Jennifer,
You have not gone overboard. I think you are right. Just because
logic is possible, does not mean we use it exclusively as a mode of
operation as adults. Logic is a value, not a condition of adulthood.
I sometimes wonder when reading Piaget if he had a chronic case of
logic. That is why he thought egocentric speech disappeared in
maturity, because he himself never had an immature or childish
thought as an adult. Of course I did not conclude this as a scholar
of his writings using formal logic...it just occurred to me using,
spontaneous everyday thinking. I have always thought one of the
ironies in the American mainstream is that parents want for their
children to be academically successful so they will make more money
so they can buy more toys and entertainment. There are other
cultural values besides logic and education.
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Jennifer
Vadeboncoeur
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 12:57 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
Yes, exactly Martin, this work is consistent. I do think Vygotsky
privileges dialectical logic over formal logic; by definition, it
subsumes formal logic and moves beyond it. From my cultural
position, growing up comfortably with formal logic and having to
practice thinking dialectically, the above statement doesn't bother
me. But I would take a different position relative to an Indigenous
perspective, and be much more circumspect about saying that
dialectical logic can or should be privileged there. The difference
in the two positions is one of power. In the first, it seems that a
marginalized position (Marx's in North America) works to challenge a
privileged position (formal logic in North America). In the second,
privileging a dialectical perspective seems like another act of
colonization.
If we look equally across these three positions, which is
problematic because the is no single homogenous Indigenous
perspective, but let's say for this one exercise, then it seems like
we are comparing three different cultural, historical perspectives
on reasoning, right and logical, or rational,behavior.
The question remains to the effects of these different ways of
thinking, but for the people thinking within these systems, what is
the evidence to show that they cannot think at the adult level of
their cultural form of rationality? Yikes, now that I've written
this, I'm not even sure it's the question. Is the issue when we try
to compare the standards of one cultural group to another?
I'll jump to Peter's post, because I totally appreciate what he has
written there as well. I appreciate the idea of separating
dialogical thinking from scientific ... but I also think of Vera
John-Steiner's cognitive pluralism, and want to reaffirm all the
other ways of thinking and experiencing the world through image,
sound, diagram.
These are sometimes more obvious to draw on in some Indigenous
cultures, but the move also shifts the discussion from speech to
writing, whether we are writing lines, or diagrams, or words.
I was looking back over my sad copy of Luria & Vygotsky (1992), the
bottom of page 41 through pages 61 are interesting to this topic
because they show how much Vygotsky struggled with the necessity of
using the work of others and at the same time trying not to be bound
by it. He relies on the work of Levy-Bruhl and takes up his language
"so-called 'primitive peoples'" and then tries to problematize this
a bit. "Primitive man, in the true sense of the term, does not exist
anywhere at the present time," but then of course he continues to
use this language. He argues against any biological type, discusses
"objectively logical thinking" in relation to nature, and goes on to
say .... hm, hm, okay, page 59, the focus is on the development of
writing, and the transition from natural to cultural memory, and
later the historical development of human memory. The ability of
sign systems to enable an external form of memory, an external
storage of memory.
What is different about people with access to the accumulation of
cultural knowledge of any particular culture and people of that same
culture who do not have access to this accumulated knowledge? In
some cultures this may be scientific concepts, as defined by
Vygotsky, in other cultures it may be ....?
But I keep returning to my post a bit ago, the quote there makes it
clear that Vygotsky realizes that even after formal schooling, many
people do not think with scientific concepts, and adults do not
think with scientific concepts across all domains ... this has been
supported by contemporary work, from Panofsky, John-Steiner, &
Blackwell (1990) to Howard Gardner's work with Project Zero.
Vygotsky's goal of thinking in scientific concepts is actually not
accessible to many people within our own cultures ....
Okay, have I completely gone overboard? :)
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, there has been interesting work recently proposing that indigenous
cultures are using a distinct kind of reasoning. These
guys:
Berkes, F., & Berkes, M. K. (2009). Ecological complexity, fuzzy logic,
and holism in indigenous knowledge. Futures, 41(1), 6-12.
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2008.07.003
...suggest that indigenous peoples have learned to deal with
complexity, and to manage natural environments rather than master them;
that what has been dismissed as animism is actually a sophisticated
non-dualistic ontology; and that a holistic systems thinking is being
used. I like several aspects of their analysis, not least that it
explains the "simple number system" - one, two, many - that has been
found in many indigenous cultures, as due to an approach in which
people read and interpret signals from the environment rather than
counting and measuring it.
And I agree with you that judgments of rationality are often violent
impositions; all the judgments of people as 'primitive' are presumably
>of this kind. Presumably what we need are non-violent ways to look at
difference.
As for dialectical logic, it take it that LSV believed that this was
the form of rationality he was employing, and the ontogenesis of which
he was describing. And that he considered it superior to formal logic,
not an alternative.
Martin
On Jun 27, 2012, at 2:04 PM, Jennifer Vadeboncoeur wrote:
Hi Martin,
I am thinking about what you wrote,
"On the contrary, it seems to me that much of LSV's writing can be
read as pointing to the conclusion that *standards* of rationality
will vary from one culture another. But I don't think he followed his
own pointers, and, as I've said above, it is a pretty radical
conclusion to come to."
I was first thinking about different standards of rationality as
noted in the quote below, between formal and dialectical logic.
Both are tied to "Western" countries, through dialectical thinking can
also be tied to "Eastern" countries, so maybe the issue is one of
"industrialized" countries?
"A child who has mastered the higher forms of thinking, a child who
has mastered concepts, does not part with the more elementary forms of
thinking. In quantitative terms, these more elementary forms continue
to predominate in many domains of experience for a long time. As we
noted earlier, even adults often fail to think in concepts. S When
applied to the domain of life experience, even the concepts of the
adult and adolescent frequently fail to rise higher than the level of
the pseudoconcept. They may possess all the features of the concepts
from the perspective of formal logic, but from the perspective of
dialectical logic they are nothing more than general representations,
nothing more than complexes."
(emphasis added, Vygotsky, 1987, p. 160)
>
But the issue in your quote has surfaced several times as well in my
work with Indigenous students and scholars, and we have ended in the
place noted in your quote above. Particular examples include the
complexity and unity of some Indigenous cosmological systems, their
symbolic representation through the medicine wheel, for example, and
>>the narratives, signs, gestures, practices, writings that accompany
these cosmological systems.
Can this be considered another cultural form of rationality (seems
dialectical in a sense as well ...)?
I know this is different from the question you posed in the follow
up email, but isn't "demonstrably weaker" a matter of cultural,
historical, political, economic positioning ... assessed by a
particular dominant group at a particular time on the basis of their
own potentially culturally irrelevant assessments?
Is part of your question also asking for a standard that exists
outside of culture?
Just thoughts here ... jen
Hi Peter,
I am glad to see you join in the discussion, since I know you've
done interesting research on inner speech.
I am certainly willing to grant that patterns of social interaction
will become patterns of self-regulation and thereby parts of patterns
of individual thinking. It also makes sense to me, and in my opinion
LSV clearly states the view, that the higher psychological processes
are cultural processes. I think he goes so far as to say that
reasoning is cultural.
>>
But, importantly, that is not the same as saying that reasoning
*varies* across cultures. We *all* live in culture, and one can say
that reasoning is cultural and still maintain that reasoning is
universal. Are we willing to take another step, and suggest that in
specific cultures the ways that people reason will be different,
because the specific conventions of each culture are involved? That
is a big step to take, because the rules of logic, to pick what is
usually taken to be one component of reasoning, are usually
considered to hold regardless of local conventions.
One way to take this step, of course, is to say that people in
>>>cultures reason in different ways but then to add an evaluative
dimension. Those people in that culture reason differently from the
way we do, but that is because their reasoning is less adequate than
ours. They are more childlike, more primitive.
*This* move has often been made, and I can find many passages in
LSV's texts where he seems to be saying basically this. That's not a
move I find interesting or appealing, and it's not what I am
proposing.
On the contrary, it seems to me that much of LSV's writing can be
read as pointing to the conclusion that *standards* of rationality
will vary from one culture another. But I don't think he followed his
own pointers, and, as I've said above, it is a pretty radical
conclusion to come to.
Martin
On Jun 27, 2012, at 9:33 AM, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:
Martin--
If you grant that interpersonal speech communication is
essentially a cultural invention, and that private and inner
speech--as derivatives of interpersonal speech communication--are
also cultural inventions, then Vygotsky's assertions about inner
speech as a tool that adults use voluntarily to conduct and direct
such crucial psychological activities as analyzing, reflecting,
conceptualizing, regulating, monitoring, simulating, rehearsing
(actually, some of these activities were not specifically asserted
by Vygotsky, but instead have been discovered in experiments with
private speech) would imply that these "higher mental processes" are
themselves cultural products.
Even if the *contents* of inner speech thinking happen to bear no
discernible cultural imprint, the process of production nonetheless
does.
Of course, you may not agree that interpersonal speech
communication is a cultural invention. But if you do go along with
the idea that every speech community follows (albeit
implicitly) their own particular conventions or customs for:
assigning specific speech sounds to specific meanings (i.e.,
inventing words); organizing words into sequences (i.e., inventing
grammar--Chomsky's claims not withstanding); and sequencing
>>>>utterances in conversation according to rules of appropriateness
(i.e., inventing rules that regulate "what kinds of things to say,
in what message forms, to what kinds of people, in what kinds of
situations", according to the cross-cultural work of E. O. Frake),
then reasoning based on the use of speech must be cultural as well.
>>>
My guess is that you are looking for evidence that cultures reason
differently. While there may be evidence for such a claim, I only
want to point out that the tools for reasoning are themselves
manufactured by human culture.
Peter
Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Institutional Research Fordham University
Thebaud Hall-202 Bronx, NY 10458
Phone: (718) 817-2243
Fax: (718) 817-3203
e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: 06/26/2012 05:06 PM
Subject: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
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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The University of British Columbia
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______________________________
Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
The University of British Columbia
Faculty of Education
2125 Main Mall
Library Block 272B
Vancouver BC V6T-1Z4
http://leap-educ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/
phone: 1.604.822.9099
fax: 1.604.822.3302
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