Andy,
Mediation is omnipresent, but the question is, is it relevant? Is it something we should focus on? I'm not sure mediation has much impact on the issue of dualism, at least I never really thought of it that way. Lately I have been thinking about mediation in terms of instrumentation. Would you say mediating variables transform the relationship between different entities - perhaps it is possible they grease the skids of our relationship with Nature? But it we focus on mediation, if we give it a high priority, don't we run the risk of objectifying it, of turning the instrument in to a thing that exists, rather than an instrument that is used, in context, to achieve some purpose? And if we objectify this mediating variable don't we run the risk of, as you say, a certain amount of hegemony over this variable, so those who conducted that last experiment control the next experiment? And don't we run the risk of changing from experimenting to find solutions to experimenting to reinforce the objective nature of these mediating variables? All questions that I am struggling with.
I suppose living in the United States in 2006 makes you think about this. There is this big thing going on right now about whether to call what is happening in Iraq a Civil War - with the underlying assumption I suppose that the Semiotic mediator Civil War will somehow change our perceptions of what is going on. We play the game that if the administration can keep people from calling it a Civil War that we will have one relationship with the activity in Iraq, and if they can't we will have another relationship with Iraq. It is idiotic - but at the same time the administration has been controlling symbols very tightly and they have been controlling perceptions through them because we put such a high value on the semiotic mediator of Civil War. The control of the mediating variables is inherently undemocratic, control of our perceptions by an elite. What Dewey says that mediation is irrelevant, I think he is saying it is irrelevant unless people make it otherwise. The purpose of Civil War as an instrument, as a mediating variable, changes with context. It is a stupid fight for us to have and if we are going to make any progress we need to get away from it, from experts who bestow meanings as oracles because they know what these mediators mean, because of the claim that they have been reified.
I think that Vygotsky at least a little bit was going the same direction. Wasn't that the point he was trying to make in the short passage about the drunk person cursing and the different meanings it has, the different uses as semiotic mediators. He was arguing against reification.
Anyway, this is the reason I suggested that a focus on mediation - not understanding the fact the mediators are omnipresent - might be considered a conservative position.
Michael
________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
Sent: Thu 11/30/2006 5:17 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD
Michael, mediation means using trichotomies. CS Peirce was an even more
fervent advocate of trichotomy than Hegel (who unbelievably denied his
obsession with triads). Peirce had a couple of arguments about why using
mediation is a much more powerful way of thinking than dichotomy.
(1) Dichotomies, such as in Derrida's Deconstruction or Saussure's
Semiology, splits the world into two. The move has different motivations of
course with both these writers. But without mediation, there is no
possibility of overcoming the resultant dualism. One is left with two
distinct worlds, either separate and different, or one as the mirror image
of the other, or a declaration that the dichotomy and the resulting dualism
is false and illegitimate, negating the original move.
(2) Mediation is what you look for when you see a dichotomy, and you ask
yourself "what mediates this relation?" Consequently, using trichotomies
means *unending enquiry*, every new discovery generates a new question
about how the new concept is mediated with every other concept. Whereas
dichotomy can yield only dualism, trichotomy does not actually divide the
world in three (despite the etymology), but rather stitches together the
wounds of dichotomy. "subject-object" is nonsense if understood as a
dichotomy. Obviously *something* mediates this relation, or life is
impossible.
So, far from being conservative, I think that using mediation as a central
concept in our investigation forces us to unceasing enquiry. It's true in a
way, I think, Michael, that there is a kind of "extremism" in dualism -
"class against class", "them versus us", "you're with us or against us",
"revolution now", "no compromise", etc. - and there is some truth in your
suggestion that holding power in society means having control over the
means of mediation. It's called "hegemony". But we have been talking about
subject-object relations. If oppression is mediated, then the subject must
comprehend mediation, or it can never get to be a real subject at all.
does that help?
Andy
At 10:40 AM 30/11/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>Andy,
>
>I'm sure Sasha will have his own explanations, but I'm wondering if we
>might be able to view freedom a different way from some of the things that
>he has been writing (which in many ways are reflective in Instrumental
>Pragmatism) - as freedom in ongoing activity - and by this I mean the
>freedom to change course to (from another one of Sasha's messages) mold to
>the needs of the current object (here I would disagree, and suggest that
>freedom is to mold activity to our ongoing relationship with nature, so
>that a subject and object are not posited in the first place.)
>
>This morning I was thinking, based on some of the stuff that has been
>written, is a mediation based perspective inherently conservative. That
>is, if we see development based on mediational variables, especially
>semiotic mediation, aren't we leaving ourselves open to the possibility
>that those who control these symbols and discourse are then able to
>control meaning and activity. I think George Lakoff speaks to this,
>although his suggestion is that we figure out ways for the good guys to
>control these mediators. So in the distinction that Sasha makes between a
>more Activity based LSV and a more semiotic mediation based LSV, is there
>a distinguishing between a Vygotsky that offers less freedom in
>development and a Vygotsky that offers more freedom through activity
>(based on the definition above).
>
>Michael
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
>Behalf Of Andy Blunden
>Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 2:57 AM
>To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>Subject: RE: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD
>
>Firstly, Sasha I recommended Lektorsky's book purely and simply because it
>is a book-length treatment of this very complex subject from within our
>shared tradition. I recognise the kinship of my ideas with both Lektorsky
>and AN Leontyev but nothing in what I have said was intended as a
>representation of the ideas of these two writers. It is all my own view. I
>have no bone to pick with Lektorsky, Leontyev or anyone else in this broad
>tradition of enquiry.
>
>Secondly, we are surely talking at cross purposes. Yes, a "subject" is *by
>definition* self-conscious and yes I do exclude plant life from
>participation in the subject-object relation in the role of subject. I am
>aware of the relation between any organism and "its" object and how this
>state of being can be seen as part of the biological evolution towards
>human life. But I am not giving lessons in Darwinism. I will leave
>speculations about the dialectics of nature for the biologists. (BTW, I
>have no time for the application of the notion of "emergence" outside of
>the narrow domain for which it is applicable. I don't know why you mention
>this.)
>
>Thirdly, not even a human individual is a subject actually, let alone a sea
>cucumber. It is also wrong to describe the working class as a subject,
>though for different reasons. If you want to label every form of life as a
>subject because it is active, then that's fine. The word 'active', in
>English at least, can be used that way, and may be useful for the study of
>biology. But such a notion contributes absolutely nothing to resolving the
>problem of the place of the individual in modern capitalist society, the
>design of experiments into learning, understanding the persuasiveness of
>neo-conservative scaremongering, the reasons for low levels of literacy
>among immigrant populations, etc., etc., etc..
>
>My interest in a notion of subjectivity is for the purpose and only for the
>purpose of resolving these kinds of questions.
>
>The problem of freedom is in fact posed at two distinct levels: (1) at the
>level of free-will vs Laplacian determinism. This was the problem which
>bothered Spinoza and still bothers people like John R Searle, for example,
>who are interested in finding the key to consciousness in neurons and
>electrons; and (2) the problem of humanism vs structuralism, or culturalism
>vs constructivism, liberalism vs communitarianism, etc., the problems
>raised by Anna Stetsenko and Stephen Billett about agency and
>individuality, all those questions about whether human beings really can
>determine their own lives, or on the contrary they are prisoners (not of
>biological or molecular forces, but) of social structures and historical
>forces.
>
>Andy
>
>
>At 03:30 AM 30/11/2006 +0300, you wrote:
> >Hi, Andy
> >
> >
> >
> >I'm afraid but I think that just in this issue we have better to base our
> >analysis on Marx and Il'enkov themselves than on Lektorsky. If you are
> >retelling him correctly he doesn't gives us an insight into the problem of
> >Subject and Object (Predmet) relation but simply shares the old mistake with
> >A.N.Leont'ev.
> >
> >If subject is "some self-conscious system of activity" it means that both
> >animals and plants can't be estimated as subjects, surely, if we don't
> >ascribe them some form of self-consciousness :-). So it means that all
> >living creatures (except the self-conscious humans) are mere objects (here
> >it doesn't mean "predmet" but something passive). This is nothing but
> >ancient Cartesian formula.
> >
> >Let's go ahead. You write: "subject arises out of some definite, objective
> >system of activity when it becomes self-conscious". I will agree with this
> >statement if you (or Lektorsky) will explain us what makes your "definite,
> >objective system of activity" turn into self-conscious being? The
> >possibility of such a magical transmutation of something mechanical, passive
> >("objective") into self-conscious is looking like the popular among some
> >psychologists idea of emerging. According to this point of view we explain
> >something if we say that it suddenly emerges, or in old Soviet ideological
> >style if something appears as a result of transition of quantity into
> >quality. You probably know that Vygotsky scoffed at the very idea of
> >emergentism in his "Emotions teaching".
> >
> >The main (Cartesian) mistake of CHAT classics was in their theoretically
> >fruitful attempts to jump from mechanic S==>R level to the level of
> >consciousness leaving out three necessary stages. It is clear that such
> >transition is possible only in fair tales where the fairy godmother gives a
> >soul to the ugly nutcracker.
> >
> >In reality to pass from mechanical to the consciousness level we have to
> >ascend to the levels of chemism and organism and only here on the stage of
> >organic life we will meet the real subject-object (predmetnoe) relation. The
> >birth of subjectness takes place here on the level of abstract life. But on
> >the first stage (including unicellulars and plants) we have only
> >subjectness, not subjectivness. We have no reasons to search here
> >self-consciousness because on this level we haven't even psyche.
> >
> >Only on the next level when a living subject starts to relate to itself or
> >the predmet activity of living subject is realizing by means of self
> >directed, reflecsive activity we are coming to the level of psyche (zoo
> >psyche) or self-sensation (still now not self-consciousness).
> >
> >Thus we can go to the next level the level of consciousness and self
> >consciousness only standing on the level of zoo psyche.
> >
> >Only basing on such intermediate evolutionary levels separating the
> >mechanical (Cartesian) S==>R robot and still Cartesian bodiless soul with
> >free will we can acquire the rational, not magical understanding of free
> >bodily human being. On the contrary, if we will insist on our Cartesian
> >attempts we will at best have a chance to repeat after LSV the questionable
> >metaphor of triangle and sign mediation or after ANL the idea of activity
> >mediating the relation of stimulus and reaction.
> >
> >We entirely agree with Vygotsky's declaration that "the problem of freedom
> >is a central problem of psychology" (it was recently published in Russian
> >among other materials for Vygotsky's archive). We insist that both Vygotsky
> >and Leont'ev belonged to one and the same theoretic school (you know some of
> >our colleges are denying this fact) because both they were trying to solve
> >the one and the same problem the problem of freedom. How a human can be
> >free from the mechanical S==>R causation of its body?
> >
> >So if we want not only repeat both true and erroneous words of Vygotsky and
> >Leont'ev being said long ago, but to do our part for development of CHAT we
> >have to go further than they in solving the same problem which was in the
> >focus of their theoretic interest, the problem of freedom. And we can do it
> >only abandoning the false Cartesian position identifying animals with
> >mechanical (exclusive of subjectness) S==>R causality, doesn't understanding
> >them as a subjects, (not to say about subjectivness) but as a soulless
> >mechanical toys. We are stressing that transition from Cartesian tubes,
> >threads and valves to the modern conception of living body as a
> >biomechanical S==>R robot left us entirely inside Cartesian mechanism as a
> >specific logic.
> >
> >I realize that all this is hardly acceptable for those investigators who are
> >trying to develop the semiotic approach appreciating LSV's idea of sign
> >mediation as his central and the most fruitful idea. It can't be helped.
> >
> >We have to choose the way: are we going to share Vygotsky's way based on
> >ideas of sign mediation, or we are going to share Vygotsky's way based on
> >ideas of Spinoza. Vygotsky had too little time to realize that two these
> >ways led him to the opposite sides, split the very logic of his
> >investigation. I am sure, and I share this position with Il'enkov who
> >fundamentally argued the absolute incompatibility, of semiotic and activity
> >approaches, that the semiotic way leads us to the dead end, while activity
> >approach gives us a chance to build a new dialectical psychology.
> >
> >And we have to realize finally that Vygotsky was not a God, so if we are
> >investigators, not believers we have to cease the protracted interpretation
> >of his "sacred" texts and start, or better to say continue after him
> >investigation of problems he formulated for himself and for all of us.
> >
> >
> >
> >Sasha
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> >Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> >Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:22 AM
> >To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >Subject: RE: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD
> >
> >
> >
> >Big question Michael.
> >
> >See http://www.marxists.org/archive/lektorsky/subject-object/index.htm for
> >
> >a book-length answer from Lektorsky.
> >
> >
> >
> >Subject and object are always two distinct entities, but the subject (some
> >
> >self-conscious system of activity) arises out of some definite, objective
> >
> >system of activity when it becomes self-conscious, and the activity then
> >
> >constitutes (in AN Leontyev's words) the "intertraffic" between subject and
> >
> >object. The activity of the subject then is to objectify itself in the
> >
> >object, giving its activities material forms deposited in the objective
> >
> >world around it, vested with meanings by which the subject
> >
> >"institutionalises" itself.
> >
> >
> >
> >So in the beginning there is no distinction, because the relevant system of
> >
> >activity has not yet become self-conscious, and in the end there is no
> >
> >distinction because the subject has "naturalised" its activity and become
> >
> >indistinguishable from the object. These are of course both tendencies, and
> >
> >not absolute truths, and the whole life of a subject exists between these
> >
> >two poles.
> >
> >
> >
> >Andy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >At 02:03 PM 28/11/2006 -0500, you wrote:
> >
> > >Andy and Paul,
> >
> > >
> >
> > >What is the argument that a dialectical approach, even dialectical
> >
> > >materialism, dissolves the difference between subject and object? I guess
> >
> > >we are all influenced by what we have been reading lately, but it seems
> >
> > >that it is difficult for a dialectic based perspective to escape the
> >
> > >idealism trap.
> >
> > >
> >
> > >Thanks,
> >
> > >
> >
> > >Michael
> >
> > >
> >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> >
> > >From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> >
> > >Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> >
> > >Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 5:09 AM
> >
> > >To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >
> > >Subject: Re: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD (was= Does VygotskyAccept
> >
> > >the "Assistance Assumption"?)
> >
> > >
> >
> > >Paul, surely you overstate the matter.
> >
> > >
> >
> > >ZPD is, like all scientific concepts, a theory-laden object. To say
> that it
> >
> > >exists says that certain more or less well-defined procedures understood
> >
> > >within the Vygotskyan theory, will produce this or that verifiable result.
> >
> > >Otherwise what is the useof the concept and the theory of which it is a
> >
> > >part? While there are lots of concepts within the Vygotskyan theory which
> >
> > >are new and unique, or have a Marxist genealogy, there are also plenty
> >
> > >which are shared with all pedagogical theories and common sense. In fact,
> >
> > >all scientific theories must incorporate "common sense" concepts into
> their
> >
> > >framework in order to be truly scientific. "Empiricism" denies that
> >
> > >scientific objects are "theory laden" and that there is anything
> >
> > >problematic in the idea of a purely factual test for the existence of some
> >
> > >object. But to deny Empiricism is not to deny the validity and
> necessity of
> >
> > >empirical evidence.
> >
> > >
> >
> > >And surely it is wrong to say that in Marxism or Vygotsky "the subject
> >
> > >object distinction is dissolved". The absolute independence and
> >
> > >separateness of subject and object is certainly denied by Marx and
> >
> > >Vygotsky, but neither claim that "subject" and "object" are invalid
> >
> > >concepts, or concepts between which no distinction can be made. For
> >
> > >example, Marx does not claim that an object (e.g. ZPD) exists insofar as a
> >
> > >subject (Vygotskyan psychology) incorporates the concept in its activity,
> >
> > >so that empirical refutation of the concept is ruled out in principle. No
> >
> > >subject exists in absolute separateness from every other subject, all
> >
> > >subjects exist in a material and therefore infinitely interconnected,
> >
> > >world. So the identity of subject and object can only be relative, not
> >
> > >absolute.
> >
> > >
> >
> > >Andy
> >
> > >
> >
> > >At 12:26 AM 28/11/2006 -0800, you wrote:
> >
> > > > Isnī't the idea of "empirical" evidence for the ZPD something of an
> >
> > > > oxymoron in itself? Didn{t Vygotsky develop his thinking within the
> >
> > > > framework of dialetical materialism, something that many north
> americans
> >
> > > > and others seem all too ready to forget? Isn't the concept of a ZPD a
> >
> > > > dialectical model in itself, which is to say, a model in which the
> >
> > > > subject object distinction is dissolved, a dissolution which defies the
> >
> > > > concept of empirical?
> >
> > > > Paul Dillon
> >
> > >
> >
> > > Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, AIM
> >
> > >identity: AndyMarxists mobile 0409 358 651
> >
> > >
> >
> > >_______________________________________________
> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
> > Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, AIM
> >
> >identity: AndyMarxists mobile 0409 358 651
> >
> >
> >
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> Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, AIM
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