Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Leading Activity

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Andy

You wrote,

 "Which discipline should lead, unify, and elaborate the basic concepts,
principles, and methods, verify and systematise the data of all other
areas?    You see this question having a similar theme to David Ki's
account of genres.

In the spirit of this question I want to bring Lakoff & Johnson's
perspective of 2nd generation cognitive science into the discussion.  This
perspective is elaborated in their book "Philosophy in the Flesh"

In a section of the book titled "Phenomenology, Functionalism, and
Materialism: The Issue of Privileging the Metaphysics of Only One Level"
they elaborate a perspective that suggests we can explain or understand
reality at more than one level. They suggest there are three frameworks for
understanding what is "real" 1 Direct  2 Representational 3 embodied.

These alternative frameworks emerged historically.  The Greeks assumed a
direct relation of the real. In the direct model there is no split between
ontology [what there IS] and epistemology [what you could KNOW]

With Descartes, a gap opened between mind and world. Ideas became internal
representations OF external reality that CORRESPONDED to the external world
and the mind becomes disembodied. In the most popular current version [1st
generation cognitive science] representations have shrunk to symbolic
representations or "symbol-system realism" (for example Foder) Symbol-system
realism is a legacy of analytic philosophy.

Lakoff and Johnson suggest with the 2nd generation of cognitive science
there has been a shift to embodied realism (embodied reason) This
perspective is an evolution based realism in which our bodies and brains
accomodate and transform our surroundings.

All three perspective are realist as they accept that the material world
exists and we can give an account of how we function successfully in the
world.  The direct and embodied perspective share an assumtion that there is
no mind-body gap whereas the representational view accepts a gap.  However
the embodied view rejects the premise that we can have absolutely correct
objective knowledge of the world because our knowledge is constrained by the
limitations of our physical bodies.  Embodied realism assumes a different
epistemology and rejects the epistemology of direct absolute knowledge of
the world-in-itself.  Knowledge is therefore relative, but not radically
relative.  Knowledge is relative to the limited capacity of our bodies,
brains, and embodied interactions in the world.

Lakoff and Johnson suggest there are DIRECTLY embodied concepts [primary
basic level concepts, spatial-relations concepts, and event-structure
concepts] which form the basis of "stable" knowledge.  They also postulate
the existence of PRIMARY METAPHORS which are the origin and make possible
the extension of the direct basic level concepts INTO abstract domains.
The PRIMARY metaphors are highly constrained both by the nature of our
bodies and brains AND by the interactions in the world.

Embodied realism  recognizes that concepts do change over time, vary across
cultures, and have multiple structures which reflect social interactions and
social constructions.

Lakoff and Johnson recognize John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as
anticipating the emergence of embodied realism. Both recognized when we use
the words "mind" and "body" we are imposing bounded conceptual structures
artificially on a horizon of fluid processes that constitute our
experience.  The concepts "subjective" and "objective" are imposed on this
fluid process.  More recently Varela, Thompson, and Rosch have extended
understanding of embodied realism with their ENACTIVE notion of experience
which depend on sensorimotor capacities embedded within biological,
psychological, and cultural contexts.

Lakoff and Johnson's embodied realism framework is distinguished from these
other  perspectives in their reliance on empirical neuroscience in their
understanding of the structuring of experience.

 Lakoff and Johnson suggest there are at least three LEVELS to understanding
the embodiment of concepts. [neural level, phenomenological conscious level,
and a 3rd level they label the cognitive unconscious] The neural level is
explored through the metaphor of neural structure in electronic, circuitry
concepts. "Truth" at the neural level shares this common metaphor of
electronic terms.  Lakoff and Johnson point out that many neural scientists
make the mistake of assuming they are exploring a "physical" level but loose
sight that they are explaining this physical level in metaphorical terms of
neural circuitry.

The 2nd phenomenological level is the level at which we speak of the "feel"
of experience as conscious, and the way things appear to us.

Lakoff and Johnson hypothesize a 3rd level of nonconscious structure
[phenomenology also posits this level] which makes possible the structure of
consciousness.  This nonconscious level is highly structured but
inaccessible to conscious awareness.  Lakoff and Johnson suggest that to say
the cognitive unconscious is real is much like saying neural circuitry is
real.

The 3 levels ARE RELATED.  We would not have spatial-relation concepts
without orientation-sensitive nerve cells.  We would not have the color
concepts we have without specific neural circuitry that creates the color
categories.  The neural level AND experience of the external world together
significantly determine what concepts develop.

Full understanding from Lakoff and Johnson's perspective requires
explanations at ALL 3 LEVELS.  No one level is sufficient to explain the
mind. Many aspects of mind are about the "feel" of experience
[phenomenological level]  Other aspects of mind can only be explained as
higher-level patterns which constitute the cognitive unconscious.  All 3
levels are present. Explanations at all 3 levels are necessary [though not
sufficient] for adequate accounts of the mind.

Color is an example of levels of explanation.  At the phenomenological level
we perceice colors as being "in" the objects that "are" colored. Grass IS
green.  This is a phenomenology-first account of truth which privileges that
level over scientific neural circuity truth claims.  The word "green"
reflects our conscious phenomenological experience of colors inhering in
objects themselves.  If grass is green then there is greeness in the grass.

However from the neural circuitry level of truth colors do not inhere in the
objects themselves. They are created by our color cones and neural circuitry
together with the wavelength reflectances of objects and local light
conditions.  "At the neural level, green is a multiplace interactional
property"  This truth claim contradicts the truth claim at the
phenomenological level.  These are "distinct" truths at different levels.
To state both the phenomenological and neural truths requires looking at
both levels at once. There is NO independent neutral truth beyond
perspectives.  Each level provides different modes of understanding.

Embodied truth is not subjective truth. Lakoff and Johnson hypothesize we
all have similar embodied BASIC level and spatial-relation abilities to
perceive and manipulate [sensori-motor] which explains the structure of
primary metaphors.  Lakoff and Johnson are advocating a metaphysical
pluralism of explanations.  They suggest functionalists priviledge the level
of the cognitive unconscious, whereas Husserl privileges the
phenomenological.  Eliminative materialists such as Churchland privilege the
neural level for all aspects of cognition.  Functioalist developmental
scholars who study the acquistion of language privilege both the
phenomenological and cognitive unconscious levels but are silent on the
neural level.  Lakoff and Johnson recognize the validity of all 3 levels as
distinct levels of understanding within their version of 2nd generation
cognitive science.  Although there is NOT ONE correct description there can
still be MANY CORRECT descriptions, depending on embodied understandings at
different levels or different perspectives.   Each distinct perspective
provides a distinct commitment to what is real about that situation. Each is
a version of a commitment to truth.

Lakoff and Johnson take a position that they are PHYSICALISTS in that they
believe there is an ultimate material basis for what is real.  But they are
not "eliminativists" who posit that only physically existing "entities" are
real.  For Lakoff and Johnson entities such as "basic primary metaphors"
[embodied metaphors] are real.

Andy, I'm not sure where notions of "embodied" realism, mind, and cognition
fit in your question of "leading" frameworks, but it is one more example of
the possible usefullness of plural explanations of experience.

Larry

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> I have just started re-reading Vygotsky's "Historical Crisis" from the
> beginning, for the first time for many years (I have looked a cetain "hot"
> topics, but not read it from the beginning for years). There is a pair of
> insights which he offers which I'd like to remind people of.
>
> (1) He says that at different stages in the history of psychology, one or
> another branch of psychology plays the "leading role." First the psychology
> of the normal adult person, then pathology and then the psychology of the
> unconscious. He asks: "Which discipline should lead, unify, and elaborate
> the basic concepts, principles, and methods, verify and systematise the data
> of all other areas?
>
> He then goes on to consider the same problem in a slightly different way:
> "What makes the most diverse phenomena into psychological facts - from the
> salivation in a dog to the enjoyment of a tragedy, what do the ravings of a
> madman and the rigorous computations of the mathematician share?" In other
> words, what is the concept of psychology and its subject matter? He then
> goes on to look at three competing answers, based on reflections of the
> proposed leading roles to be given to subjective psychology, animal
> psychology or psychoanalysis: "For general psychology the three answers
> mean, respectively that it is a science of (1) the mental and its
> properties, or (2) behaviour; or (3) the unconscious." This leads very
> directly to a consideration of the concept of psychology in terms of a unit
> of analysis.
>
> Could we give an answer to the question as to which branch of general
> psychology plays the "leading role" today, in these very
> historical/objective terms?
>
> Andy
> --
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