RE: [xmca]-- LONG trails of prior messages help!!

["David H Kirshner" <dkirsh@lsu.edu>]

Mike,
Thanks for raising this issue. 
The culprit, in my opinion, is the mail system that inserts ">" in front of every line from the email being replied to. 
This is an excellent system for exchanges that consist of only a few (two or three) responses. But we all regularly suffer the consequence of distorted formats when we want to look back over longer exchanges. 
David


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2011 5:04 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca]-- LONG trails of prior messages help!!

HUW et al--

I do not know about others, but I have been receiving emails with many many
pages of badly formatted prior messages in the message stream. I have, for
example, not been able to find the content in either of your prior messages
and have had the same difficulty with others.

Perhaps I am sensitive to this because I am away from home with limited
email access, but it seems a general problem.

I have been unable to find a general solution to this issue. All messages
are posted at xmca for later reading, so it seems that restricting the
message trail in current messages would not restrict access.

Might we, by convention, delete all but prior messages or does this cause
difficulties.

Lots of fascinating ideas streaming through xmca!

mike
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 2:46 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>wrote:

> David Kellogg wrote:
>
>
> > Dear Ana, Vera:
> >
> > Einstein, interviewed, said that language appears to play no part in his
> > thinking; that he always began with a particularly strong VISUAL image: a
> > man straddling a train going faster than light, or a falling elevator, or
> > chucking a heavy weight out of the window of a train.
> >
> > Of course, you and I can see how much these visual images depend on
> verbal
> > perception, on thinking sights rather than seeing thoughts. But it is
> > certainly true that they are not directly dependent on word meanings;
>
>
> The distinction that I draw here is between the 'data' of vision, hearing
> etc. and the meaning of seeing and listening.  From this position it's more
> apparent that the meanings, and the manner of their mediation, originate
> from social circumstances.
>
>
> > I remember my father laughing at my brother, who complained that all the
> > TAs at MIT had strong Chinese accents, and saying that it was their
> written
> > equations on the blackboard that he should be attending to anyway.
> >
>
> This anecdote could also be construed as someone's attempt to avail
> themselves of a more appropriate way of seeing, which, no doubt, is hard to
> achieve from within a positivist framework, one ends up focusing upon the
> sensed data: accents and markings on a board.
>
>
> >
> > I find myself in perfect agreement with what Ana suggests about the use
> of
> > language in classrooms in general and foreign language classrooms in
> > particular. But I notice that the various functions she suggests  "to
> know
> > something, to experience something meaningful, or to act in some
> significant
> > way in a meaningful conversation" are different in important ways. I
> would
> > say that the kids in our classrooms, perhaps unlike those in american
> > classrooms, know a lot and experience learning as meaningful, but they
> lack
> > the ability to act in a significant way in a meaningful conversation.
> >
> > When we look at the "stable" periods of development in Volume Five, we
> > notice that they are often marked by a child's transition from knowing
> and
> > experiencing to acting. For example, in infancy the child goes from
> > observing smiles to smiling, and in early childhood from understanding
> > speech to speaking. Even the critical periods of development are caused
> by a
> > somewhat too precocious activity on the part of the child; the
> substitution
> > of a neoformation for a whole social situation of development (e.g. the
> > crisis of "No!" at three).
> >
> > I guess that it's the transition from knowing and experiencing to acting
> > that I am most interested in. The kids are looking at a picture which
> show a
> > boy, Jinho, and a girl, Ann. They are looking at a calendar which says it
> is
> > May first and there are only four days until the Korean holiday of
> > Children's Day. They are sixth graders, and it is the last Children's Day
> of
> > their young lives; they are discussing, somewhat enviously and peevishly,
> > what they will get as presents, and how many they will get.
> >
> >
>
> The omission I'm noticing here is that knowing and experiencing is an
> activity in itself.
>
> [...]
>
>
> > For Graves, language had the key function of helping him NOT see--helping
> > him to recover from shell shock. That is why he wrote:
> >
>
> Nice example, do you mean 'not see' here, or 'not see in a particular way'.
> I am comfortable with the latter.
>
> Thanks for the interesting post,
>
> Huw
>
>
> >
> > Children are dumb to say how hot the day is
> > How hot the scent is of the summer rose
> > How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky
> > How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by
> >
> > But we have speech to chill the angry day
> > And speech to dull the rose's cruel scent
> > We spell away the overhanging night
> > We spell away the soldiers and the fright
> >
> > There's a cool web of language winds us in
> > Retreat from too much joy or too much fear
> > We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
> > In brininess and volubility.
> >
> > But if we let our tongues lose self-possession
> > Throwing off language and its watery clasp
> > Before our death instead of when death comes
> > Facing the wide glare of the children's day
> > Facing the rose, the dark sky, and the drums
> > We shall go mad no doubt and die that way
> >  (The Cool Web, 1927)
> >
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Fri, 4/15/11, Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Friday, April 15, 2011, 10:57 AM
> >
> >
> > Hi everyone writing about concepts.
> > As I was reading the many messages I was also teaching a class about
> > Einstein's theory of relativity in my creativity class. I was struck by
> how
> > he lived vividly with abstraction, enriching them with tactile and
> graphic
> > examples.  To develop the theory, he had to  struggle with the physical
> > implication of concepts but he was also  looking at significant
> > relationships between them. One of the things that I have missed,
> probably
> > because there was so much to read, is  a description of the activity of
> > constructing systems of concepts which sometimes require hollowing them,
> > testing them against empirical data, working with them to simplify them,
> but
> > interconnecting them.
> > That is part of theoretical practice which we engage in  here at xmca
> often
> > and with passion. There is a new development in mathematics, the study
>  of
> > the philosophy of mathematical practice. I think that is an important
> > unification of the activity of the mathematician with his/her tools:
> > mathematical concepts.
> > Vera
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ana Marjanovic-Shane" <
> > anamshane@gmail.com>
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 12:58 AM
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> >
> >
> > Dear David and all,
> >
> > Your vision of teaching concepts helped me realize why so many schools
> kill
> > interest in learning and make it into often tedious chore to be done on
> > demand of a teacher, rather than because one is interested or really
> needs
> > to. It seems to me that "leaving Conrad out of classroom" teaches
> children
> > not so much about concepts and generalizations but more that school
> > knowledge is a lifeless structure without anybody in it, through which
> they
> > have to wonder alone, like through a glass labyrinth, hearing echos of
> their
> > own voices, but never entering a dialogue.
> >
> > I am absolutely certain that no baby would ever learn to speak, if they
> > would learn and learn and learn to generalize without dialogues and
> > narratives, and a life full of real, material, syntagmatic surprises. I
> > agree with Voloshinov's claim that for a speaker (and a learner of a
> > language), language is never an "abstract system of properties and static
> > concepts", but a live, moving and ideologically charged way of doing (in
> the
> > sense of POSTUPOK -- an act towards another person which caries an
> ethical
> > charge) by creating and shaping relationships and positions (vistas).
> > Through this live process of making relationships and connections through
> > dialogues, learners of a language also build paradigmatic structures of
> > concepts, structures that they can organize and reorganize at the
> moment's
> > notice (through metaphors and other so called "figures" of speech --
> which,
> > incidentally, is a great way to describe what they are literally doing).
> > Concepts are neither
> >  a GOAL, nor an underlying, independently existing STRUCTURE of language:
> > they are, on one hand, just potential ways to gather and shape certain
> > mental tools, AND at the same time they are like instant holograms, that
> > speakers can conjure (using new combinations of previous relations) and
> > instantaneously gesture to one other (not a typo, not a foreigner's error
> --
> > I am using "gesture" as a verb). Concepts' "life spans" range from
> fleeting
> > moments to centuries old -- but they are always a product of relations
> and
> > relationships in an instant (episode) of a cultural practice (real or
> > imagined).
> >
> > I am digressing...
> >
> > Teaching concepts without live content and, even more, without an
> immediate
> > purpose -- kills the concepts themselves: they actually do not breathe
> > without air (another Voloshinov's metaphor) and their air is a live
> language
> > that is addressed to someone with a purpose! This SYNTAGMATIC air is what
> > gives them life!  It is true that studying concepts and writing about
> their
> > origins, development ,  structure and relations between them -- is a
> > purposeful activity in which they have a special position and are, so to
> > speak, re-puposed in another habitat (as we do here). But students of a
> > foreign language usually are there to learn a language -- for the purpose
> of
> > using it -- not of studying the conceptual aspect of language in itself.
> > This may become their interest -- but not necessarily. Language learners
> are
> > usually neither linguists, semioticians nor logicians. Language is opaque
> > for the linguists/semioticians/logicans. This opaqueness, its visibility,
> is
> >  great when language itself it in the focus, but when language is opaque,
> > it is an obstacle and a barrier to actually using it for painting
> pictures
> > with words. (The so called "use/mention" distinction by D. Hoffstadter,
> > "Goddel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, 1979).
> >
> > Too many children and adults in today's schools spend hours and hours in
> > decontextualized activities trying to make long lists of ingredients and
> > catalogues of possible combinations of fossilized fragments of someone
> > else's concepts. They have many ingredients and seldom learn how to think
> > with them -- unless they are immersed in a practice in which the concepts
> > will live for them for the first time. Conrad could maybe help them
> > experience that life in school from the very beginning.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Ana
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________
> > Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
> > Assistant Professor of Education
> > Chestnut Hill College
> > St. Joseph Hall, 4th Floor, Room #172
> > e-mails:  Marjanovic-ShaneA@chc.edu
> >                anamshane@gmail.com
> > Phone:    215-995-3207
> >
> > On Apr 13, 2011, at 7:59 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
> >
> > > Ana, Jay:
> > >
> > > Yes, I agree. "Jinho has stripey hair" is more novelistic than "Jinho
> is
> > a Korean boy", if we take seriously Joseph Conrad's injunction that the
> task
> > of a novelist is "to make you see" with words (in his introduction to the
> > very novelistic but not particularly enlightened tale "The Nigger of the
> > Narcissus").
> > >
> > > But a teacher's task is a little different from Conrad's: it is to make
> > you think and talk with words. And my argument was that the "Jiniho is a
> > Korean boy" was a better mdel for "Ann is a non-Korean girl" than "Jinho
> has
> > stripey hair". I encourage my teachers (by bad example, among other
> things)
> > to keep their novelizing in their novels and out of the classroom, which
> is
> > a place for children to learn, and to learn, and to learn to generalize,
> so
> > that they may some day, if they can, learn to novelize.
> > >
> > > I think that when you are writing a novel, you have an enormous amount
> of
> > SYNTAGMATIC variation: new situations bring entirely new vocabulary. This
> > can be empowering...but only if you have the power to do it, and when you
> > are learning a foreign language which is as different as English from
> > Korean, that is simply not the case.
> > >
> > > Of course, being a good raconteur is highly respected, and lucrative,
> > work; it is certainly far more glamorous, and more commercial, than
> teaching
> > paradigms of vocabulary. But that doesn't make it good teaching. It's
> only
> > good teaching if it enables children to be good raconteurs.
> > >
> > > It only does that if the children can learn the vocabulary they need,
> and
> > they will only learn it if they can use and reuse it.  They can't do that
> > with the pictures always changing. They CAN do it with concepts that are
> > repeated and varied.
> > >
> > >
> > > The idea that nonvisual conceptualizations are disempowering for
> children
> > is, I think, a demagogic, and ultimately disempowering one, and behind it
> > lies an idea that is liberal and lazy at best.  Looking across the
> Pacific
> > at what we are told will be our future, I can't help but feel that the
> > American left shares some responsibility for the simultaneous rise in
> > American education of, on the one hand, a politically (although not
> > intellectually) vigorous "back to basics" movement (now called "race to
> the
> > top") whose appeal is by no means limited to white people and, on the
> other
> > hand, the sort of short-sighted "realism" that will probably mean the
> death
> > of all that recapitalization was promised to education when Obama ran in
> > 2008 (flirting with Darling-Hammond and eventually marrying Arne Duncan).
> > >
> > > Both the "back to the basics" reactionaries and the "pragmatic
> > progressives" are able to say, with some truth, that they are talking
> about
> > things that will make a real difference in people's lives (what they do
> not
> > admit is that that difference will be overwhelmingly negative for all but
> > the already chosen few). Can we always say the same?
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > > Seoul National University of Education
> > >
> > > --- On Tue, 4/12/11, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 8:20 PM
> > >
> > >
> > > I liked Ana's questioning of the cultural value attached to particular
> > views about concepts in her response to David's commentary on two little
> > passages about Jinho.
> > >
> > > David is extolling the formal aspect of meaning as a tool:
> > classification, set theory, syllogistic reasoning. Ana is emphasizing the
> > value of meaning as a tool for story-telling, for engaging someone in an
> > imagined world, for projecting possibilities. David's first example is,
> from
> > the second point of view, pedantic and artificial, a mere pretext for the
> > exegesis of a a system of classification (i.e. all boys are either Korean
> or
> > foreign. This boy is Korean.). There is no projected story, no
> engagement,
> > at least relatively to the second one, which could be the opening of the
> > saga of a Korean Naruto.
> > >
> > > Of course this overstates things, but it does call attention to the
> > multiple functions of verbal meaning-making, and its seems to me unwise
> to
> > extol abstract classification and generalization at the level of the
> > word-based category as being the higher "conceptual" function of
> language. I
> > always try to understand Vygotsky's use of "the word" as meaning not
> > individual isolated words (except sometimes) but more to speech, to
> > utterance, to verbal meanings, which usually require a lot more than one
> > word, or at least that word in a richly prepared context (verbal and/or
> > nonverbal). A word, or a verbal meaning is not automatically a
> > generalization. Isolated words have a "meaning potential" a probability
> > distribution of possible meanings, and as they are combined with co-text
> and
> > context, the net meanings they help to make get more specified, and can
> be
> > either meanings about general propositions or meanings about specific
> > instances. Words are sign-tools that
> > > when used in particular meaning-making practices can indicate
> categories,
> > and relations among categories that count as generalizations, or equally
> > well can be used to designate particular concrete things or tell very
> > specific stories.
> > >
> > > Isolated words are always the wrong unit of analysis when considering
> > questions of meaning.
> > >
> > > This applies even to the acquisition of single-word utterances in early
> > childhood, as I think is now pretty well accepted.
> > >
> > > So verbal meaning making does not automatically imply generalization or
> > categories, though languages have devices for distinguishing through
> > different wordings between meanings made about instances and meanings
> made
> > as generalizations or through categories.
> > >
> > > And the ability to support meanings about abstract categories is just
> one
> > function of the linguistic system and our ways of using it, and not
> > necessarily (indeed I would say rather obviously not) the highest or most
> > valuable of its functions in use.
> > >
> > > So what of "concepts," then? I think we have to distinguish between
> > reasoning in terms of abstract categories to make general propositions,
> and
> > doing so through language (which is the original sign system for doing
> so)
> > and saying that this process entails "concepts". The process surely
> happens.
> > It surely happens most of the time, and originally in intellectual-social
> > development, through mobilizing the linguistic sign system (along with
> other
> > sign modalities). None of that implies a model or analysis of the process
> in
> > terms of "concepts". Depending obviously on what one means by a concept.
> I
> > am pretty sure that this process does not take place by the deployment of
> > some fixed (even expandable) repertoire of semantic primitives. Nor in
> terms
> > of any unit of meaning that precedes and then gets "expressed in"
> language.
> > The meanings come into being in and through the deployment of the
> linguistic
> > signs and do not have any independent or prior existence
> >  (contra
> > > Platonism and its romantic revivals, contra the thesis of a "lingua
> > mentis" and contra Fodor and maybe Pinker).
> > >
> > > So whatever LSV may have meant by "concept", in linking it as he does
> to
> > language and speech in development, he likely did not mean either
> idealist
> > concepts or internal mental realities that then get expressed outwardly
> in
> > speech.
> > >
> > > The etymology, as was noted, for "concept" meant a taking or pulling
> > together. A concept brings together instances, giving one name to many
> > similar but different things. At least that's the received notion. But is
> > it, itself, anything more than the name we use to do this? and as a name,
> > merely part of more complex locutions we use to do this? or as makes more
> > sense, developmentally and in semiotic analysis, merely the front-man for
> a
> > complex systems of speech and gesture and integration with context, and
> > generally a very multi-modal procedure for con-cepting a lot of stuff
> under
> > a category-term? The object of study needs to be this whole complex of
> > doings and meanings (as verbs) that produces the category result, and
> surely
> > this is not anything one would call "a concept".
> > >
> > > All that of course is just taking categories one at a time, and we know
> > things are never that simple. Categories are made through distinctions,
> and
> > so systems of categories get created and the meanings we make with any
> one
> > category-term are interpretable in relation to to all the others (e.g.
> > foreign vs. Korean). But there is lots of research on how categories get
> > made and used linguistically and they all pretty much show that what you
> > have to pay attention to are the complex processes by which the
> connections
> > among things in the categories are foregrounded or backgrounded, making
> > category use more flexible and indeed potentially ambiguous, polysemic,
> etc.
> > Categories get merged and divided, new ones are formed out of the shards
> of
> > older ones. ALL "concepts", not just scientific ones, come in such fluid
> and
> > squabbling families. Scientific and especially mathematical category
> terms,
> > defined by their family connections to one another (and in the case of
> > > scientific ones by links to nonverbal objects and activities), TRY to
> > impose an artificial stability and fixedness (and in mathematics special
> > conditions allow greater success in doing so) -- but these are hardly a
> > model for how these matters usually go.
> > >
> > > I think we have fallen culturally into the habit of saying that we
> think
> > in terms of concepts, but I see no persuasive evidence that we do. We
> make
> > meanings with sign resources in contexts, and some of those meanings
> > sometimes have some of the features said to define a concept. Meanwhile
> the
> > mentalist, idealist, universalist baggage that the notion drags in with
> it
> > continues to do immeasurable harm in both education and psychology.
> > >
> > > Jay Lemke
> > > Senior Research Scientist
> > > Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> > > University of California - San Diego
> > > 9500 Gilman Drive
> > > La Jolla, California 92093-0506
> > >
> > > Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
> > > School of Education
> > > University of Michigan
> > > Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> > > www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke> <
> http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
> > >
> > > Professor Emeritus
> > > City University of New York
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Apr 12, 2011, at 7:09 PM, Ana Marjanovic-Shane wrote:
> > >
> > >> Dear David and all,
> > >>
> > >> Just a small remark or a question:
> > >>
> > >> If the two lines you compare were a beginning of two novels, and
> someone
> > >> asked you which one of these novels would you prefer to read, what
> would
> > be
> > >> your answer?
> > >>
> > >> For some reason, I would be more intrigued to read the novel beginning
> > with
> > >> the second line:
> > >>
> > >> "Look! He has a blue sweater. He has no glasses. He has stripey hair.
> > His
> > >> name is Jinho."
> > >>
> > >> It seems not imprisoning me in the visual, but on the contrary,
> openiing
> > my
> > >> eyes to see something interesting. The first one is telling me nothing
> > that
> > >> I don't already know -- except that there is a Korean boy Jinho.  OK -
> > so
> > >> what?
> > >>
> > >> So even though you claim that the first line is conceptual, and that
> the
> > >> second one is a mere description of visuals, I am attracted to the
> > second
> > >> line as a beginning of a possibly exciting story.
> > >>
> > >> I wonder if the second line does not carry some other important
> > properties,
> > >> other than conceptual but equally improtant?
> > >>
> > >> Ana
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________
> > >>
> > >> Ana Marjanovic-Shane
> > >> 215-995-3207
> > >> e-mails: anamshane@gmail.com
> > >>             ana@zmajcenter.org
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:45 PM, David Kellogg <
> > vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Tonight I have to discuss the difference between the following.
> > >>>
> > >>> T: Look! This is a boy. He's not a foreign boy. He's a Korean boy.
> This
> > is
> > >>> Jinho.
> > >>>
> > >>> T: Look! He has a blue sweater. He has no glasses. He has stripey
> hair.
> > His
> > >>> name is Jinho.
> > >>>
> > >>> It seems to me there are three important differences, from the
> > teacher's
> > >>> point of view.
> > >>>
> > >>> a) The first one repeats the concept "boy" and the indefinite article
> > used
> > >>> to mark it as an example of the concept (actually, a number, as
> opposed
> > to
> > >>> an indicative or a demonstrative like "the" or "this" or "that"). The
> > second
> > >>> does not.
> > >>>
> > >>> b) Imagine the teacher following up this information with the open
> > question
> > >>> "Tell me about Jinho". The first offers conceptual material
> ("foreign",
> > >>> "boy", "Korean") that can be used by the children with ALL the other
> > >>> characters in our textbook: Joon, Ann, Nami, Peter, Bill, and so on.
> > The
> > >>> second one does not.
> > >>>
> > >>> c) Imagine the teacher following up the answers with a CRITICAL
> > metaprocess
> > >>> question "How do you know?" The first leads to a conversation about
> > what
> > >>> names are boy's names and what names are girl's names, which names
> > sound
> > >>> Korean and which sound foreign. The second merely leads back to the
> > picture,
> > >>> or back to the teacher's hearsay.
> > >>>
> > >>> Ideologically, the first one suggests a model of a concept that is a
> > >>> generalized and abstracted essence: "boy", "foreign", and "Korean"
> are
> > all
> > >>> essential QUALITIES (and not, actually, things). The second ALSO has
> an
> > >>> implicit model of a concept; it is based on the possession of
> material
> > >>> objects (and not essential properties).
> > >>>
> > >>> It seems to me that for all three reasons, the first way of framing
> the
> > >>> question provides a way OUT of the enslavement of the visual field
> and
> > the
> > >>> second does not. I remember that Larry speculated about concepts and
> > >>> conceptualizations that emprison us. It seems to me that prisons are
> > made of
> > >>> much sturdier and sterner stuff.
> > >>>
> > >>> David Kellogg
> > >>> Seoul National University of Education
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --- On Mon, 4/11/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> > >>> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > >>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>> Date: Monday, April 11, 2011, 8:16 PM
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Phillip,
> > >>>
> > >>> I didn't mean any petard-hoisting, honestly! I just get excited at
> > times
> > >>> about ideas. Big ones, and little ones too.
> > >>>
> > >>> Let me respond a bit more appreciatively to what you're saying. I'm
> > most
> > >>> interested at the moment, in my own work, in trying to understand
> > Vygotsky.
> > >>> I think I share that interest with some others here, but I'm equally
> > sure
> > >>> not everyone has the interest. But to me it's quite fascinating to
> > struggle
> > >>> to try to interpret and apply texts that I am separated from by time,
> > >>> language, geography and economic system.
> > >>>
> > >>> Is there power in knowledge? Do knowledge claims bolster positions of
> > >>> professional expertise? Do academics not traffic in prestige and
> > advantage
> > >>> even as we make apparently neutral and detached pronouncements about
> > trivial
> > >>> details? Does success in every endeavor not "depend on a very complex
> > >>> knowledge of and ability to manipulate determinative politics,
> > discourses,
> > >>> and institutions -- on professional competencies and social
> privileges
> > that
> > >>> constitute even the 'organic intellectuals'"? (That's Paul Bové
> beating
> > up
> > >>> on Charles Taylor in his foreword to Deleuze's book on Foucault.)
> > >>>
> > >>> Yes, of course. I take Foucault very seriously. Does Vygotsky write
> > about
> > >>> any of this? No, not really. Does that mean he was not aware of it?
> > >>> Impossible! This was a man who read Marx, who was living at the time
> of
> > a
> > >>> revolution whose stated aim it was to correct the distortions that an
> > unjust
> > >>> society had wrought on human beings, and who was in a position of
> power
> > >>> himself when Stalin took control. How could he possibly not have been
> > aware
> > >>> of the connections between knowledge and power, the micro-politics of
> > >>> concepts?
> > >>>
> > >>> He did write occasionally, as in "The Socialist Formation of Man," of
> > >>> topics such as the formation of the "psychological superstructure of
> > man"
> > >>> and of "the basic assumption that intellectual production is
> determined
> > by
> > >>> the form of material production." He wrote that "A fundamental change
> > of the
> > >>> whole system of these [societal] relationships which man is a part
> of,
> > will
> > >>> also inevitably lead to a change in consciousness, a change in man's
> > whole
> > >>> behaviour." He even wrote of Nietzsche and questioned his assumption
> > that
> > >>> the will to power would continue to dominate human relations. By and
> > large,
> > >>> though, his writings let these things pass.
> > >>>
> > >>> Just as at the beginning of T&S Vygotsky writes that of course
> emotion
> > and
> > >>> communication are intimately linked to thinking and speaking, but
> that
> > they
> > >>> must fade into the background in his analysis in that book, I read
> all
> > >>> Vygotsky's texts assuming that politics and power are also in the
> > >>> background, unspoken but not forgotten. Then, to me, it seems that
> what
> > >>> Vygotsky was doing is similar to what Foucault was doing in his
> > writings on
> > >>> the ethics of self-formation. He is focused on the *formation* of
> > subjects,
> > >>> and of forms of subjectivity, as children grow into adults in
> whatever
> > kind
> > >>> of distorted social order they happen to be born into. Could he
> > explicitly
> > >>> put it that way? Did he have the space or time to spell out the whole
> > story?
> > >>> Or do we have to do it for him?
> > >>>
> > >>> Bottom line, I don't see that a politics of concepts is in any clear
> > way
> > >>> incompatible with Vygotsky's project, as I grasp it. His 'concrete
> > >>> psychology' of the Moscow tram driver would also be a study of the
> > American
> > >>> professor.
> > >>>
> > >>> Martin
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> On Apr 11, 2011, at 8:52 PM, White, Phillip wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> ah, the bliss of being hoisted upon one's own petard!  thanks,
> Martin.
> > >>> (;-)
> > >>>>
> > >>>> yeah, Foucault's use of concept is constant.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> what i was obliquely attempting to get at was that the term
> 'concept'
> > >>> could be seen as highfalutin, rather than, say, the term "big idea".
> > (hah!
> > >>> of course, my father would rebuke me with, "What's the big idea?!")
> > >>>>
> > >>>> but what i mean is that concept is another word for idea.  and an
> idea
> > >>> that appears to be difficult to grasp, abstract in short, could be
> seen
> > as a
> > >>> 'big idea'.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> it's about lingo, using latinate/greek words, rather than those
> little
> > >>> ordinary daily words.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> it even seems to me that when, say, i'm teaching about "community of
> > >>> practice" - i guess we could say that's a pretty big concept, or even
> > >>> "legitimate peripheral participation", that initially it seems
> > abstract, but
> > >>> once everyone in the class talks about it, that over time, with
> > concrete
> > >>> examples from experience, that "community of practice" no longer
> seems
> > >>> abstract.  in fact, it seems quite real and people can identify it
> when
> > they
> > >>> observe it, just like they can identify the difference between an
> > ornamental
> > >>> pear tree and a comice pear tree.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> takes me back to Bateson - that making sense of the world,
> recognizing
> > >>> the patterns, is recognizing the difference that makes a difference.
> > and
> > >>> it's that curious difference wherein a child over time can
> distinguish
> > >>> bertween a cat and a dog and a horse and a donkey, and it's through
> > >>> recognizing the difference that makes a difference.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> so, while Foucault didn't suggest it, i'm suggesting that one of the
> > ways
> > >>> experts claimed expertise was to employ a vocabulary that would set
> the
> > >>> profession apart from the everyday world of being.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> am i being anti-intellectual?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> because when with my students we been reading Lave, say, and there
> is
> > >>> always someone who complains about her vocabulary, i always argue in
> > support
> > >>> of her vocabulary.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> internal contractions.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> phillip
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Phillip White, PhD
> > >>>> University of Colorado Denver
> > >>>> School of Education
> > >>>> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
> > >>>> ________________________________________
> > >>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> > >>> Behalf Of Martin Packer [packer@duq.edu]
> > >>>> Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 5:38 PM
> > >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > >>>>
> > >>>> But,
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Phillip,
> > >>>>
> > >>>> wasn't Foucault's central concern in, say, The Order of Things, to
> > >>> explore the *basis* on which human knowledge, or knowledges, are
> > >>> constituted? In his terms, within a discursive formation there is a
> > >>> dispersion of concepts. An ordering of words is used to order what
> can
> > be
> > >>> seen in the world. The point was not that there is no such thing as
> > >>> 'concept,' but that concepts are not neutral, natural maps of a
> > preexisting
> > >>> and independent reality. For example, he wrote of the "form of
> > positivity"
> > >>> of the sciences - "the concepts around which they are organized, the
> > type of
> > >>> rationality to which they refer and by means of which they seek to
> > >>> constitute themselves as knowledge." To a great extent, his attention
> > to the
> > >>> material practices in which both objects and abstractions are
> produced
> > was
> > >>> drawn from Marx, so I don't think it is wildly incompatible with
> > Vygotsky's
> > >>> project.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Martin
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Apr 11, 2011, at 5:36 PM, White, Phillip wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> though really, i'm more with Jay on this point that there is no
> such
> > >>> thing as a 'concept' -  i'm thinking that the practice of the word
> > became,
> > >>> what?, let's say 'insitutionalized', or 'valorized' during the
> > enlightenment
> > >>> project... that period which Foucault points to of ways of
> > categorization
> > >>> and classifications that emerged as professional experts exercised
> for
> > >>> themselves the power to label, prescribe, diagnose, etc. etc., as in,
> > for
> > >>> example, the separation of madness and reason.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> yeah ......
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> another one of my half-baked ideas!
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> phillip
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Phillip White, PhD
> > >>>>> University of Colorado Denver
> > >>>>> School of Education
> > >>>>> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
> > >>>>> ________________________________________
> > >>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> > >>> Behalf Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> > >>>>> Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 4:07 PM
> > >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I agree, Monica. Its odd that we make such distinctions and then
> > worry
> > >>> that
> > >>>>> we do not
> > >>>>> know what a key term in the discussion (in this case, concept) is
> > >>> supposed
> > >>>>> to mean (we all find a way to make sense of it for ourselves
> > however!)..
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Martin and other conceptual knowers. LSV and Luria insisted that
> > words
> > >>> were
> > >>>>> generalizations. How is that idea of generalization related to the
> > idea
> > >>> of a
> > >>>>> concept?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> A con-cept. With-cept? I have no conception!
> > >>>>> mike
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Monica Hansen <
> > >>>>> monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> Martin,
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I have enjoyed reading your back and forth on this topic of
> > concepts.
> > >>>>>> Examining the concept of concepts is indeed problematic, but it is
> > the
> > >>> crux
> > >>>>>> of the whole issue. Social/individual, internal/external,
> > >>>>>> physiological/mental, concrete/abstract, etc.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> You ended with this:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> "But to sever completely the links between everyday discourse and
> > >>>>>> scientific
> > >>>>>> discourse would be to prevent the informing of the former by the
> > latter
> > >>>>>> that
> > >>>>>> LSV found so important."
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I would just like to go one further: severing the links between
> > >>> everyday
> > >>>>>> discourse and scientific discourse would prevent the
> > former(everyday)
> > >>> from
> > >>>>>> informing the latter(scientific). There can be no higher
> > psychological
> > >>>>>> processes, no scientific concepts without everyday concepts
> because
> > it
> > >>> is
> > >>>>>> the specific and local nature of experience that informs all the
> > others
> > >>>>>> (and
> > >>>>>> is informed by the others as well). It is the dialogic nature of
> > >>> concepts
> > >>>>>> that makes them so fascinating and so powerful.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Monica
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> -----Original Message-----
> > >>>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> > xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > >>> On
> > >>>>>> Behalf Of Martin Packer
> > >>>>>> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 11:33 AM
> > >>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Apr 10, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>> Maybe the notion of a "concept" might be a bit like that of a
> > "gene"
> > >>> in
> > >>>>>> the sense that a gene is a sort of functional unit, but it has no
> > >>> simple
> > >>>>>> material reality in itself.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Jay's opening sentence neatly illustrates the difficulty of
> > eliminating
> > >>>>>> 'concept.' He writes of 'the notion' of a concept - which is to
> say,
> > to
> > >>>>>> write about concepts he has to employ a concept, namely that of
> > >>> 'concept'!
> > >>>>>> (If that seems odd, try reading some Frege!)
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> As the Stanford Encyclopedia article points out, no one has
> > >>> satisfactorily
> > >>>>>> defined a concept. But the seeming unavoidability of invoking
> > something
> > >>>>>> like
> > >>>>>> 'concept' follows from the fact that we humans (and perhaps
> animals
> > >>> too;
> > >>>>>> another seemingly intractable debate) deal not so much with
> > >>> particularities
> > >>>>>> as with generalities. We talk and write not about this think and
> > that
> > >>>>>> thing,
> > >>>>>> but this 'kind' of thing and that 'type' of thing. We write not
> > about
> > >>> the
> > >>>>>> specific concept of 'rabbit,' but about 'the notion' of concept.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> As Henry James once wrote, "The intellectual life of man consists
> > >>> almost
> > >>>>>> wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the
> perceptual
> > >>> order
> > >>>>>> in
> > >>>>>> which his experience originally comes." One may disagree with the
> > >>>>>> separation
> > >>>>>> of the two order that James' words seems to suggest, but it seems
> > >>>>>> implausible to deny that there are *two* orders.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Do this order of generalities involve complex interrelations or
> > >>> systems, as
> > >>>>>> Jay suggests? Are they specified in practice, in ways that depend
> on
> > >>>>>> context? Yes, of course. I am deep in the middle of chapter 6 of
> > T&S,
> > >>> and
> > >>>>>> LSV wrote of all this, 70 years ago. We have already discussed
> here
> > his
> > >>>>>> notion [!] of a system of generality, represented metaphorically
> by
> > >>> lines
> > >>>>>> of
> > >>>>>> longitude and latitude on a globe.  He conceived of this system as
> > >>>>>> operating
> > >>>>>> in acts of thought that actively grasp their objects. He saw both
> > the
> > >>>>>> dependence of generalities on language, and their distinction.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Should we avoid, as Jay recommends, claiming that "there are
> > concepts
> > >>> as
> > >>>>>> such"?  I'm not sure what this claim would amount to. There are,
> and
> > >>> can
> > >>>>>> only be, "concepts for us." Should we avoid reifying concepts?
> > >>> Certainly!
> > >>>>>> Should we remove the term from all scientific discourse, leaving
> it
> > >>> only as
> > >>>>>> an "everyday locution"? That's a matter of taste, I suppose. But
> to
> > >>> sever
> > >>>>>> completely the links between everyday discourse and scientific
> > >>> discourse
> > >>>>>> would be to prevent the informing of the former by the latter that
> > LSV
> > >>>>>> found
> > >>>>>> so important.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Martin__________________________________________
> > >>>>>> _____
> > >>>>>> 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
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>>> _____
> > >>>>> 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
> > >>>>
> > >>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>> _____
> > >>>> 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
> > >>>
> > >>> __________________________________________
> > >>> _____
> > >>> 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
> > >>>
> > >> __________________________________________
> > >> _____
> > >> 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
> > > __________________________________________
> > > _____
> > > xmca mailing list
> > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________
> > Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
> > Assistant Professor of Education
> > Chestnut Hill College
> > St. Joseph Hall, 4th Floor, Room #172
> > e-mails:  Marjanovic-ShaneA@chc.edu
> >                 anamshane@gmail.com
> > Phone:    215-995-3207
> >
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > 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
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:05:46 -0600
> > From: "White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] concepts
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Message-ID:
> >        <E23E629A42F087498471D39762DF7EB298BBE961F2@ESTES.ucdenver.pvt>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Peter, two assertions of your book excerpt directly caught my attention:
> >
> > first -
> >
> > "One aspect of concept development that tends to be overlooked is that
> > concepts enhance people's ability to anticipate how future action will
> > unfold."
> >
> > second - (a bit longer quote here)
> >
> > "The actions of people are more difficult to anticipate because they have
> > volition. Nonetheless, a conception of particular culturally-mediated
> > social
> > action can enable greater anticipation of how human events will turn out
> > than will the lack thereof. I have come to understand this likelihood
> > through my studies of beginning teachers (e.g., Smagorinsky, Wilson, &
> > Moore, 2011). Those with limited conceptions of teaching and learning
> tend
> > to engage in trial-and-error instruction, retaining those practices that
> > turn out to be effective but having little foresight regarding which will
> > work. Those who can articulate the purposes behind their decisions based
> on
> > a synthesis of formal and practical knowledge have had better success
> > planning instruction that leads to their intended goals."
> >
> > in all of my work with student teachers this last decade i've been
> > fortunate enough to work with an elementary school in which all
> site-based
> > professional development begins with the conceptual understandings and
> then
> > works in the day-to-day instructional practices; or, begins with the
> > day-to-day instructional practices and then builds in conceptual
> > understandings.  (this is referred to as "parts to whole / whole to
> parts".)
> >  and, these professional development practices i've always used during
> site
> > seminars with the teacher candidates placed at the school.  the teacher
> > candidates have a reputation for being highly successful teachers within
> the
> > larger school district.  i've had a limited understanding regarding why
> > these teacher candidates are so successful.  however, now with your xmca
> > posting, i've got a greater understanding of what's actually going on,
> and
> > it points in a direction of greater program emphasis.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > p
> >
> >
> > Phillip White, PhD
> > University of Colorado Denver
> > School of Education
> > phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
> > ________________________________________
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> > End of xmca Digest, Vol 71, Issue 16
> > ************************************
> >
> __________________________________________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
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