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Date: 9/6/96 1:14 AM
To: Geoffrey Williams
From: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Hopefully my other message on ideals and personal sense reached the
list first. If not, this one would probably make better sense if you
read that one first. Because Illyenkov's theory breaks down for
me on this issue of the ideal not being psychological, not being
individual. Illyenkov, it seems to me, from the excellent, excellent
quote Eugene translated for us, it attempting to build on issues
raised by Pavlov and Kohler (and the interpretation of these issues
by Vygotsky and Luria), but he leaves out a realy big part. The
whole idea that animals other than humans develop by coming into
contact with obstacles and then adapting to the environment by
ocoming these obstacles through the plasticity of their second
order reflexes is pure Pavlov. The fact that human beings don't
need to rely on their second order reflexes as adaptive processes,
but can actually use intellect to manipulate obstacles, through
tools is Vygoty through Kohler. But it seems to me Illyenkov
is trying to get around the idea of individual intellect in the
process, and right now I don't see how that is possible. One of the
most powerful passages I have ever read is the moment, described
by Kohler, when the ape stops simply dealing with obstacles, simply
stops dead in its tracks, and becomes glassy eyed in the process.
What Kohler realizes is that the ape is _thinking_, the ape has
insight, in other words sight turned inwards. What the hell is the
ape looking at? Psychology has been trying to answer that question
er sin. It is intellect itself, the ability to psychologize,
if you will, the material world, that allows apes, and then humans
to move in to the realm of intellect, and allows us to control and
master obstacles through tools, and allows us to transfer this
mastery from one ecology to another. How does Illyenkov get
around this?
Michael
Michael Glassman
University of Houston
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From: HDCS6 who-is-at Jetson.UH.EDU
Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 09:16:45 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Illyenkov/Bakhurst on Ideals
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
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