Re: [xmca] Merleau-Ponty and Vygotsky

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I figured you would be interested in the way M-P is circulating around this
and related discussions, Larry.

Right now my wife has our copy of *Metaphysical Club* with the turned down
pages.
She has picked out some other relevant passages. I asked Tony a while back
about
the book because, in addition to finding it fascinating and relevant to xmca
discussions, I was uncertain of the interpretation of Pierce .

This speaks to the complaints about relying on interpreters, as Anton and
Miller are advocating. Terrible to rely on interpreters, I agree. Just hard
to avoid relying on them all the time. I fear wading into Pierce.

With Merleau-Ponty I was so caught by his talk on people seen from the
outside, I have been pondering over that text ever since. The new Ingold
book, suggested by
Joe Glick, really interests me because it brings Gibson together with M-P in
such an
interesting way. This overlaps work I have been doing trying to understand
the affinities between Gibson and Russian followers of the Vygotsky group,
fractured as it may have been, in the 30 years following his death.

(The first American to go on the psychology exchange that Jim Wertsch and I
eventually went on was a gibsonian, as well as a developmentalist, Herb
Pick, and his wife, who also worked in that tradition).

I am not sure how to take the discussion. There are a lot of affinities, a
lot of overlaps, a lot of incomplete knowledge on all sides. It is not easy
to discuss in any organized way. Perhaps, just enticing invitations to check
things out? (John Shotter would be great to include in the discussion, why
not try enticing him!?).

Whither?
mike


On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Mike
>
> I was interested in your brief comments on The Metaphysical Club and also
> on
> Merleau-Ponty.
> I have almost finished Lawrence Hass' book "Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy" and
> am seeing many intertwinings with CHAT discussions.
>
> The central place of experience as gestalt [figure/ground] that is OPEN and
> creative and NOT representative, is a central notion.
> M-P is often confused as sharing Husseral's transcendental perspective of
> bracketing subjective experience but Hass points out for M-P the world and
> perception of the world as getalten  OVERFLOWS all conceptual forms.
> Gestalten have multiple possibilities and potentials which our minds try to
> grasp and perceive. At the moment of re-cognition the multiple overflowing
> possibilities crystallize into a figure/ground gestalt that is perceived
> and
> in the NEXT moment in the sequence the person subjectively experiences THAT
> PARTICULAR perception as a RESULT of NECESSITY.  The act of expressive
> cognition is an act of ECART [separation-differentiation which is NOT
> difference as OPPOSITION.]
> In the act of grasping the world the world is simultaneously grasping
> the perceiver. There is an irreducible difference but not dichotomy of
> opposites.
> This notion of difference as fundamental and that this difference can never
> be reduced to identity is central to M-P's project.  He shares with Levinas
> an understanding of the irreducuible otherness of the other and the world
> BUT he does not frame this difference of otherness as opposition.
> This style of writing shares similarities to the notions of "dialogue" as
> intertwining fabric that is separate but not in opposition.  Lawrence Hass
> suggests we read M-P with Levinas to achieve an intertwining of their
> notions of the otherness of the other.  Hass points out their "styles" are
> different. Whereas M-P recognizes ECART [separation-difference] as a
> fundamental process that allows us to "sing the world" as carnal expression
> Levinas is concerned with recognition as a form of totalizing of the other
> to the same. Basically Hass suggests that M-P and Levinas offer
> "complementary" perspectives on separation-difference that together offer
> an
> intertwining of recognition that is deeper than either monological
> perspective.
>
> Another central idea from M-P is that ALL representational knowledge is an
> abstraction that is experienced cognitively as a NECESSITY [after the fact
> of expressive cognition]  This necessity can be understood as primary and
> conceptual but in actuality is derivative of primary expressive cognition.
> Hass in Chapter 6 discusses mathematical objects and his views share with
> Anna Sfard a notion of mathematical objects as expressive movements in
> cultural-historical time.  M-P rejects the notion of mathematical objects
> as
> transcendental existants that are discovered in historical time [Husserl's
> perspective]
> Hass says M-P has been understood as sharing Husserl's transcendental
> phenomenology when n actual fact his phenomenology is deeply
> cultural-historical and ideas such as mathematical objects SOURCE is in
> expressive cognition.
>
> Mike I may want to read the book by Ingold if you recommend it.
> Also, has John Shotter's recent writings been discussed on XMCA.  I know he
> is often situated as a social constructionist [like Kenneth Gergen] but his
> incorporating ideas from M-P. Bateson, and a perso named Todes [wrote Body
> &
> World, 2001] suggest he is working in an overflowing, overlapping grasping
> of new and novel ways to "know".
>
> Larry
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