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Re: [xmca] last on concepts



David,

Thanks! This explanation and rework of that paragraph on p 115 is exactly what I needed - your response addresses exactly what I was missing.
Question: is what you are referring to as "practical intellect" and  
"post-verbal" behavior equivalent to what Vygotsky refers to as  
automatic behavior or activity, such as in his discussion of  
Claparede's law, v1 p 183?  "This law states that difficulties or  
impediments encountered in automatic activity lead to conscious  
reflection on that activity." p 70  (Vygotsky seems to accept this  
law, but only as a functional law - his criticism is that it only  
indicates whether the need for conscious awareness is present or  
absent in an individual, not how conscious awareness itself emerges.  
v1 p183)
A classic example of automatic activity versus behavior guided by  
conscious awareness is of course comparing the driver who is used to  
changing gears with a stick shift to someone just learning how to do  
that.  The coordination of the gear shift with the clutch eventually  
becomes habitual and only rises to consciousness when there is a  
problem for the first driver, but initially requires constant  
attention from the second one.
- Steve




On May 10, 2011, at 5:16 PM, David Kellogg wrote:

Steve:

One of the things we did when we translated T&S into Korean was to carefully compare every single paragraph with the Minick translation into English. We found quite a few differences. Here's the original Vygotsky:
Отношение мышления и речи в этом  
случае можно было бы схематически  
обозначить двумя пересекающимися  
окружностями, которые показали бы,  
что известная часть процессов речи и  
мышления совпадает. Это . так  
называемая сфера ≪речевого  
мышления≫. Но это речевое мышление не  
исчерпывает ни всех форм мысли, ни  
всех форм речи. Есть большая область  
мышления, которая не будет иметь  
непосредственного отношения к  
речевому мышлению. Сюда следует  
отнести раньше всего, как уже  
указывал Бюлер, инструментальное и  
техническое мышление и
вообще всю область так называемого  
практического интеллекта, который  
только в последнее время становится  
предметом усиленных исследований.
Here's an English translation, with some of the differences with  
Minick in parentheses:
"(It would be possible to) schematically designate the relation of  
thinking and speech (in this case) by two intersecting circles,  
(which would show that a certain part) of the processes of speech  
and thinking do coincide. (Here is the so-called sphere of “verbal  
thinking”. But) this verbal thinking exhausts neither all the forms  
of thought nor all the forms of speech. There is the large area of  
thinking, which will not have direct relation to the vocal thinking.  
(Here one should relate first of all as already indicated Bühler,  
instrumental and technical thinking and generally the entire region  
of so-called the practical intellect, which only recently becomes  
the object of those intensified studies.)"
Now, Minick dislikes Vygotsky's tendency to say the same thing three  
times, and like Hanfmann and Vakar he often prunes in the hope of  
producing a stronger and clearer image. Martin doesn't like  
Vygotsky's love of striking, and often spatial, images (and I  
certainly agree with Martin that they ARE dangerous sometimes, as in  
the idea of four "planes" that so struck you, Professor Mack, and  
Colin, which I think is a complete misunderstanding).
I like both, and I think they are related. I think that we are  
supposed to take both with a block of salt, the way a cow does. I  
think that we take Vygotsky's slightly different redundancies and  
his not quite overlapping images not as Galton photographs (where  
similarities reinforce each other and differences obscure) but as  
frames in a moving picture, verbal approximations of something that  
is changing as we speak.
So here we have the image of two intersecting circles. Vygotsky says  
it's only one of several ways to imagine this (and in fact he has  
already described it as the intersection of two lines, as a tangled  
skein, as two "currents" that flow into each other, etc. So it is  
right and proper to begin with "It might be possible" or "it may be  
possible" or "it would be possible" which is what Vygotsky really  
does.
He's talking about speech functions in ADULTS, which is why he says  
"in this case". Think of an adult driving a car. This is an almost  
perfect example of practical, mechanical intellect. Vygotsky is  
surely right to suggest that it has no DIRECT relationship to verbal  
thinking; if you describe what you are doing while you are driving,  
you are probably going to have an accident.
But it's not at all like PRE-verbal nonverbal thinking, is it? We  
can see this in a number of ways. First of all, we find conversation  
a little burdensome when we are driving unless it is actually  
connected with the driving task (e.g. a GPS). This suggests positive  
and negative interference, doesn't it? Secondly, we do LEARN to  
drive in a verbal way, from instructions, instructors, and  
ultimately verbal tests. So perhaps we should say that structurally,  
genetically, yea, even functionally, driving is POST-verbal or DE- 
verbal rather than PRE-verbal. And this DOES suggest an INDIRECT  
relationship to verbal thinking.
Here's some other stuff, earlier in the chapter, worth looking at in  
this context:
Так, Бюлер со всей справедливостью  
говорит: ≪Действия шимпанзе  
совершенно независимы от речи, и в  
позднейшей жизни человека  
техническое, инструментальное  
мышление (Werkzeugdenken) гораздо менее  
связано с речью и понятиями, чем  
другие формы мышления≫ (13, с. 100).  
Дальше мы должны будем еще  
возвратиться к этому указанию Бюлера.  
Мы увидим, что действительно все, чем  
мы располагаем по этому вопросу из  
области экспериментальных  
исследований и клинических  
наблюдений, говорит за то, что в  
мышлении взрослого человека  
отношение интеллекта
и речи не является постоянным и  
одинаковым для всех функций, для всех  
форм интеллектуальной и речевой  
деятельности.
So Bühler, (with entire validity), says “The (performances) of the  
chimpanzee are completely independent from speech, and (in the later  
life of man) technical, instrument thinking (Werkzeugdenken) is much  
less connected with speech and with concepts, than other forms of  
thnking” (13, p. 100). Further on we must again return to this  
indication of Bühler’s. (We will see), that actually everything  
that we now have available on this question from the areas of  
experimental studies and clinical observations (will confirm as a  
point of fact) that in the thinking of the adult person the relation  
of intellect and speech is neither constant nor identical (for all  
functions) and all forms of intellectual and verbal activity."
Again, we can easily imagine that the practical, instantaneous  
problem solving behavior we see in an adult human repairing a car  
was originally learnt from a repair manual, or from another more  
expert repairman; in other words, at one point the adult human’s  
thinking was virtually identical with written or oral speech and  
proceeded step by step alongside it.

Finally, take a look at "Tool and Sign in Child Development", Steve (Volume Six). In the first chapter, first section, paragraph 11-12, Vygotsky and Luria go over this same ground. But this time they make an invidious comparison between Kohler, who really tries to show how human the chimp is, and Buhler, who is trying to show how chimplike the human is. And they draw attention PRECISELY to the MISTAKE of assuming that practical intelligence in later life is language free. Here's what they've got.
Эта тенденция остается неизменной и у  
всех дальнейших исследователей, за  
небольшими исключениями. В ней  
наиболее ярко выражена та упомянутая  
опасность зоологизирования детской  
психологии, которая, как уже сказано,  
является господствующей чертой всех  
исследований в этой области. Однако в  
исследовании Бюлера эта опасность  
представлена в наименее серьезном  
виде. Бюлер имеет дело с ребенком до  
развития речи, и в этом отношении  
основные условия, необходимые для  
оправдания психологической  
параллели между шимпанзе и
ребенком, могут быть соблюдены.  
Правда, Бюлер сам недооценивает  
значение сходства основных условий,  
говоря, что действия шимпанзе  
совершенно независимы от речи и в  
позднейшей жизни человека  
техническое, инструментальное  
мышление в гораздо меньшей степени  
связано с речью и понятиями, чем  
другие формы мышления.
"This tendency, with a few exceptions, remains unchanged in the work  
of all following investigators. It is here that the danger of what  
might be called the ‘animalization’ of child psychology,  
mentioned earlier, finds its clearest expression as the prevalent  
feature of investigation in this field (see earlier reference).  
However, this danger is at its smallest in Bühler’s experiments.  
Bühler deals with the pre-speech period of the child, which makes it  
possible to fulfill the basic conditions necessary to justify the  
psychological parallel between chimpanzee and child. It is true that  
Bühler underestimates the importance of the similarities of these  
basic conditions when he states : ‘The chimpanzee’s activities  
are totally independent of speech, and in man’s later period of  
life technical, instrumental thinking is much less connected to  
speech and concepts than other forms of thought’,”
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

--- On Mon, 5/9/11, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:



From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, May 9, 2011, 3:10 PM


David,

Thanks for your always intriguing comments, such as the ones from a couple days ago, copied below.
I've been needing some help understanding the last statement in the  
following paragraph from Vol 1, p 115, the Minick translation.  It  
relates directly to your comments (and also a question Jay asked a  
couple weeks ago, if I remember), about practical activity and  
verbal thinking.
The meaning of the final sentence puzzles me:

"Moving now from the issue of the genesis of inner speech to the issue of how it functions in the adult, the first question we encounter is one that we have addressed earlier in connection with issues of phylogenesis and ontogenesis: Are thinking and speech necessarily connected in the adult's behavior" That is, can the two processes be identified with one another? All that we know that is relevant to this issue forces us to answer this question in the negative. The relationship of thinking and speech in this context can be schematically represented by two intersecting circles. Only a limited portion of the process of speech and thinking coincide in what is commonly called verbal thinking. Verbal thinking does not exhaust all the forms of thought nor does it exhaust all the forms of speech. There is a large range of thinking that has no direct relationship to verbal thinking. In this category, we could include the instrumental and technical thinking that has been described by Buhler and what is commonly called practical intellect."
According to the last sentence, Vygotsky appears to have included  
"the instrumental and technical thinking that has been described by  
Buhler and what is commonly called practical intellect" into the  
category of non-verbal thinking.
Could you or someone help me understand this statement?

- Steve


On May 7, 2011, at 11:17 PM, David Kellogg wrote:

Steve:

I think that thinking and speech have what we would call, in Korea, "jeong", or in China "yuanfen". "Jeong" and "yuanfen" are both indicate a fateful encounter that neither party can ever forget, no matter what their previous or subsequent history. Unsurprisingly, both "jeong" and "yuanfen" have romantic connotations, and both are symbolized by a red thread, which is something that Vygotsky likes to use too.
So Chapter Four, which is in some ways our most "schematic"and  
general chapter (because it mixes up the phylogenetic, the  
sociogenetic, and even the ontogenetic), describes how thinking  
becomes verbal and speech becomes rational, somewhere around age two.
This is, it seems to me, the genesis of verbal thinking. And once  
past that fateful point, neither thinking nor speech will ever  
forget each other, and neither can ever be quite the same again.  
Vygotsky explicitly REJECTS Buhler's idea that  
"Werkezeudenken" (practical activity) in adults is somehow non- 
verbal. Once thinking has been verbalized, you can never really go  
back to the pre-cultural, natural state of thinking; everything you  
think will be at least potentially and often really verbal.
The units in which verbal thinking takes place are verbal: they are  
word meanings, even if they sometimes do not actually leave the  
"palace of shadows". You may not have time to completely verbalize  
these word meanings, but they are nevertheless completely verbal in  
their psychological nature. After all, when you READ something, you  
are thinking in a completely verbal manner, even though you are  
going MUCH faster than you would ever be able to speak, and it is  
even possible to take in blocks of text in a non-linear manner.
Concepts are another example of how thinking and speech can never  
really forget their fateful meeting at age two. As ought to be  
clear (not least from the work of Jay Lemke) concepts come in a  
structure which is paradigmatic rather than syntagmatic; they grow  
on tall trees with deep roots, and do not proliferate temporally  
like crabgrass. Yet precisely in their thematic relations  
(overconcepts, examples, specific cases) they are clearly examples  
of verbal thinking.
In Chapter Five (Sections Seven and Eight) Vygotsky reminds us that  
generalization is really only ONE of the two intellectual "roots"  
of the concept and it is in some ways antithetic to the other,  
namely abstraction. I always think of this as "adding on" versus  
"taking away": generalization involves expanding the pile of shared  
features and abstraction involves cutting away the merely important  
to reveal the absolutely essential (and yes, I think that  
Vygotsky's concept of concepts is essentially essentialist).
English speakers tend to use GENERALIZATION: we say, for example,  
"I like apples" rather than "I like the apple". Koreans, in  
contrast, use ABSTRACTION:  they say "I like the apple". A really  
rational thinker, say, a Korean three year old, might find an  
expression like "I like apples" rather puzzling, expecting a rider  
that excludes rotten, unripe, and sour apples.
Except in a metaphorical sense, we cannot say that a good saxophone  
solo has lexicogrammar. The sax plays notes, not vowels or  
consonants, and a musical line is neither a noun phrase nor a verb  
phrase. But if you imagine that, say, Lester Young or Coleman  
Hawkins have no intonation, no stress, no phrasing, then you are  
mired in what we can only call a "natural" state of musicality (see  
the end of Chapter Four, Section Three), the state in which dogs  
howl at phonograph records. Good saxophone is "talky" music in much  
the same way that Mozart is, and it is no accident that jazz has  
selected a main instrument that sounds or can be made to sound very  
like a human voice.
Classical music too eventually settled on string instruments to  
carry the main melodic line rather than brass or woodwinds or  
percussion). Last night I went to see Poulenc's opera "The Dialogue  
of the Carmelites", which is surely one of the most undialogic  
operas ever written. It's wordy but not talky, the music is woody  
rather than stringy, with two harps that can never quite agree to  
disagree. In the libretto, everybody says exactly the same thing,  
and one is hardly surprised when the Carmelites go on singing after  
their heads are cut off.
But today I am sitting in my office, listening to Dvorak's Cello  
Concerto in B minor. Dvorak wrote it after the death of his sister- 
in-law, with whom he was hopelessly in love. It's a threnody and a  
love letter with everything removed except thought and motive. Is  
there sense? Well, there is certainly something sensuous, and it is  
not animal; it is scarcely even human.
(Rostropovich! How is it possible to be unhappy on a planet shared  
with such a sensiblity?)
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education


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