[xmca] Vygotsky points to IN-structing as the WAY to dwell with-IN

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

I am going to attempt to connect the dots as I"m interpreting John Shotter's
move from "joint activity" to "dialogue" and then on to "chiasmic
intertwining and what he is pointing to.

I want to start off with a personal experience with my granddaughter Elena
who is now 11 months old.  Whenever I enter the room she gestures with
her finger "as if" calling me to respond.  Now this gesture can be
"interpreted" as " predicative aboutness" from within a "conversational
ANALYTICAL" way of "seeing" or alternatively this gesture can be
"interpreted" as a dialogical calling and response of attuned engagement.
Now what I'm suggesting is BOTH these "interpretations" together are "true"
and together are a  chiasmic intertwining. They are alternative ways of
SHOWING us how to "see".

What is central to Elena's gesture is how profounding Elena's gesture is an
action of WITH-in-ness or an action of with-IN-ness.  I'm suggesting that
this moment is analogus to Blakes finding the world in a grain of sand in
our understanding the dynamics of living experience.

A the heart of Vygotsky's project was how he was trying to show us the
profound implications of the action of IN-struction. When reflecting on the
ZPD as a metaphorical space the actions involved can be interpreted as
"aboutness" [representation] or dialogical [calling and responding] but a
third alternative is to see the two approaches as a chiasmic intertwining
[analogus to thought and language]  To IN-struct is to dialogically
structure how we orient to and dwell with-IN the world.  John would
emphasize the IN as a within the intersubjective relation of  calling and
response [expression].  IN-structing IS showing a way to "see". Vygotsky's
enabling theory-method  IS a way of showing and IN-structing that has its
origins or roots in gestures such as Elena's pointing in her "ET" moment
[when the pointing is attuned and engaged with the other].  Now the pointing
can also be "about" something EX-ternal rather than IN-ternal and this is
why pointing as an archetrypical gesture of our humanness becomes confused
in our interpretations [though we are not confused when we are in a LIVING
relation of attunement and we respond and answer the calling with
ANTICIPATION of the returning smile [which always comes with Elena.]

This little prefix "IN" seems to be central to what John is attempting to
show us as we  develop another WAY of seeing that does not
dissolve representation  into phenomenology or dissolve phenomenology into
representation.  We are so used to viewing 'inner" as referring to within
our personal subjectivity.  However John's interpretation of Vygotsky is
that what is inner is the LIVING experience of calling and response without
which we cannot experience LIVING in the world as the world calling and us
responding.  The world as living CARNAL  existence. What M-P refers to as
the flesh of the world rather than the matter of the world.

Andy is highlighting Goethe's understanding of gestalt as a much more
encompassing concept than perceptual ways of seeing from within the inside
of our subjective vision.  Gestalt for Andy is a relational concept
that sees the world and our place in the world as a single whole without
gaps.  We are always IN-side in our dwelling.

Back to the example or "case" of Elena.  The question of where is the "IN"
in the structuring OF ways of orienting IN the world.  John's interpretation
of Vygotsky is that the IN-dwelling is the dialogical third space of our
LIVING calling and response.  The motivations [affective-volitional
tendencies] are "located" IN-side OUR "weness" [not IN-side our  heads].The
LIVING pattern that connects IS the process of IN-structing.  It is ONLY
living forms that call and respond and our developing language/thought are
extensions of  this living  IN-struction as an intersubjective "unity" or
"germ-cell" IN-side our RELATIONAL becoming.  This is a living gestalt in
the way that Goethe is showing us to see.

John Shotter is calling us to "see" intersubjectivity as the location of the
"IN-side" and Vygotsk enabling theory-method as a contribution to SHOWING or
POINTING to this dialogical IN-sideness.  What Merleau-Ponty adds to this
way of showing as a GESTALT is that representation and analysis are not
OPPOSED to living experience but are in a relation of ECART [expression
as separation-difference but not opposition].

John's contribution to our understanding of IN-structuring is the central
role of dialogical intersubjectivity at the heart of our expressions.

 A final word to bring the conversation back to Fernando Rey's article.  I
wonder how others view the intertwining of SENSE and MEANING that Fernando
is calling us to attend to?

Larry
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