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Re: Fwd: [xmca] A Failure of Communication

Chuck, it is truly wonderful to reach such a degree of agreement so easily. Thank you for taking the time for this. You are absolutely correct in identifying what Vygotsky did *not *do in relation to Concepts. Recently I had to write a paragraph expressing this, and was obliged to "negotiate" the terms with a dedicated Vygotskyist and close friend of his family, and I came up with the following: 

   Soviet psychologist *Lev Vygotsky* (1896-1934) approached the
   cultural formation of the psyche by means of a study of the
   collaborative use of artifacts originating in a wider culture, in
   some social situation, also the product of the wider culture. He
   observed that “the concept arises and is formed in a complex
   operation that is directed toward the resolution of some task,” (CW
   v. 1, p. 123) “tasks that are posed for the maturing adolescent by
   the social environment – tasks that are associated with his entry
   into the cultural, professional, and social life of the adult world”
   (/ibid./, p. 132). But he did not investigate the processes of
   formation of the social environment itself. His units of analysis
   were the artifact-mediated action (such as word-meaning) and
   /perezhivanie/ (a lived experience), and he did not pursue the
   relation between these personal actions and experiences and the
   formation of the “tasks ... associated with ... the social life of
   the adult world.” These were issues that were taken up by his
   younger associate A. N. Leontyev.
In my work I do not alienate these two processes from one another but deal with them as one task. For this purpose I use the concept of *project*. Again your observations were so very apt in response to my rather abrupt "accusation" re your use of "project." I take "project" to mean: 

   Taking a cue from Hegel, projects can be seen as passing through
   four stages in their development. (1) Firstly there will be some
   group of people who by virtue of their social position are subject
   to some taken-for-granted or impending problem or constraint on
   their freedom. These are the conditions for a project to exist, but
   the project has not yet come into being. (2) On becoming aware of
   the problem there will be a series of failed projects arising from
   misconceptions of the situation, until, at a certain point: (3) A
   true concept of the situation is formulated and named and a social
   movement is launched to change social practices so as to resolve the
   problem or injustice. As the project unfolds and interacts with the
   social environment, its object becomes clearer and more concrete.
   (4) Later, the new form of practice becomes ‘mainstreamed’ as part
   of the social practices of the wider community. That is, it is
   institutionalized and enters into the language of the community.
So, if you take as most do, "project" to mean only that meso-level of activity, then your comments make 100% sense. The point is however, that institutions change, collapse and sometimes rediscover their raisson d'etre. In the midst of a Royal Cpmmission into widespread child sexual abuse and the protection of the abusers by the Catholic Church, this is worth remembering.
Thank you for that, Charles. That was very satisfactory. Perhaps others will speak up now and let us know their thoughts. 

Andy
PS. In his Introduction to his latest book, the sociologist Gary Fine uses the word ‘project’ 20 times, ‘study’ 2 times, ‘foray’ once, ‘enterprise’ once and ‘collaboration’ twice for his own work, but uses none of these words in the main body of the book, but only "groups." 




Charles Bazerman wrote:

While those of us in California have been sleeping and then getting the work of the day started, this conversation has moved on to many new issues. I have also watched your video and I understand your perspective a bit better.  I think I agree with you on almost all fundamental points--in that the way to think about concepts as lines of development on both the individual and social level. I like very much your emphasizing "lines of development" and then the recognition of the strategy of investigating idealized typical paths.
Vygotsky was explicit about mechanisms of conceptual development on the individual plane, using idealized typical paths of daily experience and schooled/disciplined/scientific learning (in a world where only a small part of the population were extensively schooled and where there was a dominate and presumed coherent ideal of scientific knowledge), and he was most interested in the integration of the two lines as one moved beyond idiosyncratic thought and beyond shallowly comprehended repetition of "scientific" formulas. 
However, to understand the social circulation and historical development of conceptual terms we need to understand a different (though intersecting) set of processes of lines of social development of concepts.  Although Vygotsky opens the door to this world, he was not explicit in developing the ways in which concepts emerge and gain currency in an evolving socio-communicative world. Some of those social historical mechanisms have to do with the loosely structured semantic worlds of languages that provide orientations for our experiences, but other parts have to do with more specific language practices within specific social groupings, both in their core form and their penumbra of cultural infusion into other domains.  And other parts have to do with the built environment or the intentional rearrangement of the environment, which also organizes our experience and provide the occasion for naming things.  These different communicative and material practices each have their own
sets of expectations that make them more or less "disciplined" in different ways. (BTW, I agree that spectrum was the wrong term as the variation is much greater than on a single dimension--rather each has its own set of characteristics.) 
Further, the action and communicative worlds are not purely of either ideal type and our lines of development are not either of those idealized typical paths. For the purposes of my article, you could say that I worked from two idealized typical paths of social development--first the open social processes of language development and then the more restricted ones of academic disciplinary discussion.  But then I put the first idealized path aside to focus on the other as the more easily analyzed, and then focused in an even more idealized way on the emergence and circulation of highly visible "concept terms." That was a heuristic move.  In any event what I am attempting in this piece to do is to set out some of the social, historical and communicative mechanisms for social lines of conceptual development, and then locate the individual experience within these social, historical, communicative trajectories.

Finally, before I go back to my paid work, the reason I did not use the word projects for the work of academic disciplines is that disciplines involve institutional histories and structures that may at any time include people with a variety of objects and projects, though the disciplinary field does align them to some degree.  As well certain moments in the group history may lead to even greater alignment in projects and objects, as in the race to discover the mechanism of genetic inheritance.  While my project has many shared elements with others in my profession of teaching of writing, it is far from aligning on all scores, just as my project has mixed alignment with the projects of people on this list, though we all share enough to engage in (I hope) mutually interesting interchange.  Of course we all have fantasies that others will recognize the wisdom of our projects and align more fully with us.  That in part keeps us talking with each other.

Best,
Chuck

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012 7:17 pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: [xmca] A Failure of Communication
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Thanks Charles. The example I gave was intended to challenge the idea that concepts can be understood in terms of a typology or system of classification. Rather I think the approach should utilise "ideal typical paths of development." And this is what I see Vygotsky doing.
That said, your further explanation of how you understand "scientific" as what I would call an ideal typical case of "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..." I think that small qualification goes a long way to giving people cause to think when they read Vygotsky. 


Andy

Charles Bazerman wrote:

I look forward to your elaborations and will view your video.
Chuck

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012 6:27 pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: [xmca] A Failure of Communication
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
I'm sorry for being so obscure, Chuck. I am still working on how to explain my position. But all I am proposing is my reading of
Vygotsky
on Concepts as set out in "Thinking and Speech." Nothing more. I certainly do not think concepts are "philosophic phantasms,"
although this is
the most common response to discovery of the kind of points I am
raising:
"Well, if concepts are not like this, then they must be philosophic phantasms and not worth chasing after."
I am fine with locating yourself in this world in a pragmatist way, etc., etc. I do nothing different. Though I am not sure what you
mean 
by "communal" and other allusions to "community." Maybe my video

https://vimeo.com/groups/129320/videos/35819238
explains it better. Yes, I think there is a "more grounded
approach,"
though those are not words of mine. I am certainly not trying to
"deal with concepts in an abstract way," in fact that is a fair definition of what I am opposing. 
Andy
Charles Bazerman wrote:
Andy, I am not sure I see what you are driving at, and thus I do
not know how to continue the discussion. I know you have written and just published a book on concepts, but I have not read it.
Are you suggesting that there is a more grounded approach to
concepts or that concepts dissolve and that we should not chase after them as philosophic phantasms?
I am trying to deal with concepts not in an abstract philosophic
way
but in a pragmatist way based on the social circulation of terms
and
their use in communal practices and then on what evidence we can
glean
about internal phenomena--and as I say in the essay, my primary activity system and project as a teacher of writing has to do with helping people engage with public circulation of words which people find of value in their endeavors and in their personal
understanding
of the world which they act within. To that task I bring the resources of Vygotsky and activity theory. I do not claim an epistemic position outside those realms of practice. So what are
you
trying to persuade me and others of, or what difficulty in my
pursuit
of my practices within my activity systems do you want me to attend 
to?
Once I have better bearings of the intersection of our interests, 
I may be able to say something more useful.
Chuck 
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--
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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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