Re: [xmca] activity (was concepts)

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Eric,

I don't know, I think LSV makes it pretty clear that word-meaning is not the concept. He criticizes Ach, who:

"identifies concept and word meaning, and thus precludes any possibility of change and development in concepts" (T&S chapter 6, para 16).


Martin

On Apr 20, 2011, at 12:57 PM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:

> Huw:
> 
> Please explain to me how someone can "wield a concept"?  I am not even 
> sure about the expression "grasp a concept".  When there is a word that is 
> generalized to the extent of; hmmm....let's pick moon; it is not a 
> decisive tool of distinction but rather, as LSV points out, "word meaning 
> is the elementary cell that cannot be further analyzed. . . it is the 
> unity between thought and word"   We cannot say that our earth has THE 
> moon.  But in conversation we can state, "The moon is out and bright 
> tonight."  I can provide a crowd with my moon but perhaps get arrested and 
> a smiling cherub of a child could display their moon of a face.   IMHO 
> moon's word meaning is the concept present in these thoughts and words. 
> Not something weilded or grasped but perhaps active?
> 
> what do other's think?  bill blanton or bill borowy out there?
> 
> eric
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> To:     lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" 
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date:   04/20/2011 12:32 PM
> Subject:        Re: [xmca] activity (was concepts)
> Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 
> 
> 
> On 20 April 2011 10:43, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I appreciate all the thoughtful good will going into the attempts to 
> find
>> common grounding and explore one's own thinking in this/these
>> thread/threads.
>> 
>> I fear i violated Tony's reasonable 2 cents rule because I, too, have 
> had
>> too little time to write and the intermixing of pieces of threads and 
> thus
>> added to the difficulties.
>> 
>> I believe that Andy identified one problem when he pointed out that Huw,
>> coming from a somewhat different (and relevant!) tradition(s) introduced
>> concepts such as activity as he understood them from, say, Maturana or
>> Bateson. So, for example, he pointed to Jim Wertsch's *Mind as Action* 
> as a
>> source for explication of the concept of activity using the pole 
> vaulting
>> example.
> 
> 
> Kind of.  I'm saying mediation and activity go together.  In, for example,
> the scheme Wertsch provides (p204, VATSFOM):
> 
> Activity -- Motive
> Action -- Goal
> Operation -- Conditions.
> 
> A good place, it seems, to locate the use of concepts (i.e. those things
> gained during dual stimulation experiments) is in the regulation of 
> Action.
> 
> However, I'd say that the concept used influences the dynamics, as it can
> change the situation.
> 
> Consider this simplified account.  A man is queuing at a supermarket.  He
> only has 10 dollars (or some other currency), yet he needs the food to 
> feed
> his family.  He's got a number of items, all of which he needs, though 
> they
> might tally up to more than 10 dollars.  Let's say they add up to 9.99. If
> he can confidently do the math and has done so, his whole experience will 
> be
> different to the circumstances he'd be in if he found those kind of
> conceptual operations difficult.  He wields these concepts in the act of
> doing the math (the concepts mediate this act).  But these circumstances
> will also mediate his activity as a whole as they influence his
> understanding.
> 
> Huw
> 
> 
> 
>> But, Jim uses this example to talk about mediated action in
>> context, his preferred unit of analysis at the time (at the end of
>> *Vygotsky
>> and the Social Formation of mind-*- which you can find whole on the
>> internet
>> but not download- he DOES discuss notions of activity following LSV).
>> 
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