Re: [xmca] Peter Smagorinsky on concepts

[Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>]

On 17 January 2012 12:55, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> 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.
>

The path of acquiring a concept is not the concept.   The flight of a moth
and is not light.

Huw



> Andy
>
>
>
>
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