Andy,
Your metaphor of sciences branching off from one another like species in an evolutionary chain entails a divergence over time of what are initially shared interests and methods. But there doesn't seem to be much historical evidence of that in CHAT. Although it's true that "every strand of CHAT ... is in dialogue with various other currents of science in and outside of CHAT," the external dialogues are different from the internal ones. Externally, CHAT borrows and learns from non-CHAT discourses. But internally, there is a sense of competition over a single subject matter over which the different approaches are attempting to claim hegemony. This is the classic configuration of a single preparadigmatic science, rather than of separate sciences evolving away from one another. Indeed, your very characterization of CHAT as "the range of theories on display whenever there is an ISCAR Congress" is sociological evidence of a single science. Separate sciences don't congress with one another.
What I'm focusing on in your response is your perception that "every strand of CHAT takes itself to be scientific." To me this means that there is an underlying motive toward formulation of theory that is convergent, that forms a single system of thought as is needed for falsifiability. In that respect, the tendency for CHAT theories to be divergent and heteronomous, as Nektarios avers, is uncomfortable, something the field strives to get past. But this is at odds with Mike's experience that a convergent theoretical system is "incompatible with how I understand what bio-cultural-social-historical activity/practice/situated theories of human nature could aspire to."
David
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:38 PM
To: David H Kirshner
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
David, can we see CHAT, i.e., the range of theories on display whenever there is an ISCAR Congress, as a "family of sciences" which, like members of a family, have a family resemblance and/or genetic relationship to other members of the famliy, though not to every other?
A long time ago, in various places which we would call the roots of CHAT, contradictions arose in a given body of theory and practice, and these were resolved by innovations, i.e. the introduction or abandonment or modification of a key concept of the theory or key practice. But as in biological evolution, this led to a bifurcation of the genome (so to speak) and/or differential adaptations to different scientific environments, rather than the total extinction of one or the other branch?
So far as I know every strand of CHAT takes itself to be scientific and is in dialogue with various other currents of science in and outside of CHAT. I don't see any challenge to the scientificness of CHAT here.
Andy
David H Kirshner wrote:
I'm obviously having trouble asking this question in an acceptable form, but I'm really interested in answers to it, so I'll try to indicate the nature of the question by reviewing the conversational elements leading to it. ...Thanks for sticking with this.
Nektarios characterized CHAT as "interrelating to each other, and one theorists complementing each other and very often the fruit of it is a qualitavely different theory than the other but neverthless the fruit of the previous theories.. So it means that CHAT it is not a close system, it is not an absolute theory, it is more like a method."
I take this statement as indicating that CHAT is a kind of heterogeneous and emergent conceptual system, characteristics that, for me, distinguish it from conceptual systems of sciences, which somehow are more bounded, at least during periods of "normal science" (i.e., of paradigmatic stability). Presumably the bounded character of scientific conceptual systems is needed for theories to be falsifiable (which Mike notes is basic to the organization of scientific practice).
The major branches of psychology--behavioral, developmental, cognitive--aspire to be scientific, in this sense, and therefore to establish conceptual systems of this more bounded variety. Furthermore, Vygotsky and his contemporaries offered their theories as scientific explanations of learning and development.
So, somewhere in the intervening decades the scientific aspirations that cultural-historical theorists held for their theories seems to have eroded. My question asks after this change:
--Have cultural-historical psychologists, overall, abandoned scientific aspirations for their theories?
--Have some abandoned those aspirations, but other maintain them?
--Are cultural-historical psychologists ambivalent about this issue, unsure of how to frame their aspirations?
--In a poststructural frame, are the aspirations of cultural-historical theory indexed to particular discourses, in some of which theories are clearly scientific, in others, clearly not?
I hope this clarifies the question.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 7:05 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
It had never occurred to me either, David, that a science aspired to closure. In fact I had always taken it that one of the defining characteristics of science was that it was NOT bounded in this sense: to be a science, a body of claims and practices has to be integrated with the entire body of scientific practice. For example, falt-earthism is a self-contained, bounded and consistent theory, just as are spiritualism (i.e. weegie boards etc), astrology, and so on. What makes such theories unscientific is that their eminently self-consistent, closed and maybe even helpful systems of concepts cannot be made consistent with science.
So in a sense, as I see it, there is ideally /only one science/.
But would I could agree with is this: every science (i.e. a particular
science) has at its core a concept of its subject matter, which in the sense of Thomas Kuhn, constitutes a paradigm which sets all the puzzles to be solved by "normal science." In that sense a science is like the physical universe according to Einstein: finite, but unbounded and inexhaustible.
Andy
David H Kirshner wrote:
Thanks, Mike.
I presume that theory that is sufficiently bounded or closed to be falsifiable is the scientific standard that behavioral psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology aspire to, and that Vygotsky aspired to during the time he formulated his theories. I'm very interested to understand what happened to those aspirations for sociocultural theory:
--Has sociocultural psychology renounced those ambitions?
--Are theorists divided on the question of whether sociocultural theory strives for closure?
--Are theorists ambivalent about this issue, unsure about how to frame these aspirations?
--Or, perhaps, in a poststructural frame, are the aspirations of sociocultural theory indexed to particular discourses, in some of which sociocultural theory is clearly scientific, and others clearly not?
--None of the above?
David
From: mike cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 4:00 PM
To: David H Kirshner
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
That is indubitably a high standard for science, David.
It seems incompatible with how I understand what bio-cultural-social-historical activity/practice/situated
theories of human nature could aspire to, and not sure even that they should.
mike
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:12 AM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu<mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu><mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu><mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
Mike,
Empirical falsification requires a theoretical system that is sufficiently fixed and determinate so as to enable indubitable logical deduction. Whether the correct word for such a system is "closed" or "bounded" I don't know. Feel free to substitute "bounded, if that works better for you; but the question stands.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:39 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
David-- It had never occurred to me that sciences are by definition closed.
Bounded perhaps? With leaky borders and a commitment to falsification?
mike
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:08 AM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu<mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu><mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu><mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
So, Nektarios, CHAT is just chat!
More seriously, thinking of CHAT as a methodology--a set of
practices--accommodates what seems to be its irrevocably "open,"
non-absolute in character.
But what does this do to the aspirations of sociocultural psychology
to be taken seriously as a "science?" Aren't sciences, by definition,
closed systems of thought?
--Has sociocultural psychology renounced those ambitions?
--Are theorists divided on the question of whether sociocultural
theory strives for closure?
--Are theorists ambivalent about this issue, unsure about how to frame
these aspirations?
--Or, perhaps, in a poststructural frame, are the aspirations of
sociocultural theory indexed to particular discourses, in some of
which sociocultural theory is clearly scientific, and others clearly not?
--None of the above?
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>]
On Behalf Of Nektarios Alexi
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 9:25 AM
To: ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
What an interesting genealogy!!
So the father of CHAT was Aristotle?:) Is ike the Abraham of Bible?:)
But i think in terms of dialectical materialism CHAT it is all them
interrelating to each other,and one theorists complementing each other
and very often the fruit of it is a qualitavely different theory than
the other but neverthless the fruit of the previous theories.. So it
means that CHAT it is not a close system, it is not an absolute
theory, it is more like a method that because of its not teleological
morphology it always create the appropriate space to integrate
anything relevant that helps us to understand us (humans) in relation to society and culture and vice versa?
Nektarios
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net>]
Sent: Thu 11/8/2012 12:36 AM
To: Nektarios Alexi
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
Others can probably enlighten us more than I can, Nektarios, but I
think he was a very erudite person. Clearly from a young age he was
hungry for knowledge and read widely in many languages. But
specifically, he was coming of age in Russia right in the midst of the
Russian Revolution. This revolution threw literally millions of people
into all kinds of "social criticism" (Luria describes the tumultuous
scene in his University at the time, in his Autobiography). New
movements in Art, literature, Linguistics, natural science, social
theory, philosophy, technology, social organisation,... sprung up
spontaneously on all sides. Vygotsky was a part of that. That is the
main thing. But for geopolitical reasons it was a short-lived "Spring."
In particular, I think, Vygotsky came from Art Criticism (in a milieu
where drama theory, linguistics and aesthetic theory were making world
historic advances in Vygotsky's immediate social circle. Then his
intellectual disposition (as exhibited in his Psychology of Art) took
him into education and scientific psychology. At that time, prior to
and independently of the Revolution, Russia was already in the
forefront of Behaviourist research in Psychology. Vygotsky was in an
ideal position to bring the social criticism he learnt as a student
into the scientific establishment around Pavlov, Bekhterev, etc. Add
to that his close study of Marx's Capital, Lenin's philosophical
works, and Engels' popularisation, is the broth which produced Vygotsky.
See http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/chat/Genealogy-CHAT.htm
Andy
Nektarios Alexi wrote:
Hi Andy,
My question is how Vygotsky could tackle such subtle problems
in the theories of Piaget but also others in his book Thought and Language?
What kind of intellectual or theoretical backgorund did Vygotsky had
that allowed him to see the human nature in such a depth and not just
that but also find the precise language to describe it, but not just
describe it but describe it in scientific terms and also with
evidence? Can we say that it was his comprehensive knowledge on arts
and especially of classic literature that helped him to see that deep
and notice such subtle details and errors in so many other important psychological theories of his time?
Just saying..
Nektarios
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Larry Purss
Sent: Thu 11/8/2012 12:02 AM
To: ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
Andy
I just finished reading your article in the newsletter.
It is a clear statement of ways to expand the conversation.
I have recently re-read the 1st chapter of Raymond Williams
book *Marxism
and Literature* on the concept of *culture*. It is a wonderful
history on
the shifting flowing transforming meanings of various uses of
the concept
*culture*
I noticed at the beginning of the article you are affiliated
with a group
with the title *continental philosophy*
I often wonder if this umbrella term could be more explicitly
brought into
the conversation to illuminate the multiple streams of
sociocultural theory
and how CHAT is situated within this umbrella term.
It would possibly assist in engaging deeply with philosophy as
you advocate.
I would like to bring in a distinction that Charles Taylor
uses between
what he refers to as *strict* dialectics and *interpretive*
dialectics.
Strict dialectics assumes each side of the dialectic [for example
individual and social] are interactive but the essence of the
objects
interacting is determined. Interpretive dialectics in contrast
puts in play
the interpretive nature of the objects which are then joined
in interaction.
I am attaching the first two chapters of Raymond Williams book
*Marxism and
Literature* which I believe is an example of *interpretive*
dialectics as
described by Charles Taylor.
The contrast between the notions *strict* and *interpretive*
may be helpful
in illuminating different notions of *interaction* and
*activity* within
mediated worlds.
Andy, I hope others read the ISCAR newletter and join with us
in a friendly
CHAT.
Larry
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Andy Blunden
<ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> Strangely enough, Ron, my first contacts with Vygotskyan
theory was with
> academic colleagues at the University of Melbourne, with
whom I was
> interacting in the project of creating collaborative
learning spaces. I
> knew about social constructionism, which I took to be Berger and
> post-modern critical theory (having only the vaguest
knowledge of these
> things) but then from my colleagues, who were van der Veer
and Valsiner
> types, I was surprised to find out that Vygotsky (whose name
I knew from
> Ilyenkov) was also a constructivist (I have never properly
separated the
> way those two words are used). So I then got a book out of
the library on
> constructivist epistemology which said that there were
dozens of varieties
> of constructivism, but that Vygotsky was a constructivist
who took the
> collaboration of carer-child dyads as the basis for the
social construction
> of knowledge, rather than the wider culture .... took me
quite a while to
> find my bearings in all that mess.
>
> I just think that we always have to allow a lot of latitude in
> understanding what people actually mean when they use a word
in a given
> context. A word meaning is not a concept.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Ron Lubensky wrote:
>
>> Hi Andy,
>>
>> I too thought the ISCAR newsletter interview article was
very good. I
>> especially liked your comparison of CHAT to interactionist
approaches,
>> which you and I have discussed before. One area that
continues to be messy,
>> as you suggest, is the relationship of CHAT to social
constructIVism and
>> social constructIONism.
>>
>> Since CHAT's first home is developmental psychology, it is
out of the
>> work of Piaget and Papert that these terms are usually
defined, and so
>> closely that they are often conflated. While these theories
acknowledge the
>> social and perhaps cultural influences on learning and
interpretation, they
>> centre on a cognitivist, mental model view of knowledge.
There is also the
>> normative aspect of giving control to the learner to
construct his or her
>> individual world-view.
>>
>> The other social constructIONism comes out of communications and
>> sociology (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, The Social
Construction of Reality,
>> 1966), that challenges the inevitability of categorisations
that are taken
>> for granted in common discourse, and which form the bases
for many
>> institutions. This post-modern constructIONism generally
places knowledge
>> in discourse and interaction, but in more recent
scholarship focuses on the
>> cultural situation of the individual. This isn't a learning
theory but
>> rather a critical, meta-theoretical stance. To complicate
matters, there
>> are different strands with various accounts of what should
be treated as
>> real, true, essential, scientific, etc. and how
communication should relate
>> to action. It also challenges academic research standards
with advocacy for
>> interventionist approaches to practice. For an
interdisciplinary expansion
>> of CHAT, I think this constructIONism offers a rich field
for comparison.
>>
>> --
>> Ron Lubensky
>> http://www.deliberations.com.**au/ <<http://www.deliberations.com.au/>
http://www.deliberations.com.au/><http://www.deliberations.com.au/>
>> 0411 412 626
>> Melbourne Australia
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/><http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> http://ucsd.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<<http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden><http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
>
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