Hi Andy,
Tnx for posting your work. I am looking toward to read it carefully
very soon and hope to come up with some relevant questions.
Sometime it is hard to find appropriate questions, because i am not
always sure if i am understanding correctly what i am reading, from
scholars of the calibre that are writing in this forum. But i think
that all these fascinating readings that people posting here it is a
kind of Zone of Proximal development for me since it keeps my
intellectual curiosity always alert.
Nektarios
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
Sent: Sat 11/10/2012 11:13 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
David, send a copy of your genres paper to the list. I have a copy, but
it is not my business to post your papers. Everyone would enjoy reading
it, after this foretaste of your ideas. You might be interested in an
excerpt from my book touching on Kuhn which is here:
http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/concepts-language.htm
<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/works/concepts-language.htm>
David, I am not at all "in two minds" over this question. I think Kuhn's
main error was that he mistakenly took the development of a science
through peer review as insulating the science from the world outside.
But nonetheless, his idea of the internal development of a science is
valid and interesting. But "every philosopher is the thought of their
age" and the same goes for those scientists, those philosophers in the
business of reifying their concepts as existent objects.The same is true
for individual human beings, whose self-identity is but a concept of
themselves, and is realised only in practical dialogue with a million
other souls. And I do think that sciences, psychologies in particular,
are dead when they follow Kuhn's precepts and spend their time dotting
i's and crossing t's and ignoring the rising tides and gathering winds,
important as it is to have all the i's dotted.
So, psychologyu has been "pre-paradigmatic" for about 2,200 yers (taking
Aristotle as my starting point). OK. Perhaps this points to a problem in
the concept of "paradigm" rather than a problem in the sciences who have
not attained one? Have you ever read Marx talking about "the universal
class." Your observations about sciences which hope to totalise all the
other sciences are an echo of Marx here.
I think the point is that we have to see science as part of the world,
in every sense. Thesis 11 applies:
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways;
the point is to change it.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm#018
Andy
David H Kirshner wrote:
> ... Within your theoretical effort, you seem to be of two minds
about science in relation to other activity systems. On the one hand,
you acknowledge that CHAT is unlike science: "Activity Theory is
inherently interdisciplinary, but science as a whole, in this world,
is not." On the other hand, you want to homogenize science into a
broader frame that includes CHAT: "the world is made up of an array of
distinct activities (projects) but all these projects interact with
one another, both cooperatively and in conflict." It seems to me the
effort to decompose and recompose CHAT as separate sciences, but in
intercourse with one another, only is accomplished by ignoring the
bounded character of scientific discourse (though perhaps you can
mount a more compelling case). I disagree that "being a self-enclosed,
independent, self-consistent theory it is /dead /as a science, and
science is only alive to the extent that it struggles at its
boundaries." The dynamic struggle at the boundaries is characteristic
of scientific revolution, not the everyday business of normal science.
In characteristic sociological mode, I wonder if the motive for
maintaining a connection between CHAT and science isn't tied to the
very real and material advantage to be gained by having CHAT remain
part of the scientific enterprise.
>
> Finally, turning to your third paragraph, I don't see the
unlikelihood of psychology ever actually achieving paradigmatic
consensus as relevant to its preparadigmatic status. The important
question is how do the branches of psychology interact with one
another? If, as I've suggested, the relationship is characterized by
encroachment and competition, then we have a preparadigmatic science.
Now, I do think the weak prospects for achieving paradigmatic status
are relevant to education's relationship to psychology. Psychologists
within the dominant paradigm are always talking about how we're just
on the verge of putting into place the comprehensive picture of
learning that educators need to do their work effectively. The
behaviorists did it, the cognitivists are doing it now, and I have
little doubt that if sociocultural psychology were to emerge as the
dominant paradigm in psychology, we'd be doing it too. This is NOT
dishonesty; psychologists in the dominant branch generally really do
believe they are about to unify all of psychology under their own
tent. They almost need to believe it, because promulgating one's
paradigm as comprehensive is a necessary competitive strategy within a
competitive process that is inherently sociological, involving as it
does incommensurable framings of the field. So, if I really believed
the hype, I'd be waiting, along with the rest of education, for
Nirvana, instead of pushing for a genres approach that takes the
fragmented state of learning theory as its starting point.
>
> David
>
> -
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