Andy vwilk wrote:
Good afternoon. I'll start at the top here. I am stepping outside of this interesting conceptual loop for a moment to a "serene" space which can be defined by General System Theory. It is academic, graduate level, abstract, about the methodology (praxis) and access to information resources, how to set up a research topic IN ANY FIELD WHATSOEVER and be able to proceed "creating your own system" (Blake) while acting in community, even if across disciplines, with those who speak to and challenge your system.Bateson offered us "set theory" via Whitehead and Russell and if we look back into the depths of time, we can find Plato offering us the abstract ladder via Diatima/Socrates in Symposium.Then I want to turn back to Bateson immediately for his work in DOUBLE BIND theory, which involves Bateson's theory of learning. Learning One is learning. Learning Two is learning how to learn. Learning Three takes us to the level where the tertiary academic world meets the world in the wild and they discuss "how are we going to talk about this". Then, though not so simple, the "languages of the conceptual worlds" begin to match terms for equivalences.Conspicuous in Andy's jury example, we have "a case" and all types, presumably including the scientific and the spontaneous. Well, that is a dialectic, a pretty clear one. We can call on the language of mental processing, right brain for spontaneous, creative, innovative, integrative and the left brain for categories, descriptions, criteria, atomizing.I'm going to round off this quick duck out to the stratosphere by quoting Einstein: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. <http://thinkexist.com/quotation/we_can-t_solve_problems_by_using_the_same_kind_of/15633.html>”The shipwreck of interdisciplinarity comes from the war of preferences in which conceptual tools we are going to use, but a proper duel needs to have a conference, a choice of tools and rules of engagement to be productive. We have found at the academy that writer's and teachers of writing need every kind of thought and language tool to assist in the creation of new research and writing about new research. Well, enough for now. I'm always going back to Bateson.Vandy (2012/11/13 9:30), Andy Blunden wrote:Nice to meet you, Chuck. I read your original submission and the revised ms twice, but that is some time ago now. I will re-read it later today so I can be properly prepared for this multilogue. In the meantime let me make just one point, because my point about the drive to make aconcept into a typology has nothing to do with the distinction between dichotomous typologies and typologies that point to a continuous spectrum. The latter is always the refuge of a failed dichotomy.Let's suppose you are on a jury. You are hearing a case of murder. You know what murder is, and I am assuming that everyone on this list knows and I won't try to define it. The case however turns out to be challenging, even though the facts are not in dispute. You hear about provocation and blind rage and fear, and about blows whose effect far exceeds intention, and the victim's heart condition. Before you retire to consider your verdict, the judge gives you a list of criteria against which you have to judge the facts.My question is this: is the list of criteria which define a typology of homicide according to the various contingent circumatances of the act the *real, scientific* definition of "murder", and the vague ill-defined concept of murder that you arrived with a "spontaneous concept"? Or is it the fact that you had a better concept to start with, and the judge's criteria were the best approximation the law could make to that concept for teh purpose of categorisation?Let us go further. You find the defendant guilty of murder and they go to prison, but there is a public outcry and a massive campaign to have her acquitted. The campaign is successful, the defendant appeals and is acquitted after which the government amends the law so that in future judges will give new directions to juries ensuring not-guilty findings in such cases in future.My next question is this: which is the "real concept" of murder? Or did it change? Or are there in fact multiple concepts of murder in competition with one another? Was everyone previously mistaken about the definition of murder? What typology of concepts do you use to distinguish them.Now I float this hypothetical NOT to prove how complicated is real life, so that we can all shrug our shoulders and say "Goodness! What can you do?" But it is targeted specifically at the concept of concept which reads Vygotsky, like everyone else (almost), as taking the concept of concept to be a typology of contingent attributes with nothing underneath. And of course, Chuck, it is a question for everyone else as much as for you.Andy https://vimeo.com/groups/129320/videos/35819238 Charles Bazerman wrote:Mike Forwarded the current string, and I have now rejoined the list. An earlier message I sent about T.S. Eliot's poem got lost, and I may repost it later. Right now, however, let me respond to these Andy and Larry's thoughtful comments. I think Andy has got my intentions and situation right. I was certainly invoking my understanding of Vygotsky's ideas of scientific and spontaneous concepts, and was interpreting scientific to include organized sets of practices where there were stronger degrees of public criticism and social accountability, particularly with respect to coherence among concepts and collected evidence gathered according to communal standards in pursuit of communal projects. And thus I would indeed associate concepts with use and practice within social groupings. (I am using the term social groupings rather than the more common term community in order to emphasize the varieties among groupings and the differentiation of roles, positions, and objects within those groupings, although collective objects may bind those groups together.)To some degree any publicly articulated ideas are accountable to communal expectations, practices, and rules of accountability, even if such rules are of the sorts such as "let it pass, because it is not important for immediate action" or "let's accept everyone's ideas, although we may not understand them or agree with them, in the name of goodwill or mutual support." Each of these do provide climates in which we formulate our ideas. So in this way the spectrum of spontaneous to disciplined/scientific concepts is continuous and does not provide bright lines, except as we historically construct them. However, we have historically created more robust social groupings devoted to particular lines of practice and projects, with more explicit and detailed sets of expectations and criteria of judgment for the consequentiality of proposed ideas--and these groupings have as well been associated with emergent institutions associate with the objects of these groupings. These might include not only the secular institutions and disciplines of the academy and professions, but also those of the spiritual domain, the performing and graphic arts, commerce games and sports, politics, criminal culture, and other domains that have a robust alignment of practice and communal thinking. These may not all have occurred to Vygotsky as scientific, as attached as he was to the emergence of "scientific socialism" (though his connection with the arts, especially literature drama and the early film, may have led him to include them in his view of an increasingly scientific social order). Thus I may be drawing the fuzzy line between spontaneous and scientific concepts nearer to the spontaneous end than Vygotsky, who might as well have been drawing a somewhat brighter line. However, since Vygotsky did not elaborate extended visions of society or history, especially after he articulated his view of concepts, we may not ever know what he thought or even if he thought very much about this issue. His earlier writings about the arts, however, did indicate that he did treat them as capable of disciplined evocation of internal states to create shared experiences.This discussion still leaves me with the dilemma that both Andy and Larry point toward, that my own articulation of concepts is within the intellectual project and practices of historically emerged disciplines and projects. Guilty. I do not claim to escape social time or social space, but only speak to them. It is in fact Yrjo's call for the special issue that drew together my various ruminations about concepts in other contexts to a new articulation, directed towards the inter/multi-disciplinary world of MCA, situated within the wider social intellectual projects that have drawn on activity theory. I found this context gave fresh wind to my sails to push my thinking further. Additionally, it was the review processes and dialog around publication that further helped me articulate my thought for this particular social formation and occasion. Accordingly and obviously, I draw on the conceptual world and intellectual practices that come with the activity theory projects. I have cast my bets with this particular lot and the fate of my text depends on the usefulness for people engaged with this evolving project or with future projects that might find a useful resource in this set of concepts. My last paragraph pulls me back to the Eliot poem and the last sentence of my abstract--the need and value of rearticulating one's ideas and accounts to new moments, and how that provides new refining disciplines. What strikes me most about Eliot's poem, which I commented on in my lost message, is how urgent he feels the need to continually rearticulate himself, despite what others may have said more powerfully or even himself in better times. Of course, Eliot was caught up in both religious and artic stic disciplines which seemed to call for this constant rearticulation to measure the quality of his soul and his path in the world. To what extent, more generally all of us are driven to rearticulate the self in those disciplines important to the self, is a question I am now thinking about. Is this a characteristic of participation in particular social worlds or is a consequence of the organization of the human brain and consciousness, in the manner Ramachandran proposes.Chuck ----- Original Message ----- From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> Date: Monday, November 12, 2012 8:11 am Subject: Fwd: [xmca] A Failure of Communication To: Chuck Bazerman <bazerman@education.ucsb.edu>Chuck- There are some comments on your xmca paper. You might want to join xmca for a bit or I will just forward for your comments. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> Date: Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 6:45 AM Subject: Re: [xmca] A Failure of Communication To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>I appreciated Bazerman's deployment of the conceptr of "genre" and I alsoliked his use of "gist".To be fair, Larry, Bazerman qualifies the use of "scientific" by following the term with "(or disciplined or schooled)," and this indicates a much broader concept of concept, much closer to what I would take to be a "true" concept in Vygotsky's sense. I wonder if his use of "scientific" to "standfor" that whole category of concept was a nod to Vyvgotsky? In general though, I think what Bazerman calls "conceptual words" and "scientific(disciplined or schooled)" concepts are precisely concepts which arise from problems in a definite system of practice, or dare I say it, a project. Aset of practices has to have rules in order to generate contradictions which are the source of new concepts.But I think the problem that Bazerman has in developing this insight flows from his concept of concept. Yes, the concept of concept is circular. When you make claims about concepts, or say anything about them, you are alreadypresuming your interlocutor shares your understanding of the subject matter, i.e. your concept of concept. ... So Bazerman wants to categorise concepts and sets off trying to make atypology, and so we have "spontaneous" and "scientific" concepts ... which immediately leads to observations like yours about the "fuzzy boundaries" not to say "shifting boundaries" etc. Because despite it all, it seems, Bazerman still cannot get away from the concept of concept as a means of categorisation. So the first thing you have to do in talking about conceptsis to set up a typology of concepts.There are a lot of nice things about this paper, but so long as you are stuck on categorisation and typologies you will forever be tied in knotstrying to understand concepts, I think. Andy Larry Purss wrote:Hi MikeI will attempt a commentary on Charles Bazerman's article "Writing WithConcepts: Communal Internalized and Externalized"I struggled with how to enter into this genre of writing which is exploring the concept of concepts. The topic of the paper I find fascinatingand theinsight that concepts are embedded within genres allows reflectionon thenotion of *romantic science*In particular the genre's propensity to explore concepts as two*kinds* -spontaneous and scientific. Bazerman then offers a qualificationthat these*kinds* have fuzzy boundaries.It is this notion of the fuzzy boundaries within this particulargenre thatI would like to explore further. When we enter into a dialogue on therelationship between spontaneous and scientific concepts andexplore thefunctions of each are we moving away from *strict* dialectcs towards *interpretive* dialectics*? In other words is the relationship BETWEEN spontaneous and scientific concepts a *real* or an *interpretive* distinction?Do these distinctions exist in the natural world or are they aspectsof aparticular genre which has developed textually and intertextually througheffective history? What I'm playing with is the theme of *romantic science*. I also want to share an image which this article sparked. At the AERA conference in Vancouver, I felt a sense or mood offragmentation within the *project* of AERA. There were multiple genres with the corresponding conceptual *tools* or *artifacts*. Thethrongs weremoving aboutt as if at a trade fair picking up and putting down thevarious tools, artifacts, and scientific concepts wondering if thesetoolswould be useful for their particular projects. But where was thesense ormood of *shared purpose* within *commonly shared projects*?Charles Bazerman's article is exploring a fascinating theme ofgenres andconcepts. I hear Andy's voice calling us to put this particulargenre in awider framework engaging with our ancestors. The topic as genre is fascinating but it does have a history within an evolving dialogue.As Andy is passionate about calling us to remember the genre exploring concepts of concepts has a romantic history. Exploring scientific and spontaneous concepts [with their FUZZY boundaries] is one way into thisfascinating genre. LarryOn Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 11:38 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:Dear Colleagues--I have been reminded of an issue that has been nagging at me for sometime,that we have not had a discussion of any of the articles in the specialissue ofMCA called "concepts in the wild." The article selected by aplurality ofvoterswas by Chuck Bazerman on concepts in the process of writing. But noonehascommented on the article. That seems to me a shame. In fact, the entireissue,with its stellar set of authors and papers is worth discussing, andIfigure there will be morearticles on this general theme in the time to come, spanning as itdoes,the story ofall those practice in which we acquire and deploy concepts in organizingour social life and experience the world.Below are two items for your consideration: The first is theabstract ofChuck's paper. The secondis a stanza from a poem by T.S. Elliott which I believe is relevanttotopic of the paper andin any event, worth considering in its own right. I firstencountered itin Jack Goody's *Domestication of the Savage Mind, *a book about therelationship between thinking and writing in societies varying in theirpractices related to the concept of literacy.If the 25 people or more who led us to this article are not in a positionto contribute to the discusion,perhaps this invitation will be sufficient for others, includingChuck, todo so.And if no one is interested in this discussion, we might re-visit theprocess by which articles for discussion taken from MCA. Or not. mike ----------------------- T. S. Elliott from “East Coker” So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years— Twenty years largely wasted, the years of *l'entre deux guerres* Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition— There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. The whole poem is here: ______________________________**____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu______________________________**____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu--------------------------------**------------------------------**------------*Andy Blunden* Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts ______________________________**____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Andy Blunden* Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca