Re: [xmca] Re: Luria - New Vodka Old Bottle PDF

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Andy,
Your response to Greg opens up the notions of *conscious actions* and
*active consciousness* WITHIN communication.
Consciousness exists as formative processes [of practical and material
objectifications of thought]
As *formative* processes the various forms [of conscious actions and active
consciousness] can be traced through time and located within particular
places.

Andy, the term *trans-verse-al* may express this notion of a particular
type of active consciousness that is located within communicative discourse
AND action. Calvin Schrag gives an account of a praxis-oriented self,
defined not by its interiority, but by its communicative praxis.
Schrag suggests these communicative practices are,

"oriented toward an understanding of itself in its discourse, its action,
its being with others, and its experience of transcendence".
Transcendence for Schrag refers to the radical other or alterity as
alteration. [Levinas is referenced as a transcendent account]

This account is an attempt to form a new expanded transversal logos which
opens up modern notions of rationality which idealize ahistorical
  reflections. Schrag views various culture-spheres [science, morality,
art] as distinct functions defining the sociohistorical processes OF
self-formation within communicative praxis [discourse and action].

Schrag also references Bahktin's account of *chronotopes* as a transversal
logos [of temporality AND topography].
He locates modernism as preoccupied with vertical universal accounts while
postmodernism is preoccupied with horizontal opinions as fragmented and
local.
Transversal reason is a way of understanding the partiality of each
position and within the grammar of communicative praxis each type of active
consciousness can inform the other partial view [vertical and horizontal].

This is an alternative tradition, which is rethinking reason as too
narrowly focused within modernity and his expanded engagement with
logos may hold some interest [or not].

Larry


On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Greg, I think you are completely right with the way you describe the
> interdisciplinary blindness inquestion. Michael Hedelberger (for yet
> another example) referred to the "folk psychology" of natural scientists,
> neuroscientists in particular, when they unwittingly step outside their
> discipline and talk about psychology instead of brains.
>
> Also, I think you are completely right in disagreeing with suggestions to
> replace the relevant interdisciplinary gulf with a dichotomy beween
> thinking and speaking, and insisting that actions always include thinking
> and that speaking is an action. Otherwise, we are not talking about
> actions, but behaviour. Behaviour is the result of abstracting actions away
> from consciousness. And thinking cannot be abstracted away from voluntary
> motor actions  which was the topic of Luria's book, of course.
>
> And this is the point isn't it? Whether a sensible social science can
> abstract from (individual) consciousness and rely only on objectified forms
> of mind (such as the recorded word), and whether a sensible psychology can
> absrtact away from the formative processes of the practical and material
> objectifications of thought inherited by every individual from their
> societal environment.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>> I'm still having a hard time figuring out how any instance of speaking or
>> even thinking about speaking is not action.
>>
>> But Philip's post suggests a slightly different way of thinking about the
>> discourse/action distinction.
>>
>> Perhaps the discourse/action distinction is better captured by individual
>> vs. group than by ideal vs. material, with discourse being the group level
>> phenomena that makes certain ways of thinking about things more or less
>> available, and action being the way that people use discourse in actual
>> practice (and which, in the collective, becomes discourse). Discourse is
>> the thing that circulates in society and is instantiatable in any
>> individual instance of bringing discourse to life by action (whether
>> speaking or doing).
>>
>> I'd be happy to talk Treyvon, but maybe better to stick to the question of
>> why a google search of "ethnographic psychology" turns up only a handful
>> of
>> articles and no insitutional centers? This is a fantastic idea - so why
>> hasn't it caught hold?
>>
>> Thinking through discourse and action (which have to be two sides of the
>> same coin), "ethnographic psychology" doesn't take hold because it doesn't
>> fit with discourse or with action (and I would still prefer to put these
>> together, b.c. in academia, let's face it, if discourse isn't action, then
>> we are doing a whole lotta nothing! But I'll keep them separate in order
>> to
>> try them on). Where discourse includes the predominant ways of thinking
>> about what psychology is and action involves things like publishing in
>> actual journals that will allow one to keep one's job. The configuration
>> that rules out "ethnographic psychology" is thus very complex. I don't
>> know
>> that changing discourse or actions is really going to change things unless
>> the supports of discourse and action are altered in some way. And I don't
>> think it is just one single support that can be knocked out (e.g.
>> capitalism). Rather, I think there are lot of interconnecting supports
>> that
>> make "the way things are (e.g., no "ethnographic psychology")" appear to
>> most to be right and good and true. These include such myriad things as
>> language (in the broadest sense of Western languages, but also in the more
>> specific sense of the arcane lingos of different disciplines),
>> institutitutional structures ("joint" appointments remain the exception in
>> most universities), sociopolitical arrangements, and, yes, capitalism. It
>> isn't a perfect impenetrable Althusserian structure, some of the supports
>> may contain contradictions that make them prone to collapse, and others
>> may
>> be less well interconnected. This is all just to say that there is hope,
>> but the challenge is to identify where the shaky supports are and to
>> figure
>> out how to encourage their collapse. And I'll do my part at pointing these
>> out.
>>
>> So, yes, discourse and action are the place to start.
>>
>> -greg
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 12:52 PM, White, Phillip <
>> Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu
>>
>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Michael, in response to your multiple questions here, i'm going to hazard
>>> a guess based on my experiences teaching children who are learning a
>>> second
>>> language as well as teaching teachers how to teach second language
>>> learners.
>>>
>>> for me, the communicative discourse drives our actions.
>>>
>>> when working with second language learners, when the learners had
>>> language
>>> supports, particularly visual and auditory, they were often stronger in
>>> mastering an activity.  for example, in science when comparing two
>>> objects
>>> and finding similarities and differences.  if on the board that statement
>>> was posted, "I noticed that _____________ was similar to ________________
>>> because ___________________."
>>>
>>> in time, i noticed that when the teachers were learning teaching
>>> strategies, and, say, i'd focus on utilizing open questions, when i
>>> provided them with a piece of paper with specific open question prompts,
>>> they were more easily and more quickly able to change their questioning
>>> behaviors.
>>>
>>> while the teachers knew the difference between a closed  question and an
>>> open question, they didn't have the language structures, say, on the tip
>>> of
>>> their tongue.  as time passed and they became more fluent with open
>>> questions, then they were better able to control their questioning
>>> strategies, which also demanded that the students then had to respond
>>> with
>>> more than "yes", "no" or other monosyllabic discourses.
>>>
>>> my two bits.
>>>
>>> phillip
>>>
>>>
>>> Phillip White, PhD
>>> Urban Community Teacher Education Program
>>> Site Coordinator
>>> Montview Elementary, Aurora, CO
>>> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
>>> or
>>> pawhite@aps.k12.co.us
>>> ______________________________**__________
>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
>>> Behalf
>>> Of Glassman, Michael [glassman.13@osu.edu]
>>> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 12:16 PM
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Re: Luria - New Vodka Old Bottle PDF
>>>
>>> There is, it seems to me, a really big problem, or divide, that has been
>>> haunting the issue of communicative discourse and action.
>>>
>>> Which is primary?  And I don't think this is a frivolous question - and
>>> the idea that it is in a constant cycle has a difficult time working
>>> because the question always comes up where do we as researchers enter
>>> this
>>> cycle?
>>>
>>> Does communicative discourse drive our actions?  And do we change our
>>> actions by changing communicative discourse?
>>>
>>> Or does action drive our communicative discourse?  And we change our
>>> communicative discourse through changing our actions.
>>>
>>> Do we change racism in America by getting people to change their
>>> communicative discourse about Treyvon Martin?
>>>
>>> Or do we get people to engage in more just actions and allow this to lead
>>> to a change in communicative discourse.
>>>
>>> One of the difficulties with Vygotsky, at least from my view, is that he
>>> can be interpreted both ways, depending of course on what you are reading
>>> and level of confirmation bias.
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
>
>
>