Continuation to: on "ob-" and "subjective"
Now, as to the concept of "reflection" it is entered into the scene
in order to bridge between subject and object, and this in the
direction from object to subject.
In philosophy the term "reflection" covers an absolute and increasing
mess ever since its reintroduction by Locke on the basis of
Descartes' distinction between extended and cognizing matter. Whether
it has avoided to improve on this with its introduction into
psychology remains to be shown. In the German translation of
Leontiev, Rubinstein and others "reflection" is usually rendered by
"Wiederspiegelung", literally "re-mirroring". Now this is
tautological which may have been invented in the intent to cover,
i.e. hide the mess. It is obvious that Lenin's theory of perception
as reflection in the sense of sensory imaging is sheer nonsense. The
senses by their proper construction add a lot of their own -- color
is not in the world, nor is sound or glare or bitterness etc.; all
qualities etc. are relational rather than factual attributes of
either the things / events or the mind. The sensory systems are
transactional rather than reduplicating. In fact, I would even say,
they are as much symbolic as their are iconic, in Peircean terms. But
that's another story.
It is clear from Leontiev's use of the word that "Wiederspiegelung",
translation notwithstanding, is exactly not the meaning he is giving
the term. This is a bit strange and may perhaps express some
hesitation on part of the translator to bring Leontiev too close the
Hegel since the latter in German used the term "Reflexion". I also
think L. is not using the term in the sense of "reflection". i.e. as
a sort of meta-cognition of conscious pondering again and inquiring
this and that facet or relationship of what one is already aware of.
In this sense of metaphor, the inner mirror, so to say, the term has
originally been introduced into philosophy by Platon and Aristoteles.
But in Leontiev's thought reflection in his sense should be a
precondition to the possibility of this awareness-psychological sense.
So the question is how and where Leontiev settles his notion between
mirroring and pondering reflection, quantitatively or qualitatively.
I must confess that I have great troubles understanding what Leontiev
really has in mind. He touches many facets of the the field but does
not state what he means. Similar troubles as I have had reading the
German translation although I have a much better understanding of
Vygotsky and the philosophical background back into the 18th century
now than then. Sure, what happens in the brain-mind is to some extent
dependent on that system of internal conditions, which is probably
what L. calls "subjective" (p.33 et passim). But the same is true for
the other part in the process, namely that part of the world actually
having influence on the senses and merging with and distinguishing
from memory; so the result is neither "subjective" nor "objective"
but both or none. L. in this text has a lot of pertinent criticism
towards the common conception of perception as passive, isolated,
stimulus-bound etc. But his own picture remains dark. E.g. when he
speaks of "the language of sensory modalities (in a sensory "code")"
(p. 34), and then implies something akin to the Brunswikian lens
model, i.e. impoverishment on the sense level and re-enrichment on
the "psychic reflection" level, we do not learn how he thinks this is
possible.
Indeed, perception, or to be more general "reception", is a
relational process and so are the structures spanning parts of an
individual and parts of her environment the sensory system and what
can influence them, excitatory and stabilizing (adaptive, constancy,
idealizing, valuation, etc.) factors or tendencies. L. knows and says
some of that, but he stops much too short for he does not seem to
acknowledge the enormous part of the sensory systems' proprieties
constituting the majority, in some way all of the qualities in which
the process results (for the nervous process has non of the qualities
the phenomena have nor of the potentials the things may have. Neither
does he acknowledge the part played by the ground without which and
without sufficient contrast to which no stimulus can bring forth a
reasonable perception. And it is a process in time where what's
coming in and what's already there, from processes on a time scale
reaching both back to early until recent ontogenesis and to older and
more recent phylogenesis. The notion of a sensory image has simply
misleading. And there is mutual influence of these two components
from outside and from inside, if you want, on each other; and that
process takes time and can go in quite different directions depending
often on very subtle components or events of itself. John Dewey has
wonderfully described this in 1896 in his critique on the reflex arc
concept in psychology and said almost everything essential on the
relational nature of the process. But a century and more of modern
psychology did not listen. Has Leontiev known that article? He hints
at the basic idea with the example of the activity of the touching
hand (p. 36) but does not elaborate.
Leontiev, in particular does not explicitly acknowledge what you
might expect first from somebody propagating the crucial role of
activity in understanding psychological functioning. For who says
perception or psychic reflection must result in some representation
of the world as it is or looks to some subject etc.? Could not much
of what is happening in the mind-brain, elicited by the sensory
systems attending to some particular part of the environment, be
heavily tinged, and in the wool, so to say, by what it is gathered
for, namely guiding activity or action? Who has proven or can prove
that perception must have taken place before action can start? On the
contrary, there is some evidence (little effort has been spent to
research the question) that situation sensitive action can start long
before the respective decision has become conscious. This possibility
could go much beyond the regulation of sense organ behavior by the
sensory input itself, which is mentioned by L. on p. 36 and 39.
Altogether, here is another analytical distinction taken for
something real and put at the base of researching and theorizing
which might be quite unrealistic and indeed misleading. It is true
that you can make anatomical distinctions between afferent and
efferent nerves. But, of course, there is no clearcut distinctability
of a center being so to say between the two or mediating. Large parts
of the brain-mind are always active and involved when an individual
is non-sleeping in the world, and to some extent even or more so in
sleep when the afferent and the efferent periphery is somehow
reduced. An instinct is obviously only analytically separable into
elicitory and elicited parts. How come this should or could be
different when a few end-brain structures are added and/or enlarged.
Again, he hints at this perspective by giving a role to efferences in
the perceptive process (p. 35); but he does not propose concepts
covering the kind of role or of connection, too.
Why does L. see primarily the barrier between the individual and its
environment rather than the bridges that the specialized organs of
receiving and of execution patterns of behavior constitute and that
change not only the relation between the two but in addition induce
change in each of the two themselves (one of the latter being his
principal theme of the book!). He is so clever and keen in disclosing
that psychology developed upon silly abstractions such as the one
from the social and the one of the object (p. 41); why does he stick
to and elaborate another one, that of reflection of something out
there into in here? And in a way that at least this reader cannot
differentiate between the extreme possibilities of re-mirroring and
of free-wheeling imagination and symbolization?
A nice special detail to end, if you want: I applaud the English (and
the German) translators of speaking of "psychic reflection" rather
than "psychological r.". Could somebody knowledgeable tell me whether
the distinction between psychical and psychological is as easy and
un-ambivalent in Russian as it is in German psychisch and
psychologisch, the former referring to the phenomena, the latter to
scientific concepts based more or less upon the former (however
problematic that distinction lastly may be)? But I can barely
suppress my impression that L.'s concept of "psychic reflection" is
heavily psychological (or perhaps philosophical, as are his notions
of objective and subjective) in a very particular sense and sort of
misses enough phenomenology and careful observation both of inner and
of outer kinds of being-aware of. I say this well aware of and
acknowledging the fact that Leontiev has heavily contributed to
directing attention of the scientists in the right direction: more of
activity, more of culture, more of change in time.
Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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