Re: [xmca] Peter Smagorinsky on concepts

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Huw Lloyd wrote:
> That's another point of disagreement.  It seems as plain as day to me that
> personal experience participates from the outset.
> Bye for now,
> Huw
>   
This is the point, Huw. Vygotsky is studying i*deal- typical paths of 
development*, not categories of mental entity.

Actually, there's a passage in the Vasilyuk I sent around before which 
explains this general methodological point in a slightly different 
context, very well;

   “The most direct cause of this lack of acceptance [of ANL’s thesis
   that a motive is the object which stimulates activity] was that
   commentators saw the thesis not as meaningful abstraction but as a
   generalisation from empirically observed facts on stimulation of
   activity, to be verified by direct reference to those facts. If in
   the process of such reference even one fact appeared which did not
   fit in with the idea of activity being stimulated by an object
   corresponding to a need, then the idea could be discarded as not in
   accord with the facts, or at most not fully satisfactory” (p. 85).

If I explained to you the concept of convergence of an infinite series, 
it may well be that you had already had personal experience of infinite 
series and their convergence in your day-to-day life (though I don't 
know how). But this still does not negate the idea of a scientific 
concept as an ideal-typical path of development which begins from a 
verbal definition, and not from everyday sensorimotor experience.

Andy



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