Hi Larry and Christine and others, Larry what you write about Anna Stetsenko's approach is particularly interesting to me right now. The other day I was talking with a student who wanted to use Participatory Action Research in her dissertation. We talked a bit about Lewin and Argylis but she argued she wanted to use Friere's PAR. She claimed that while the two types of AR wind up with a number of similarities (the biggest difference being US AR wants to change organizaitons through relationships, while South American AR of whom Friere was an important founding voice, wants to empower individuals by allowing them to recognize the effects of corrupt relationships through knowlege/information) they both came from two very different origins. It is true I think that you can't really find any deposit of Lewin in Friere's writing. The student made the argument that Friere's PAR comes almost completely from his use of Marx. It is ironic because the PAR in the United States was developed primarily by business consultants who would probably become upset at the mention of Marx. Having two groups doing almost the same thing, with exactly the same name, but a few very, very critical difference certainly makes things confusing. But reading what you say about Anna Stetsenko is gave me greater insight into what this student was trying to say. There does seem to be a strong Marxist aspect to what Friere was trying to say (or in the case of Friere is is more what he was trying to do). It seems like Friere's PAR (and Martin I think already made this point) might be much closer to Vygotsky in origins and spirit than the AR and Action Science that emerged out of Lewin's work and the whole business consultation movement. Were there any Friere based articles in the special issue discussing AR and Vygotsky. But as far as general laws, I don't think Lewin was speaking paradigmatically, at least as Kuhn describes it. He was I think instead talking about habits systems develop that become part of cultural intelligence without the participants even realizing it. It is the underlying systems relationships that would lead to real change (and I would suppose one of the impetuses behind Argylis' double loop learning). I'm thinking about Christine's question about environmental education. The melt down at Fukushia Dai-ichi is an extraordinary ecological disaster. I read where a Japanese woman wrote to a friend and asked, "After what happened to us how can you in the U.S. not be having a very serious conversation about nuclear power in your country." - the U.S. I am sure some people on this list live near a nuclear power plant, some near a fault. And yet after a short burst of enery all conversation about nuclear power has pretty much been blacked out. Just as conversation of global warming has become blacked out after a short conversation related to Al Gore's work. Why can't we talk about these things, what are the relationships that make it unallowable and for even people in danger to acquiesce to the silence? This I think is what PAR gets to. Michael ________________________________ From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss Sent: Sun 5/15/2011 1:13 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [xmca] Dialectical Inquiry as the method/methodology of CHAT This months discussion is about method/methodology as contrasted in Action Research and CHAT. I may be wandering off topic but this topic has left me perplexed about the larger context of this question I have re-read a chapter "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants A Balancing Act of Dialectically Theorizing Conceptual Understanding on the Grounds of Vygotsky's Project" by Anna Stetsenko . The chapter is in the book "Re/Structuring Science Education: Reuniting Sociological and Psychological Perspectives" edited by W.M.Roth. Anna is offering her interpretation of the dialectical *method* and outlook on reality. To put her reflections in context I want to bring in Jay's thoughts on paradigm assumtions and *general laws* He wrote, But I am rather conflicted about some of the paradigm assumptions. I don't happen to believe that there are useful general laws about social systems. They are not the kind of objects of study about which such laws are possible, primarily because what usually turns out to matter about them are more their differences rather than their similarities (as opposed to the ways in which natural science's objects are defined, so that similarities matter more than differences). Social systems are in this sense a bit more like literary texts. So there are ways of not having to start from scratch in understanding a new one, but not ways that rely on general laws of their behavior. More like check lists of things to pay attention to, and of possible or frequent kinds of connections seen before. Weak similarities, embedded in strong differences (the uniqueness, individuality, and unpredictability of real complex systems). The methods of controlled research depend on predictability, and on the dominance of similarity over difference. They have their uses in social science and psychology, but they don't get one very far, and in particular they don't enable social engineering. Which may be a good thing! As someone like Latour might note, academic disciplines, and indeed all organized, historically long-lived institutionalized activity systems work at making things seem and sometimes even be more predictable and regular than they would be "in the wild". But when their norms are violated, when objects of study are defined in new ways, when systems under study combine things that do not normally combine, or combine them in new ways (e.g. combining researcher culture and practitioner culture), the predictability and the illusion of control and regularity quickly evaporates. The pursuit of general laws is not a good route to the practical knowledge and wisdom needed to make our way toward a better society. We cannot afford to be misled by superficial generalizations when we are dealing with real, particular comm and their problems. We need particularist research that adds to our capacity to help out in the next particular case. END OF QUOTE Jay is questioning the value of pursuing *general laws" in our search and encourages inquiry into practical knowledge and wisdom [phronesis] as we pursue the value of developing a *better* society. This perspective values the practical as a *higher* good than searching for general laws. I now want to contrast this standpoint with Anna Stetsenko's perspective towards dialectical methodology. She states, "Within Marxism, there has been a considerable debate as to WHAT KIND of an approach the dialectical method represents and whether the term dialectics refers to the core outlook on REALITY and its phenomena and processes or, alternatively, ONLY to the ANALYTICAL METHOD itself.? Anna points out that neither Marx or Vygotsky's positions are clear on this question. (p.70) Anna suggests that "the true hallmark and condition sin qua non for the dialectical method is the notion that *practice* serves as the ultimate ground for advancing the verifying theories as well as for providing warrants for knowledge claims. Unlike the skepticism of social constructionism and other postmodern approaches that acknowledge no grounds for falsifying theories or adjudicating among various theoretical standpoints and claims, the Marxist method provides warrants for such adjudication. These warrants have to do not with applying some abstract, fixed principles that lie outside knowledge claims but instead, are derived by discerning the (often implicit but always ineluctably present) ideological and ETHICAL underpinnings and potentialities of a given theory as a form of practice." I introduced Anna's quote as it seems to parallel both Aristole's notion of phronesis and also Gadamer's notion of philosophical hermeneutics [as well as Jay Lemke's position as I understand it] Episteme as a particular *theoretical* form of practice, and also techne as a particular *productive* form of practice, are legitimate ways to engage with the world IF they are INFORMED, not by general laws or *systems* of scientific prediction, but rather by re-cognizing *practical wisdom* [value-knowledge] which serves as the ULTIMATE ground for warranting knowledge claims. The relations between episteme, techne, and phronesis, as various FORMS of knowledge as expressed within the methods of dialectical materialism, philosophical hermeneutics, or Aristotle's knowledge framework may bias episteme, techne, or practical wisdom [value-knowledge] as more or less central and the other forms as more or less peripheral, [different hierarchical perspectives] but all 3 perspectives emphasize that we must reclaim a central role for practical ethical wisdom in our knowledge frameworks. Larry __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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