CP7
Charles Bazerman (bazerman who-is-at humanitas.ucsb.edu)
Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:49:35 -0700 (PDT)
In Chapter Seven Mike first provides an elaborated account of individual
development (ontogeny) within a cultural environment, which the child
learns to live in and through. Prolepsis, interaction, and joint mediated
activity are key elements in the story of the socio-cultural formation of
the individial. In the latter half of the chapter, Mike considers the
arguments for modularity, which identifies biological elements in the
formation of cognitive capacities, and provides an account of how cultural
and biological are intertwined within each individual's development.
Prompt: under the assumption that the mechanisms of sociocultural
ontogenesis have been well considered by most people on this list (and may
be one of the shared themes drawing us to this list), I would like to open
up the more novel issue of modularity--which is very big in psychology and
evolutionary psychology these days. So
1) In what contexts have you in your work and reading run into
modularity arguments, how have you reacted to them, and what implications
did you see in them?
2) How do you respond to Mike's account of the way a soft version
of modularity can be integrated with socio-cultural accounts?
Chuck