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Re: [xmca] Culture & Rationality

The topic of the book is conceptual thinking, so his comments go only to this psychological function, and he does not make generalisations beyond the higher psychological function under consideration. In the words you excerpt he says precisely that those and only those psychological functions which are called upon by the person's interaction with the culture will develop. How could it be clearer? To be really clear, Vygotsky adds: "this factor points to the mutually conditioned nature, the organic integration, and the internal unity of content and form in the development of thinking." 


Andy
Martin Packer wrote:

What's your reading then, Andy?  I can't find much suggestion of cultural variations in rationality in "where the environment... does not stimulate and create development of the intellect... the adolescent's thinking does not develop..."

Martin

On Jun 26, 2012, at 8:55 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:


:) reads just the oppposite to me. C'est la vie.
andy

Martin Packer wrote:

But the next paragraph is this:

"In our discussion of the general factors connected with cultural development in adolescence outlined below, we will have to consider the long established and scientifically observed fact that where the environment fails to present appropriate problems, does not come up with new requirements and does not stimulate and create development of the intellect with the help of new goals, the adolescent's thinking does not develop according to all the available potential, and it does not reach its higher forms, or only achieves them at an exceptionally late stage."

Which doesn't sound like different rationalities in different social environments, it sounds like an account of deficits.

Martin

On Jun 26, 2012, at 8:10 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:


 The tasks that are posed for the maturing adolescent by the social
 environment - tasks that are associated with his entry into the
 cultural, professional, and social life of the adult world - are an
 essential functional factor in the formation of concepts.
 Repeatedly, this factor points to the mutually conditioned nature,
 the organic integration, and the internal unity of content and form
 in the development of thinking. (Thinking and Speech, Chapter 5)

Andy
Martin Packer wrote:

Thank you for the suggestions that people have made about evidence that supports the claim that culture is constitutive of psychological functions. Keep sending them in, please! Now I want to introduce a new, but related, thread. A few days ago I gave Peter a hard time because he wrote that "higher mental processes are those specific to a culture, and thus those that embody cultural concepts so that they guide activity."

I responded that I don't think that LSV ever wrote this - his view seems to me to have been that it is scientific concepts that make possible the higher psychological functions (through at time he seems to suggest the opposite). My questions now are these:

1. Am I wrong? Did LSV suggest that higher mental processes are specific to a culture and based on cultural concepts?

2. If LSV didn't suggest this, who has? Not counting Peter!  :)

3. Do we have empirical evidence to support such a suggestion? It seems to me to boil down, or add up, to the claim that human rationality, human reasoning, varies culturally. (Except who knows what rationality is? - it turns out that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not have an entry for Rationality; apparently they are still making up their minds.)

that's all, folks

Martin

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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts

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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts






--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts

__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca