>> we want to understand the entire human been, his/her whole 
> personality,>>>> the integration and inter-functional relations 
> between feelings and
> >>>> emotions turns relevant too, In my point of view.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best wishes.
> >>>> Achilles.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> From: jaylemke@umich.edu
> >>>>> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] about emotions
> >>>>> Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:28:26 -0800
> >>>>> CC:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I am certainly one of those people interested in emotion, 
> or feeling,
> >>>>> or affect, or whatever we choose to make of the phenomenon.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The topic seems to have historically accumulated a lot of 
> ideological>>>>> baggage. And while its expression may be more 
> sophisticated today than
> >>>>> in times past, there doesn't seem to be that much less of 
> it (as for
> >>>>> example in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy review 
> noted by
> >>>>> someone earlier).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Emotion tends to be seen as bad in our philosophical 
> tradition. As the
> >>>>> enemy of reason, the motor of self-deception, etc. It 
> links us to the
> >>>>> animals, to our "baser" nature, etc. A bit of this in the pagan
> >>>>> tradition, a lot of it in christian asceticism, and tons 
> of it in
> >>>>> Enlightenment rationalism and its successors.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Emotions are also associated with the unreliable feminine 
> vs. the cool
> >>>>> and collected masculine, with the passions of the mob vs. the
> >>>>> thoughtful elite, with peasants, workers, and children, 
> and pretty
> >>>>> much every social category whose oppression needs some 
> legitimation.>>>>> Indeed one of the near universal 
> legitimations of elite power is "we
> >>>>> know what's good for you", not just because of what we 
> know, but
> >>>>> because you can't be trusted to see your own best 
> interests through
> >>>>> the haze of your emotions.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Useful as this is to elite interests, it combines further 
> with the
> >>>>> cult of individualism to make emotions a purely 
> individual, mental,
> >>>>> subjective matter. Non-material, non-social, non-cultural, and
> >>>>> universal (the easier to apply the stigma of emotionality 
> to non-
> >>>>> European cultures). It is rather hard to crawl out of this 
> pit of mud.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As I've been trying to do for the last year or two. There 
> would be too
> >>>>> much to say for a short post on this list, but here are a 
> few basic
> >>>>> suggestions:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Feeling is a broad enough category to get back to the 
> phenomenology of
> >>>>> affect/emotion, whereas "emotion" is too narrowly defined 
> within the
> >>>>> tradition of animal-like and universal.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There are a LOT of different feelings, and that is more 
> important than
> >>>>> efforts to identify some small number of basic emotions.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Many feelings are associated with evaluative judgments and 
> this may be
> >>>>> a key link to re-unify affective and cognitive.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Feelings do differ significantly across cultures, and are 
> part of a
> >>>>> larger system of meanings-and-feelings specific to a community.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You can't make meanings across any longer term process of 
> reasoning>>>>> without feelings and evaluative judgments.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It is likely that feelings have histories, both in 
> cultures and in
> >>>>> individuals.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Feelings are often reliable guides to survival, to 
> adaptive action,
> >>>>> and to finding ways to meet our needs.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Feelings are just as situated and distributed as are 
> cognitions. And
> >>>>> just as active and actively made and produced.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In short -- pretty much everything in our dominant 
> tradition about
> >>>>> emotions and feelings is exactly wrong -- and for the 
> worst possible
> >>>>> ideological-political reasons, I believe.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> JAY.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Jay Lemke
> >>>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> >>>>> Educational Studies
> >>>>> University of Michigan
> >>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Visiting Scholar
> >>>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> >>>>> University of California -- San Diego
> >>>>> La Jolla, CA
> >>>>> USA 92093
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Nov 26, 2009, at 8:08 AM, mike cole wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> With so much interest in achieving an integrated 
> understanding of
> >>>>>> emotion,
> >>>>>> cognition, and development, Achilles, your focus on this 
> topic is a
> >>>>>> helpful
> >>>>>> reminder of its continued importance.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Seems like one of those many areas in psychological 
> research where
> >>>>>> we cannot
> >>>>>> keep from murdering to dissect.
> >>>>>> mike
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> 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
> >>>>                       
> >>>> _________________________________________________________________
> >>>> Novo site do Windows Live: Novidades, dicas dos produtos e 
> muito 
> >>>> mais. Conheça!
> >>>> 
> http://www.windowslive.com.br/?ocid=WindowsLive09_MSN_Hotmail_Tagline_out09_______________________________________________ 
> >>>>
> >>>> 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
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> >> Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
> >> Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, 
> Ilyenkov 
> >> $20 ea
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >>
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
> Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, 
> Ilyenkov $20 ea
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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