RE: Burke's Parlor and other modes of entry

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sat, 29 Jun 1996 14:21:07 -0400

Gordon, I am struggling with Ilyenkov's concept of the "ideal" -
thanks for keeping it a topic. As I understand it, the Ideal
differs from a synoptic generalization in that, however much
it slips from the "single-valued theoretical fixation," the
slippage results from the doubled way of understanding that we all
rely on: we cannot generalize except by way of the particular -
The form is empty, meaningless, except in embodied terms,
which particularize it. So the envisioning of _form_ is a kind of
ongoing projection, which must always be recast by way of the
ongoing Real. The slippage results from the difference in angle of
vision between our two eyes. This is, anyway, my sense-making....

But a synoptic generalization is specific to a _positioned_ way of
seeing - the diverse perspectives of particular seers -
- many eyes, many points of view - are at stake in a way that
they supposedly are not in a conceptualization of the Ideal,
if I have understood this notion at all.

- I hope more knowledgable CHATers will let me know how far off
the mark I am.

Uncountable thank-you's to Gordon for the following sign-off:

>As so often, I hesitate to send this message, as I am aware that it
>betrays my ignorance and the half-baked state of my own understanding.
>But I know that I am not alone in feeling less than competent, so I will
>hit the send key and trust in the collaborative spirit in which I have
>come to believe it will be received.

- Judy

my intention in re-presenting
>the parlor vignette was to try to capture in a relatively condensed image
>a general principle that is much more synoptically captured in the
>expression "legitimate peripheral participation". What Eugene's and
>Mary's responses make clear is that real-life experiences of LPP are
>much more varied - and fraught - than the synoptic generalization might
>suggest. The same is true, I believe, of all synoptic generalizations
>about learning, development, transformation, etc....

>'"Ideality" constantly escapes, slips away from the metaphysically
>single-valued theoretical fixation. As soon as it is fixed in the "form
>of the thing" it begins to tease the theoretician with its
>"immateriality", its "functional" character and appears only as a form of
>"pure activity". On the other hand, as soon as one attempts to fix it "as
>such", as purified of all the traces of palpable corporeality, it turns
>out that this attempt is fundamentally doomed to failure, that after such
>a purification there will be nothing but phantasmal emptiness, an
>indefinable vacuum.' (p.87)
>

>
>If I have understood the implications of this passage correctly, we have
>no choice - if we genuinely want to understand - but to live the tension
>between the synoptic representations that we create and the particular
>and diverse (even conflicting) embodied activities and interactions from
>which they are derived and against which they must be tested. Because of
>the limitations on length that are imposed (by self or others) on
>writing, we tend to choose the former when communicating in print and can
>easily lose touch with the particular instances, which take so much
>longer to convey. So thank you, Mary, for taking the time and space to
>tell your particular experience.

>
>Gordon Wells, gwells who-is-at oise.utoronto.ca
>OISE/University of Toronto.
>
>
>

....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903

Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm. Blake