Re: [xmca] Ambivalence and system

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike
Your suggestion to re-submit postings I'm following up on.

Larry

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 11:09 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Larry, you are probably right, and I mis-remembered what I read about
> Luria and Romantic science. It was probably Mike Cole writing on Luria
> that I remembered.
>
> Re Veresov. I don't know his writing, but I certainly welcome the idea
> that there might be multiple equally valid routes to development of
> Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.
>
> Re Schlegel. I have never read him. I did read Pinkard's "German
> Philosophy 1769-1860" and I recall that I was intrigued by Schegel then.
> But I have forgotten it all, except that, as you note, Hegel treated
> Schlegel with contempt. The Schlegel women are a story waiting to be
> told though! Dorothea and Caroline, the wives of the two Schlegel
> brothers. Two amazing Renaissance women.
>
> Andy
>
> Larry Purss wrote:
>
>> Hi Andy
>> No, I haven't read Luria's comments on romantic science.  I recently read
>> Mike's epilogue in the book on Luria recently archived at XMCA. Luria's
>> specific thoughts on romantic science I would like to read.
>>  As well as reading the book on Schlegel and German Romanticism I have
>> been re-reading Veresov's introductory chapter in "Vygotsky Before
>> Vygotsky".  The central themes of consciousness, monism, and objectivty,
>> and Vygotsky's multiple developing perspectives on the relation BETWEEN
>> these 3 concepts.  Consciousness interpreted not from a single unified
>> system but rather multiple perspectives or "systems of analysis".  Verosov
>> seems to be asking, what was considered "foundational"  within Vygotsky's
>> search for explaining consciousness. As I read Verosov's answer the "system
>> of relations" which included the concepts consciousness, monism, and
>> objectivity was interpreted differently at different periods in Vygotsky's
>> life. The relations between these 3 concepts [the various systems] was
>> answered in multiple or plural relational configurations which
>>  historically modified what Vygotsky included in his search for the
>> "objective analysis of mind" at each historical moment.
>>  My reading of Veresov suggests that Vygotsky's final version or system,
>> which is his cultural historical model was asking the same "questions"
>> about the possible relations between the 3 concepts but Vygotsky's final
>> answer after 1932 was radically tranformed from his earlier answers to the
>> same question.
>> Verosov also suggests that Activity theory emerged from cultural
>> historical in the 1930's as one POSSIBLE branching of cultural historical
>> theory as a particular system or CHAT but that other branches which focus
>> more on "meaning" and "sense" are also possible approaches.  This seems to
>> open up a space for alternative answers or a plurality of responses to the
>> relation between the 3 concepts.
>>  Schlegel as a Romantic, writing in 1800, had this to say in response to
>> Fichte.
>>  "Our philosophy does not begin like the others with a first principle -
>> where the first proposition is like the center of the first ring of a comet
>> - with the rest a long tail of mist - we depart from a small but living
>> seed - our center lies in the middle"
>>  Schlegel's perspective commits him to something like "life" as the
>> framework for understanding reality. Schlegel's philosophical method is
>> genetic or synthetic as opposed to deductive or syllogistic and underscores
>> the historical dimension to his approach. The focus is on coming into being
>> and to understanding the development or genesis of an idea. To understand
>> how a thing comes into being, we do well to look at its various phases of
>> development or its history.  Schlegel's commitment is  to starting in the
>> middle, in the midst of the dynamic flow itself.  Schlegel saw the various
>> philosophical systems that comprise the history of philosophy as links in a
>> coherent chain, with the understanding of any given philosophical system
>> requiring understanding of the chains to which it is connected.
>>  In the 1800's these ideas were ridiculed by the grand system builders of
>> German Idealism and dimissed as "merely" aesthetic or romantic.
>>  Today I get the sense that many would continue to dismiss Schlegel as
>> merely romantic but within the sociocultural turn in psychology there are
>> frameworks that would share Schlegel's sense-ability.  In particular the
>> hermeneutical framework.
>>  Larry
>>
>>  On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>
>>    Larry,
>>    Have you read Luria's comments on Romanic Science?
>>    Andy
>>
>>
>>    Nektarios Alexi wrote:
>>
>>        Sounds like it:)
>>
>>
>>        -----Original Message-----
>>        From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>> on behalf of mike Cole
>>        Sent: Sun 11/20/2011 1:21 PM
>>        To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>        Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>        Subject: Re: [xmca] Ambivalence and system
>>         Romantic science, Larry?
>>        :-)
>>        Mike
>>
>>        On Nov 19, 2011, at 12:37 PM, Larry Purss
>>         <lpscholar2@gmail.com <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>            I wanted to reflect a little more on the centrality of
>>            ambivalence as
>>            inherent in all systemic conceptual worldviews by a
>>            backward glance to the
>>            tension between early German Romanticism and German Idealism.
>>            This is not an arena I know well but Andy's writings have
>>            clled me tlearn
>>            more.
>>            I am reading a book on Schlegel's contribution to the
>>            ideas circulating in
>>            Jena at the beginning of the 1800's. A time which has been
>>            referred to as
>>            Early German Romanticism.
>>            Schlegel wrote this comment when reflecting on thinking
>>            systematically.
>>
>>            "It is equally fatal for the spirit to have a system and
>>            to have none. It
>>            will simply have to decide to combine the two"
>>            This comment seems to share the same sensibility as
>>            Zygmunt Bauman's notion
>>            of "ambivalence" as ontological to all system
>>            constructions.  "liquid
>>            modernity" as diachronic versus more structural notions of
>>            solid modernity
>>            is a case in point.
>>
>>            Every philosopher must have a system, for to make claims
>>            and construct
>>            arguments, we must assume some system, FOR WE NEED LIMITS,
>>            but this must be
>>            done with the recognition that ANY particular system is a
>>            PART of a
>>            PLURALITY of other systems.  This is the recognition that
>>            one must
>>            simultaneouslly be WITHIN a system and be without it.
>>
>>            This way of thinking, which can be framed as "romantic"
>>            [no final system]
>>            is also hermeneutic.
>>            Just further reflections on the ontological necessity of
>>            ambivalence at the
>>            heart of our projects.
>>
>>            Larry
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>>    --     ------------------------------**------------------------------*
>> *------------
>>    *Andy Blunden*
>>    Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
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> ------------
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> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
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