There's a real fundamental problem here: the status of mythological
worldviews v. scientific worldviews. Your example rings of a level of
cultural relativism that I believe to be at odds with the underlying CHAT
tenet that we can have objective knowledge; that, as Ilyenkov proposes, we
scientific concepts take us closer to an understanding of the thing as it is
in itself.
Paul H. Dillon
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Serpell <serpell who-is-at umbc.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, October 29, 1999 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: A question of selves
>Arguably, the body is just one possible delimiting frame of reference.
>
>In a social ontogeny of selfhood such as that proposed by Nsamenang (1992)
>as representative of a West African worldview, the self begins with a
>spiritual selfhood in the prenatal phase and culminates after the death
>of the body in an ancestral selfhood.
>
>
>Robert
>
>On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Paul Dillon
>wrote:
>
>> Vera,
>>
>> That was beautifully expressed and provides an answer to my question
insofar
>> as it reduces the status of the selves that Judy named to facets of a
>> system. I suppose that any facet itself, etc. would be capable of
becoming
>> a system of similar facets, holographic or fractal reproduction, etc.
But .
>> . . is the body that is born, lives and dies an encompassing system that
we
>> inevitably presuppose and whose trajectory demarcates the domain of all
that
>> can occur as experience of self? Higher mental functions still
embodied
>> mental functions?
>>
>> Paul H. Dillon
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Vera P. John-Steiner <vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu>
>> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>; Vera P. John-Steiner
>> <vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu>
>> Date: Thursday, October 28, 1999 2:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: A question of selves
>>
>>
>> >It seems to me that the selves of which Judy writes are different facets
>> >of the functional system of self. When focusing on a coherent account
>> >of one's life, one aspect of remembered experiences is mobilized. In
>> >conversational contexts an other facet emerges, that of a very immediate
>> >awareness of the otherwith whom one co-constructs utterances, thoughts,
>> >and opinions. These govern the practice of voicing. Audience,
>> >artifacts, purpose all contribute to mobilizing the subset of
>> >possibilities that are part of the dynamics of the "self,
>> >or what Wenger refers to as "identity as a focus of social selfhood."
>> >In my class on collaboration, students speak of the simultaneously
>> >experiencing mutuality and autonomy; they embrace Penuel and Wertsch's
>> >statement about the irreducible tension of the individual and the
>> >social.
>> >Vera
>> >---------------------------------
>> >Vera P. John-Steiner
>> >Department of Linguistics
>> >Humanities Bldg. 526
>> >University of New Mexico
>> >Albuquerque, NM 87131
>> >(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
>> >Internet: vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu
>> >---------------------------------
>> >
>>
>
>Robert Serpell tel: ( 410 ) 455 2417
>Psychology Department 455 2567
>University of Maryland Baltimore County
>1000 Hilltop Circle
>Baltimore MD 21250 fax: ( 410 ) 455 1055
>
>