[Xmca-l] Unity of cognition and affect

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

I have been waiting to hear further reflections on this months article.
I have noticed that as I am reading other articles I hear Jennifer's voice
calling me to listen for distinctions within unities and not reify these
fluid distinctions into discrete dichotomies.
I would like to offer further reflections on my musings.
Dewey wrote a book titled "Experience AND Nature* as conductive concepts.
I have read Vygotskian commentary suggesting *nature* does not capture the
centrality of tools and artifacts. Would the title "Experience AND
Artifacts" be a useful working title?
Other titles that came to mind were "Experience AND Mediation" or
"Experience AND Activity".
I am proposing that *experience* and the conjunctive concepts as
distinctions can be played with in our models of human nature.
I am also aware that Dewey re-considered [analepsis] the choice of the
concept *experience* in his model. However, with the exploration of the
unity of cognition AND feeling I wonder if *experience* can still be a
concept which we can *live through* as a meaningfully shared concept to
explore analytical distinctions WITHIN unities?

The concept *word meaning* was proposed as a central concept used by
Vygotsky which as an aspect of experience unifies cognition and affect
WITHIN experience as situated.
This insight is exploring the place of *concepts* within experience [as
situated].
Calvin Schrag has explored Merleau-Ponty's  theme of the centrality of the
*visual FIELD* and proposes that M-P's insights exploring the visual field
within experience can be extended to other *fields* such as the other
perceptual fields [touch hearing, taste] AND conceptual fields, and
valuational fields.
The key insight M-P offers is that these multiple fields [perceptual,
conceptual, valuational] WITHIN experience are neither "outer worlds* of
re-presented or re-constituted objective properties and relations on the
one hand, nor are these multiple fields [perceptual, conceptual,
valuational]  an "abstracted inner world" as transcendentally accessed.
The experiential world [as situated] M-P describes as a *lived-through
world*.
 Consciousness, [the theme Vygotsky was turning towards before his early
death], is NEVER ENCLOSED WITHIN ITSELF. It is from the beginning lodged
within the world as an intentional unity with figures [and con-figurations]
positioned or located against backgrounds [Gestalts]. Gestalt has also been
proposed on this xmca site as where Vygotsky was turning.
Schrag suggests M-P privileged the *visual field* but his key insight can
be expanded beyond the visual to multiple fields. Schrag suggests the
visual field is not *truer* or displays a *richer* structure than do the
other multiple fields. The visual field of sight does have the advantage of
providing more direct conditions for objectification. I would add that the
conceptual field also has this distinct benefit of distanciation of figure
and ground. Schrag points out that this benefit however, by virtue of the
distant and disembodied potential of the visual sense [I would add
conceptual field as sense] is prone to become separated from the concrete
*experiencer* and the dynamic fields [as Gestalts]

Schrag highlights a word [aisthesis] which points to the phenomena which
MEDIATES all the senses. THIS full bodied is most overtly displayed and
manifested particularly WITHIN the perceptual field of touch AS tactile
sensation.

This is Schrag's key point [and may also be put in conjunction with the
unity of cognition and affect].
Full-bodied aisthesis CONTINUES TO BE OPERATIVE in the visual [and
conceptual] fields, and by virtue of aisthesis retains a unity WITHIN
experience.
This insight not does mean an inversion of visual and conceptual fields to
the nonvisual tactile or auditory fields. Touch and hearing are neither
truer or richer in structure than sight or concepts. No sense should be
elevated above the others. Sight and concepts without the full bodied
aisthesis of the other senses divests *experience* of its vibrancy, as the
other senses without the visual and conceptual which provide distance tend
to enslave experience within immediacy.

Schrag and the current article are emphasizing unity and the
multidimensional texture of experience as cognition AND affect. As Schrag
writes,
"The multidimensional texture of experience is displayed not only in the
plurality of perceptual fields, but also in the variegated deployment of
conceptual and valuational fields. Conceiving and valuing, as assuredly as
perceiving, occur WITHIN a figure-ground context. Experience is always
broader in its reach than perceptual fields."

M-P's privileging the visual sense is not his central insight. His central
insight is that the multiple fields of sense DISPLAYS a figure-ground
relation AND an intentional structure REVEALING its intended figures at
EVERY level of experience.

Jennifer, I enjoyed crisscrossing your insights and extensions of the unity
of cognition AND affect with Schrag's descriptions within a phenomenology
of experience.

I apologize if this is going off topic but your article is *in my mind* as
I am  reading Schrag's  theme of unity of the senses.
Larry