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RE: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?

But what about creating questions as reading? What about expanding by learning? And what about reading for the sake of questioning rather than seeking for absolute answers? What about reading for sake of the pleasure of reading by it self? But not a pleasure that it is exhausted after its fullfillment but for a pleasure that is getting deeper and deeper as more someone read?


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
Sent: Sat 11/10/2012 2:02 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
 
To read productively, Nektarios, I think it is always necessary to read 
purposively, that is, especially, to seek for the answers to specific 
questions (or betters ways of framing the question!). Sometimes what you 
are reading is not at the appropriate degree of generality to give 
answers recognisable to your questions, and that is a problem in itself. 
But always proceed like Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues.

Andy

Nektarios Alexi wrote:
>
> 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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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden

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