Re: [xmca] Universalism, Relativism, and Developmentalism

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

hard to go  back to the original and continue on, David, when such
interesting comments intervene.... ah the charms of chaining!

I think your comments at the end point to something important for a
cultural-historical approach to human nature. Human ontogeny, where
developmental seems appropriate to us is itself an emergent synthesis of the
phylogenetic and the cultural historical. So the various principles get all
tangled up in a particular way in the ontogenetic domain where the
nature-nurture dichotomy, quite independent of the fact that everyone knows
its a false dichotomy, that everything is "100% nurture and 100% nature" (As
Bruner signifying through Peter Medewar was fond of reminding us). It is
what Konner once referred to as a "tangled web."

Where did Middlemarch fall in the rise of realism? It is included both in
the rise of realism and the transcendent realism which sublates the two
prior forms as i read you.

One of the pleasures of growing older is that you can encounter the books
"they made you read as a 13 or 17 year old" and experience the great
privilege of reading them again, from the other side of time. Darn good
thing there are cultural compensations for phylogenetic processes!!
mike

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 2:28 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Congratulations to Mike and Carol for being to make any sense at all out of
> my last screed. Last semester I tried to write a book for a class on the
> theory of English language teaching for the poor undergrads.
>
> Trying to write a book on the theory of ELT by listening to what
> methodologists actually say is (with all due respect to the method of
> immanent critique) rather like trying to write a history of the automobile
> on the basis of what used car salesmen tell their customers. I decided the
> best way to proceed was to think of sets of problems.
>
> Some of these problems never get solved ("Can we learn a second language
> the same way we learnt the first one?"), others are too widespread for the
> very local solutions that are used to solve them ("How do you replace a
> native language concept based on ages of first handl experience with a
> foreign language concept which has no empirical content at all?") and still
> others appear to be solveable at first glance but later lead to more
> interesting and difficult problems ("How do you teach the difference between
> "apples", "an apple" and "the apple" to children who speak a language where
> the difference between the universal, the particular, and the individual is
> realized in a completely different way?")
>
> At this point I re-read Marshall Brown's wonderful (but rather obscure)
> essay on how Hegel's "Logic" (the full blown Science of Logic, and not the
> Shorter Logic which Andy has made so readable and readily understandable)
> applies to the development of 19th Century Realism in novels (e.g.
> "Middlemarch"). Brown begins by noting that the existence of a hundred
> schools of thought on what "realism" might be suggests, to a basically
> complaisant intellectual frame of mind, not a bitter struggle for domination
> of one truth over others but rather a set of partial truths awaiting
> synthesis.
>
> He does this by dividing the development of realism into three coexisting
> and interpenetrating moments:
>
> a) the realism of the stock type (e.g. Moll Flanders, Richardson's Pamela
> or Clarissa) where who you are is pretty much determined by the set
> character you are playing, and these set characters are very often
> identifiable by their professions (tinker, tailor, sailor, spy)
>
> b) the realism of the freak, the grotesque, the inimitable individual (e.g.
> the whole of Dickens, Gothic texts like Frankenstein, almost anything by
> Charlotte Bronte or by Balzac and everything by Victor Hugo). Brown points
> out that these individuals are really produced by simply applying the same
> method of differentiating social types to the various features of a single
> individual--they are all set against each other, and the result is a freak.
> (Think of how children learn to differentiate the features of Vygotsky's
> blocks and for a moment become transfixed by the singularity of every
> block).
>
> c) the realism of the particular, the nuanced repetition, the meaningful
> variation of a recognizeable pattern (e.g. the whole of Jane Austen, my own
> favorite Elizabeth Gaskell, and of course the great George Eliot). This is,
> of couse, a sublation of the previous two types: the pattern is brought back
> but individuals in it are allowed to interact and to define themselves
> relationally; here for the first time we have not simply dialect vs.
> idiolect but idiolects WITHIN dialects.
>
> Now, on the face of it, this is nothing more than yet another rather dreary
> sorting exercise, and not a particularly original one either. Think of the
> old syllogism:
>
> a) All men are mortal (universalism).
> b) Socrates is a man. (relativism)
> c) Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (particularism).
>
> There are other less obvious connections. You may remember that we had a
> paper by Strawson on Bruner's universalistic narrative theories a few years
> ago, where Strawson made a strong argument for relativism (which he called
> the "episodic" form of conscoiusness) as opposed to narrativism.
>
> The one which occurred to me was that the first period of English teaching,
> largely concerned with very practical problems of trade and immigration, is
> a realism of types, the second period focuses on inimitable texts, and the
> third, which I really do believe we are smack in the middle of, somewhere
> between the gradual transformation of classical structuralism-behaviorism
> into a more baroque form misleadingly called "communicative teaching", is an
> attempt to situate every unique communicative act in some kind of speech
> genre.
>
> But of course there is interpenetration as well as differentiation: every
> period has to solve all of the problems, and so although one set of problems
> may dominate, the others are nevertheless there. I think Mike has provided a
> very helpful insight in bringing in the phylogenetic universal, the
> sociogenetic relativist, and the ontogenetic developmentalist.
>
> Of course the universal is, in the final analysis, the sum total of the
> particular. But it's not really deriveable from it any more than the
> particular can be logically determined entirely by the universal. Market
> demand is, in the final analysis, the sum total of individual biological
> needs, but it's not really deriveable from it any more than ethics can be
> logically determined entirely by politics. Phylo-socio-onto-microgenesis is
> all, in the final analysis, nothing more or less than the changes wrought by
> the vicissitudes of time. But the time scales are SO different that the
> changes must be qualitatively different and never reducible to each other.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> Oh, Shweder! I brough him in as a counterweight to eric's idea that Mike is
> a cross-cultural psychologist; Shweder makes an important distinction
> between cultural psych, which for him is relativist, and cross-cultural
> psychology, which is always universalist.
>
> But I do like his essays, Carol. At University of Chicago, when I was there
> as a humble and ultimately unsuccessful undergrad during the seventies,
> there was a craze for what Mike correctly calls the reduction of cultural
> psychology to a province of social psychology (it took the particularly
> annoying form of inoculating bourgeois economic history with homeopathic
> doses of anthropology). Shweder was the lone standout. It was
> anthropologists all the way down, and at the bottom of the stack of turtles,
> if there was one, stood a psychologist and not a historian.
>
> dk
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 7/14/10, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Universalism, Relativism, and Developmentalism
>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 4:56 PM
>
>
> David--  Have read as far as your nice laying out of the three
> perspectives,
> universal, relativistic, developmental. That was rich enough for the time
> being.
>
> It occurred to me as I read your summary of each position that they map
> rather nicely on to phylogenetic, cultural historical, and ontogenetic time
> scales. Is that fair? If so, seems like a really aligning of discourses.
> mike
>
> On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 2:12 AM, Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=carolmacdon@gmail.com>
> >wrote:
>
> > Dear David
> >
> > Thank you for your extremely enlightening series of examples, especially
> > since they are also relevant to my other work--English language. I am
> > constantly astonished at how diligent my colleagues/comrades are in
> making
> > an extended point/reply.  I will reply off-line.
> > Carol
> >
> > PS Andy also sent me a helpful comment off-line.  I owe you guys.
> >
> > On 14 July 2010 10:37, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear Carol:
> > >
> > > I don't think what I said was illogical, just historical. History
> appears
> > > to contradict itself not infrequently. But the mere fact that something
> > > appears completely impossible on paper does remarkably little to
> prevent
> > it
> > > from actually occuring. And even less to render it comprehensible.
> > >
> > > For example, one might, with some exaggeration, divide the last five
> > > hundred years of English language teaching into three very rough two
> > hundred
> > > year periods:
> > >
> > > a) a first, very basic, transactional-interpersonal period which mostly
> > > dealt with cross-channel trade and the influx of Huguenot refuges,
> > lasting
> > > from roughly the invention of printed language learning materials by
> > William
> > > Caxton around 1480 to the death of Comenius in 1670.
> > >
> > > b) a second, much more textually based period which dealt with the
> > creation
> > > of an English canon as a secular equivalent to the Greek and Latin
> > classics,
> > > lasting from roughly the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis the
> > > XIVth in 1685 until the birth of the Reform Movement around 1870 with
> the
> > > work of Sweet and later Palmer, West, and Hornby.
> > >
> > > c) the current period, which has seen the rise of a more meaning-based
> > > method, first in the rather predictable forms of
> > structuralism-behaviorism
> > > (which although it had different names in the US and the UK had much
> the
> > > same audiolingual-oral-situational content) and then in the more
> > > unpredictable form of "communicative methodology" (which although it
> has
> > the
> > > same name in the US and the UK has completely different and in some
> ways
> > > completely opposite content, because the Yanks kept structuralism and
> > > ditched behaviorism while the Brits kept behaviorism and ditched
> > > structuralism).
> > >
> > > Now, the reason I raise all this ancient history is not simply to deny
> > that
> > > we are at the beginning of a new epoch (although I DO deny it, as I
> deny
> > > that the Communicative Method represented anywhere a complete break
> with
> > > structuralism-behaviorism). I raise it to point out that there are
> > moments
> > > of this ancient history which are:
> > >
> > > 1) Universal. That is, the same kinds of questions keep coming up again
> > and
> > > again, viz. How do we know, when we translate, that children understand
> > the
> > > English word and not the translation? How do we "present" and
> "practice"
> > > something like meaning, as opposed to mere sound? Do we learn grammar
> the
> > > subconsciously, unconscioiusly, or deliberately and volitionally? etc.
> > >
> > > 2) Relativistic. That is, there are very different answers to all of
> > these
> > > questions, and not one of them appears to be always right at any given
> > time.
> > > Children sometimes understand and retain the English word and
> > > sometimes forget it instantly and only retain the translation or retain
> > the
> > > English word but go on using the mother tongue concept as its meaning.
> > There
> > > appear to be very different kinds of meaning, some of which are
> > repeatable
> > > and others of which are not, and this is not in any direct way
> relatable
> > to
> > > their learnability, contrary to what we might suppose. Some grammar is
> > > subconscious, some of it is unconscious, and a very great deal of it
> is,
> > > like murder and other crimes, completely premeditated.
> > >
> > > 3) Developmental. That is, some aspects of language teaching appear to
> > > change cumulatively, and others merely proliferate, producing variation
> > > without any obvious progress. There is no real sense, that I can see,
> in
> > > which English teaching today is "better" than the teaching of Latin or
> > Greek
> > > in Comenius's time (and there is also no real sense in which English is
> > more
> > > of a "global" language than Latin or Greek or French was). But there is
> > > certainly a very real sense in which our understanding of how language
> > works
> > > (for example, what kinds of meaning there are, and what kinds of
> grammar
> > > there are) has managed to sum up the past, complexify our present
> > > understanding, and go forward to new applications of that
> > > richer understanding.
> > >
> > > It's really not the case, as I once thought, that teaching practice
> just
> > > produces variations without any real evolution, while educational
> > research
> > > produces the very opposite, by "theory culling". Theory and practice
> seem
> > > much more mutually interpenetrated, so that there are theories which
> > > proliferate without any real refinement or even differentiation (I
> think
> > the
> > > theory of "comprehensible input" is a good example of this) and there
> are
> > > practices which are very clearly and demonstrably more efficient than
> > others
> > > (e.g. the keyword method of vocabulary learning, or the practice of
> > teaching
> > > grammar by using examples before rules).
> > >
> > > But it really is the case, I now think, that in English teaching (and I
> > > suspect also in cultural psychology, or cultural historical activity
> > theory,
> > > or socioculturalism, or phylo-socio-onto-microgenetic epistomology)
> that
> > > there are some areas of what we do where universalism is the underlying
> > > basis, others where relativism is an observeable fact, and still others
> > > where progress is not only possible but palpable. Do I contradict
> myself?
> > > Well then, I contradict myself; I am large, and like any other
> > > language-using animal, I contain worlds.
> > >
> > > Sorry, I meant "words".
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > > Seoul National University of Education
> > >
> > >
> > > --- On Tue, 7/13/10, Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=carolmacdon@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=carolmacdon@gmail.com>
> >
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] The Missing Part
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > > Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 6:34 AM
> > >
> > >
> > > Eric
> > >
> > > What does this mean?  Am I dense or is there a word missing:
> > >
> > > but I have turned the corner and *believe we are who were
> > > and wherever you go there you are. *
> > >
> > > I loved D's illogicality:
> > > *
> > > But it's also why there can be, at one and the same moment,
> universalism
> > > ("We're all the same"), relativism ("We're all different, but equal")
> and
> > > developmentalism ("We're all different, and the differences matter") at
> > > one and the same time.*
> > >
> > > But, for me relativism is a farce--e.g. the witchdoctor having the same
> > > power as a nuclear physicist? USAID and DFiD don't believe this, and
> > > neither
> > > do I.
> > >
> > > And on what grounds do we see Shweder as having Mike's stature? (David)
> >  My
> > > students hated him (Shweder, by the way, they thought he was a sellout,
> > too
> > > close to mainstream psychology.)
> > >
> > > Carol
> > >
> > > PS Sorry for spoiling the line of argument: I have missed a part.
> > >
> > > On 13 July 2010 15:15, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > How very idealistic of you David.  I don't share in your optimistic
> > view
> > > > of bringing about a kumbaya utopia.  This veil of tears we share has
> > been
> > > > shared by our ancestors and shall continue to be shared in all its
> > > > brilliance and hair covered moles.
> > > >
> > > > At one time I did possibly believe that humans were developing
> > > > phylogenetically but I have turned the corner and believe we are who
> > were
> > > > and wherever you go there you are.  It is what it is or as the WWII
> > vets
> > > > say  "comme ci comme ca"
> > > >
> > > > eric
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > From:   David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
> >
> > > > To:     Culture ActivityeXtended Mind <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > > > Date:   07/12/2010 06:53 PM
> > > > Subject:        Re: [xmca] The Missing Part
> > > > Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > eric:
> > > >
> > > > No, as usual, you have my point pretty much exactly, only without the
> > > > silly flourishes I sometimes add. Remember, though, that Mike's
> magnum
> > > > opus was entitled "A Once and Future Discipline" .
> > > >
> > > > Mike says this was an accident; Bradd Shore dibsed the title he
> really
> > > > wanted, ("Culture in Mind") so he went and stole this one from
> Mallory
> > > > ("The Once and Future King", i.e. Arthur).
> > > >
> > > > It's not as catchy, but "The Once and Future Discipline" is a better
> > > title
> > > > than "Culture in Mind" for three reasons:
> > > >
> > > > a) it suggests, correctly, that the key cross cultural insights are
> not
> > > > actually Mike's, but date from a much earlier period, when
> ethnography
> > > was
> > > > actually a pretty dirty business. (This is not just true of
> > ethnography,
> > > > by the way, Yerkes, who provides a fair amount of the monkey business
> > in
> > > > Chapter Four of Thinking and Speech, was involved in army
> > "intelligence"
> > > > research dedicated to finding which soldiers were dumb enough to be
> > used
> > > > to clear minefields, and his interest in teaching apes to talk is
> > partly
> > > > motivated by his theories that some of us are more closely related to
> > > apes
> > > > than others.)
> > > >
> > > > b) it suggests, correctly, that in order to use this stuff we need to
> > > > think a little more about where it came from in the light of where we
> > > want
> > > > to go with it, to purge it of its geographical, social and cultural
> > > > specificity and to harness it for a future where insights made in one
> > > > corner of the globe become the common property of all its corners and
> > all
> > > > the bits in between as well.
> > > >
> > > > c) it suggests that cultural psych is transdisciplinary rather than
> > > > interdisiciplinary, that it's a discipline in the process of
> > transcending
> > > > its historical self rather than one which is merely exchanging
> > > ambassadors
> > > > with bordering disciplines. That is actually what accounts for its
> > > > temporary eclipse, and it is equally what will account for its future
> > > > resurgence.
> > > >
> > > > Shweder, for example, from whom I stole the idea of universalism vs.
> > > > relativism vs. developmentalism, is still embroiled in a controversy
> > > about
> > > > whether anthropologists in Afghanistan can and should collaborate
> with
> > > the
> > > > US Army in the occupation of remote provinces. Shweder's position is
> > that
> > > > they can and should, because their presence will help troops
> understand
> > > > local customs (e.g. the custom of "Loving Thursdays" whereby village
> > > > elders undertake the sexual initiation of young boys).
> > > >
> > > > Whatever you may think of Shweder's view, it certainly corroborates
> the
> > > > idea that cultural psychology (of which Shweder is probably the
> leading
> > > > advocate after Mike himself) has feet of clay, that it has not yet
> > > > entirely freed itself from its roots as an adjunct of imperialist
> > > > occupation, and that we have a ways to go before we can really say it
> > has
> > > > something to offer every human being it purports to study.
> > > >
> > > > Take English as a global language (PLEASE! Take it away before it
> hurts
> > > > somebody!). English even in its benign forms is a lousy language for
> > > world
> > > > communication precisely because it is a perfect language for world
> > > > domination, a perfect exclusive language for the global community of
> > > > airport hopping rich folks.
> > > >
> > > > English is a nightmare choice for a world language. It is
> > phonologically
> > > > bizarre, grammatically opaque, and pragmatically obscurantist. It has
> a
> > > > dark past, rooted in a dominance born of genocide and slavery. But it
> > > also
> > > > has a certain promise, a certain future, a certain freedom which we
> see
> > > > whenever we teach it in a country like Korea, and we see that the
> more
> > we
> > > > teach it, the less English it becomes.
> > > >
> > > > I think these problems with English are roughly the same problems
> that
> > > > cultural psychology had in Vygotsky's time. Bleuler, who was Piaget's
> > > > teacher and certainly knew Levy-Bruhl's work extremely well, broke
> with
> > > > both Piaget and Levy-Bruhl precisely over the theorized from of these
> > > > problems, the developmental issue of whether "autistic" thinking was
> > > > developmentally primary, ontogenetically or sociogenetically.
> > > >
> > > > Bleuler, and Vygotsky too, turned the Europocentric view right
> > > > upside-down; they believed tha autism, far from being developmentally
> > > > atavistic, required a certain stage of development to achieve: you
> had
> > to
> > > > be able to remember first and only then could you really think about
> > your
> > > > wishes, dreams, desires. They also believed that thinking
> > > "irrealisically"
> > > > about wishes and desires led in a fairly direct way to more
> > > > realistic hopes and plans.
> > > >
> > > > For that very reason it was wrong to consider "autism" as an
> > > > underdeveloped stage; autism, or as he liked to call it, "irrealism"
> > was
> > > > simply that part of human thinking that was genuinely relativistic,
> > where
> > > > neither an adult nor a man "at the pinnacle of civilization" (Bleuler
> > is
> > > > certainly being ironic here since he is writing at the outset of
> World
> > > War
> > > > One) may claim superiority. There may be other areas where one form
> of
> > > > thinking includes, subsumes, and sublates earlier forms (e.g.
> > mathematics
> > > > and science generally) but in the humanities we find variation
> without
> > > > development, at least without development in the sense of the
> emergence
> > > of
> > > > superior forms which asymmetrically include earlier ones.
> > > >
> > > > That Vygotsky took this on board is very clear from his writings on
> > > > creativity and imagination. That Vygotsky went even further than
> > Bleuler
> > > > is clear from his argument that irrealist thinking and realist
> thinking
> > > do
> > > > not turn in parallel, like the wheels of a desk, only in response to
> > the
> > > > external environment, but have an internal connection, an axle, or
> > rather
> > > > a differential, which allow them to influence each other, so that in
> > > > science too we shall find variation without development and in art
> and
> > > the
> > > > humanities some genuine, common, universally valuable (because
> > > universally
> > > > shareable) developments alongside the dazzling and dizzying
> variations
> > > > which for the most part are hard to share.
> > > >
> > > > Nevertheless I think Vygotsky shares Bleuler's basic insight,which we
> > see
> > > > here in the chapter which begins with the Missing Part. By putting
> the
> > > > "autistic" function at the beginning of development, and by lumping
> > > > selfishness, stupidity, schizophrenia, and perfectly normal cultural
> > > > variation into a single syncretic heap, Freud, Levy-Bruhl and Blondel
> > are
> > > > behaving more like idealist savages than intellectual scientists.
> > > >
> > > > So it goes. From Bleuler to Vygotsky, and from Vygotsky to Mike, and
> > from
> > > > Mike to me, and then from me to you, with each of us forgetting
> > something
> > > > and each of us adding on at every step of the way. This is why
> Vygotsky
> > > > comes up with the confusing image of a chain that has a "central"
> link.
> > > > But it's also why there can be, at one and the same moment,
> > universalism
> > > > ("We're all the same"), relativism ("We're all different, but equal")
> > and
> > > > developmentalism ("We're all different, and the differences matter")
> at
> > > > one and the same time.
> > > >
> > > > David Kellogg
> > > > Seoul National University of Education
> > > >
> > > > --- On Mon, 7/12/10, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org><
> ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
> >
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org><
> ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
> >
> > > > Subject: Re: [xmca] The Missing Part
> > > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > > > Date: Monday, July 12, 2010, 6:24 AM
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > David:
> > > >
> > > > This indeed is an important passage in understanding LSV's
> > developmental
> > > > theories.  But I believe cross-cultural research speerheaded by Cole
> > and
> > > > others has discounted 'primitive' cultures as being less developed in
> > > > thought and practice when compared to 'western' culture.  Or am I
> > > > misunderstanding your point?
> > > >
> > > > eric
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > From:   David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
> >
> > > > To:     xmca <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > > > Date:   07/12/2010 02:38 AM
> > > > Subject:        [xmca] The Missing Part
> > > > Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > This is the beginning of Chapter Two of Thinking and Speech that was
> > not
> > > > translated into English. I posted it once several years ago, and
> Anton
> > > > thought it didn't add very much.
> > > >
> > > > I think it does: it structures the whole chapter, because it makes it
> > > > clear that Freud, Levy-Bruhl, and Blondel share a common idealist
> basis
> > > as
> > > >
> > > > well as a common canonical stature.
> > > >
> > > > &Lt;Мы полагаем, . говорит он, . что настанет день, когда мысль
> ребенка
> > > по
> > > >
> > > > отношению к мысли нормального цивилизованного взрослого будет
> помещена
> > в
> > > > ту же плоскость, в какой находится &Lt;примитивное мышление&Gt;,
> > > > охарактеризованное Леви-Брюлем, или аутистическая и символическая
> > мысль,
> > > > описанная Фрейдом и его учениками, или &Lt;болезненное сознание&Gt;,
> > если
> > > > только это понятие, введенное Блонделем, не сольется в один
> прекрасный
> > > > день с предыдущим понятием&Gt; (1, с.408).1 Действительно, появление
> > его
> > > > первых работ по историческому значению
> > > > этого факта для дальнейшего развития психологической мысли должно
> быть
> > по
> > > > справедливости сопоставлено и сравнено с датами выхода в свет &Lt;Les
> > > > fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieures&Gt; Леви-Брюля,
> &Lt;Т
> > > > олкования сновидений&Gt; Фрейда или &Lt;La conscience morbide&Gt;
> > > > Блонделя.
> > > > Больше того, между этими явлениями в различнейших областях научной
> > > > психологии есть не только внешнее сходство, определяемое уровнем их
> > > > исторического значения, но глубокое, кровное, внутреннее родство .
> > связь
> > > > по самой сути заключенных и воплощенных в них философских и
> > > > психологических тенденций. Недаром сам Пиаже в огромной мере опирался
> в
> > > > своих исследованиях и построениях на эти три
> > > > работы и на их авторов.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > “It is therefore our belief", says (Piaget), "that the day will come
> > when
> > > > child thought will be placed on the same level in relation to adult,
> > > > normal, and civilized thought as ‘primitive mentality’, as defined by
> > > > Lévy-Bruhl, as autistic and symbolical thought as described by Freud
> > and
> > > > his disciples and as ‘morbid consciousness,’ assuming that this last
> > > > concept, which we owe to M. Ch. Blondel, is not simply fused with the
> > > > former.” (p. 201-202). In reality, the appearance of this first
> works,
> > in
> > > > regard to the historic importance as a fact for future reference in
> the
> > > > development of psychological thought must be on the compared with the
> > > > appearance of “Les fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieures”
> of
> > > > Levi- Bruhl, Freud’s “The interpretation of dreams’, or Blondel’s “La
> > > > conscience morbide”. It is not simply that between these phenomena in
> > the
> > > > development of the field of scientific psychology there is a formal
> > > > resemblance, determined by their level of historic importance, but
> that
> > > > there is a deep, internal kinship, a connection in essence which is
> > > > visible in their philosophical and psychological tendencies. Not
> > without
> > > > reason does Piaget himself base in enormous measure his own studies
> and
> > > > constructions on these three works and on their authors.
> > > >
> > > > Last night I was re-reading Bleuler's criticisms of Freud in
> "Autistic
> > > > Thinking" and I also came upon these words, which Vygotsky quotes
> > > > approvingly.
> > > >
> > > > "Examining the more grown-up child, I also do not much observe that
> he
> > > > would prefer the imaginary apple to the real. The imbecile and the
> > savage
> > > > are alike practitioners of Realpolitik and the latter, (exactly like
> > us,
> > > > who stand at the apex of cognitive ability) makes his autistic
> > > stupidities
> > > >
> > > > only in such cases when reason and experience prove insufficient: in
> > his
> > > > ideas about the universe, about the phenomena of nature, in his
> > > > understanding of diseases and other blows of destiny, in adopting
> > > measures
> > > >
> > > > to shield himself from them, and in other relationships which are too
> > > > complex for him.”
> > > >
> > > > It seems to me that here and elsewhere in this chapter Bleuler is
> > arguing
> > > > for, and Vygotsky is agreeing with, a position that is simultaneously
> > > > universalist, relativist, and developmentalist. It is universalist in
> > the
> > > > sense that it argues for a universal human autistic response to areas
> > of
> > > > experience of which we are ignorant. It is relativist in the sense
> that
> > > it
> > > >
> > > > argues for the independence of an "autistic" response from
> rationality
> > > and
> > > >
> > > > an autonomous art and autonomous humanities based on that
> independence
> > > > that is in no way subordinate to rationality. It is developmentalist
> in
> > > > the sense that it argues for an autistic response which develops out
> of
> > a
> > > > narrow, immediately realistic (perception based?) reality function
> > rather
> > > > than vice versa (as in Freud, Janet, and Levy-Bruhl).
> > > >
> > > > David Kellogg
> > > > Seoul National University of Education
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> > > >
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