[xmca] Is Geist a linear process

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

A further reflection on the previous post on "systems of meaning.

Martin, in the article he sent me yesterday, on p.231 summarizes the
development of Geist.  I thought it relevant to the conversation.  Martin is
pointing out that Hegel

".... analysis addressed both the construction of knowledge (and its
justification) and the construction of the knower.  The human person
ADVANCES from immediate sensuous experience of the present here and now, to
self-consciousness, consciousness of others, consciousness of society as an
objective reality, consciousness that society is the product of human
society, and consciousness of HOW society is produced through human
activity."
 Martin then references numerous authors who have reflected on this
developmental movement.  This movement is, on a larger scale that of GEIST,
variously translated as mind, mind and its products, cosmic spirir,
ambiguously mind and spirit, and universal mind, infinite subject, the
world.  Martin emphasizes Hegel's position that human BEING is a PRODUCT of
this larger unfolding of geist as it ADVANCES through FORMS of social
organization and levels of AWARENESS and KNOWLEDGE.

I'm not so sure of the linear assumption of one form following another in
lock step fashion or if self-consciousness precedes consciousness of
others.  However, the overall assumption of forms, being informed
(learning),  becoming transformed (ontologically as persons and
historicallly as Geist or "systems of objective meaning) does seem to be a
central background assumption of the sociocultural turn in psychology
(whether cultural-historical, dialogical, discursive, hermeneutical, or
intersubjective psychoanalysis.

THEY all seem to share this common ancestral ground in GEIST [mind]

Larry
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