RE: [xmca] concepts

[anna sfard <annasfar@math.msu.edu>]

I completely agree with Vygotsky, Andy. Notice that he denies the equation
"thinking=speech", not "thinking=communication". And I made it a point that
communicating is a broader term than speaking ("doesn't have to be in words
or synchronic"). 

As to "one particular activity", I meant the type of activity that pertains
best to the issue of mental vs. physical. Indeed, I believe that of all
types of human activities, communicating is the one in which the uniquely
human form of thinking takes its roots, both historically and ontogenically.


anna

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:15 PM
To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts

Well Anna, all interesting ideas, but still, I cannot take "one 
particular activity" as a fundamental concept. I may choose to make one 
particular activity (communication for example) as the subject matter of 
my research, and be confident that by so doing, I am solving the key 
problems facing us, but "one particular" of anything by definition 
cannot be a fundamental concept. I suppose I need to be more specific 
about what I mean by "fundamental concept". I don't mean "most 
important" concept or even "unit of analysis" but in philosophical terms 
the *substance*.

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/

And I actually take issue with the equation of thinking with 
"communicating with oneself." In Chapter 7 of T&S Vygotsky talks of 
thinking and speaking again parting ways. Volume 1 LSVCW, p. 280:

    "The units of thought and speech do not coincide. The two processes
    manifest a unity but not an identity. They are connected  with one
    another by complex transitions and transformations. They cannot,
    however, be superimposed on one another."

This does not deny that the study of communication is perhaps the 
central issue of the human condition,

What do you think?
Andy


anna sfard wrote:
> Hi Andy (and all the other xmca-ers trying to conceptualize concept),
>
> You say:
>
> "Activity" as a fundamental concept is the only way I know to *avoid* the
> mental/physical dichotomy.
>
> I tend to agree, but would like to be a bit more specific: I'd choose one
> particular activity, that of communicating, as what you need to consider
to
> see why, indeed, the "mental" and the "physical" , or "internal" and
> "external" are two sides of the same coin. When it is interpersonal
(without
> necessarily being verbal or synchronic), it is "physical" or "external".
> When it is with oneself, in which case it is known as "thinking", it is
what
> some people call "mental" or "internal". But ontologically, there is no
> difference between the two. They are both forms of discourse and they are
> both kind of physical. In my research, I'm using the special word
> "commognition", a combination of communication and cognition, to stress
this
> ontological unity and be able to speak about both thinking and
> communicating-with-others in one breath (and I beg English purists/lovers
> not to condemn me for creating my own English neologisms - when I wrote a
> book and had to choose between the writer's convenience and readers' rage,
I
> opted for the latter.)  
>
> And, for whatever it is worth, this is how the idea of concept can be seen
> from this perspective (I'm quoting from my book, "Thinking as
> communicating"):
>
>
> "Vygotsky . defined concept as a word with its meaning. I would like to
make
> two amendments. First, let me be less restrictive than Vygotsky and relate
> the term concept to commognition at large, not just verbal commognition.
> Second, following Wittgenstein, I would substitute Vygotsky's reference to
> meaning with the reference to use. Thus, in the discussion that follows,
the
> word concept should be understood as follows: . Concept is a symbol
together
> with its uses." (p. 111)
>
> And, a few pages latter, comes the following consequence of this
definition:
>
> "If a concept is a word together with its discursive uses, one cannot get
a
> sense of a person's concept of number without considering the totality of
> this person's discursive activities in which the term number may appear.
In
> research on development of numerical thinking, therefore, nothing less
than
> the entire discourse on numbers must be considered." (p. 268)
>
> And you can, of course, substitute numerical thinking with any other type
of
> thinking (discourse).
>
> My apology for jumping into this debate without having read the former
> postings properly, and thus possibly recapitulating something that has
> already been said. 
> anna
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 11:01 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
>
> You miss my point, Huw in the 1st paragraph. Having 
> "Activity" as a fundamental concept is the only way I know 
> to *avoid* the mental/physical dichotomy. But I wouldn't go 
> so far as to try to avoid the "distinction." Would you?
>
> You mention: "subject/organism/host of the epistemology". 
> Are you suggesting that something other than a human being 
> can have an epistemology?
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
>
>   

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: 
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org

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