Re: [xmca] a few small housekeeping issues

Mike,
to me it makes a difference if you do philosophy, psychology, or
sociology by REIFYING common sense, or if you take the cultural-
historical route and use concepts and categories that make sense on
cultural-historical grounds. It's part of an agenda that in
psychology, Klaus Holzkamp was attempting to realize---as a good
student of Leont'ev's---and that you also find in Bourdieu, who, in
his Chicago workshop, teaches us to enact critical doubt with respect
to received concepts, which by and large are common sense, ideology,
etc. Dorothy Smith (feminist sociologist, Marxist), too, asks us to
radically interrogate concepts because of the ruling relations that
are embodied in them and the ruling relations that brought them forth.

It matters to me whether philosophy, psychology, or sociology I do
are critical, and possible. I cannot begin a philosophy with "I",
"Self," or "Being" if on the other hand I also state that these are
CONSTRUCTED and that there is a subject constructing them... Those
concerned with first philosophy think about how we (humanity) have
begun to theorize and philosophize, and how we have to think, for
example, the relation between individual and collective.

Thus I see in Jean-Luc Nancy's work a much better solution for the
relation between the individual and collective than what I see
coming from much of the literature in our field. His notion of being
s Being singular plural makes the individual and collective co-
constitutive, there is no possibility therefore for either
reduction----to the individual or the collective. Sometimes we see
people interpret Vygotsky as saying that there is something
constructed interindividually and which then is transferred to be
constructed intraindividually. Just think for a second, a child
participating in some practice is ENACTING this practice, thus it is
already WITHIN the child----if you want to maintain the inside/
outside distinction. (BTW, recent neuroscientific work on mirror
neurons, their genesis and role in recognition of actions of others
seem to support precisely this point, and I think the work McClelland
and his team did concerning the relation between recognition and
production of /l/ and /r/ on the part of Asian speakers further
underscores this.)

It makes no sense to me to cite Alexander Meshcheryakov and not talk
about the first human beings, who didn't have someone like him and
his team around to become human, without having a framework that
allows for anthropogenesis. The trouble with Heidegger, as with much
of Husserl, is their interiority, reproduced in constructivism, which
does not take into account the Other as condition for the self.
Conversely, those who cite Meshcheryakov or Vygotsky on the role of
the other do not take into account the constitutive role of the
individual when it comes to the other.

Anyway, so it does matter if education, philosophy, psychology, or
sociology want to be truly self-critical sciences rather than just
institutions that reify common sense and ideology.

Cheers,

Michael

On 30-Jun-07, at 8:16 AM, Mike Cole wrote:

The flurry of discussion this past week has coincided with a couple
of local
institutional obligations I cannot
duck, so I have not properly responded to some interesting posts.
Just a few
sort of housekeeping notes.

David K-- I found your level of description of Bereiter and
Scardamalia just
right and relevant. The issue of
tooting horns, I think, is that the resulting sound needs to be
coordinated
with others in such a way that the
resulting collective product is growth enhancing. I guess we could
look at
what we are doing as a complex
form of written improvisation, which, at later times, various of us
appropriate and re-use in the service of
other tunes. I think you are referring to David Shaffer's work when you
refer to expert journalism practice
games, not Bogost.

The next issue of MCA to be discussed should be the issue with lots of
papers on work, including Michael R's.
Right now there is yet ANOTHER issue on the web page, but monday we will
take it down because it is out of line. What has
happened in the shift from Erlbaum to Taylor and Francis is a rapid
increase
in getting back issues out and
getting us up to date. Michael has been expediting the editorial
process at
the same time, which we hope
will get the journal onto an even and successful schedule. Michael
has also
negotiated an expansion in pages
per year which will make possible/easier special thematic issues
which were
in competition with scarce space
as the journal stood. But for the moment this means several issues
coming
out in quick succession.

I really recommend Martin's web page entry on Heidegger. I am
wondering what
he and Michael Roth disagree
about in their interpretation of Heidegger and what difference the
difference makes.

Now off to slay my local institutional dragons.
mike
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Received on Sat Jun 30 12:09 PDT 2007